Journalism, like so many other industries, is built on contacts. Frequently, those contacts are Mom and Dad. Wealthy parents often parachute their kids into comfy internships, while talented graduates with no connections are left out in the cold.
Yet even if these unlucky saps manage to land a placement, they may not be able to get anywhere. An internship takes so much unpaid, full-time work that only the most privileged can afford to keep it up for more than a month or two.
The result is an increasing number of journalists who all come from the same backgrounds, creating an echo chamber where you’ll never hear an alternative voice.
In the UK, things have gotten so bad that a government study concluded that journalism was the third-most socially exclusive profession, with only 10 percent of all reporters coming from a working-class background.
