“Having money isn't everything not having it is”
– Kanye West
Journalists go into journalism knowing they probably won’t be able to buy that dream house, take that exotic cruise or pay off those student loans with their day jobs alone.
In order to enjoy the finer things in life like a full tank of gas and not carrying the shame of sneaking in a day-old Starbucks coffee cup to sneak a refill, another thing journalists like is moonlighting.
After seven hours covering city hall for the people, toomany journalists hang up their reporter’s notebooks, and put on an apron, nametag and hairnet and serve the public in another capacity.
Because of conflicts of interests, most journalists are ethically barred from taking other writing gigs in their home market, so they are forced to find other sources of income.
Popular moonlighting jobs for journalists include baristas, pizza delivery drivers, Barnes & Noble employees, servers and personal proofreaders of friends and family. And it’s not unheard of journalists returning to the newspaper after hours, not to write the news, but to deliver it.
Some journalists are fortunate enough to score jobs as company mascots, where they get to wear a giant mask, saving them the humiliation of being identified.
And working another job is great for journalists to get the opportunity to have not-at-all-awkward run-ins with sources, co-workers and bosses. They get to see what journalists are like outside of work and journalists get to come up with reasons why they need a little “extra” cash and overly point out that they are just working at the mall for the holidays (for the fifth year in a row). These tend not to be the greatest jobs but if journalists were good at finding jobs they wouldn’t be journalists.
Not only do these jobs provide journalists with a little extra coin to put cheese on their Whoppers, but they allow journalists to take the people skills they use in reporting to their second third jobs. Interview skills translate into customer relations. Copyediting means the journalist is detail oriented. Note taking is great for taking orders.Those drive-thru headsets should feel familiar to the headsets used in the office. And journalists have perfected the art of being nice to mean people, be it a source or a guy yelling to supersize his fries.
Writing the first draft of history is rewarding but the pay isn’t.
