Many of you may be worried about job stability and what’s next for your career amid continued layoffs in the media industry and a series of executive orders from the new U.S. president, including efforts to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the federal government and transgender troops from the military.
I definitely feel that anxiety. So, I talked to some friends and colleagues in the journalism world about how they’re thinking of their work during this time, how they’re approaching the job search, and what advice they have for you.
“I think it is too soon to really tell what the actual impact will be” of these orders, said freelance journalist and independent storyteller Tre’vell Anderson. “I think they want everyone to get up in arms and be destabilized and be confused so that we begin to do their work for them. So that we begin to roll back various opportunities and possibilities ourselves in advance. And I think it’s important that we resist that urge.”
Tre’vell now asks potential employers how they will protect transgender employees and whether their health care plans offer gender-affirming care.
Whether or not Tre’vell plans to use that care, they said, is irrelevant — they want to know they’re walking into an institution that “has thought about the humanity of its workers and how they can support or amplify those particular aspects. I don’t think many entities have specifically thought about making their space safe for trans people, making their space safe for Black people, for brown people,” they said.
“I think we all should be asking ourselves … how is this institution, how is this newsroom, how is this place going to protect me? And if they don’t have a satisfactory answer to that, you do with that information what you want,” Tre’vell said. “Each of us is going to have to make those individual choices about how we survive. and there are no wrong answers. You make the choice that works for you.”
Many have asked Kae Petrin, interim executive director of the Trans Journalists Association, the question, “Should I put my pronouns on my resume?”
“My answer is: there is no one answer to this,” Kae said. “If you are in a hurry and you just need a job so you do not become homeless, do whatever you need to do to get in the door … as efficiently as possible. If that means leaving your pronoun off your resume, that is ok.”
But if a candidate has time to be selective, they said, observing potential coworkers’ reactions to your pronouns or your membership in an affiliate organization like TJA can provide important information about how you may be treated in the workplace.
“You’re interviewing them as much as they’re interviewing you,” Kae said.
Another top-of-mind concern is that while initiatives exist to pair early-career journalists with small, local newsrooms, many of those states have increasingly restricted trans people’s access to health care or other critical needs, Kae said.
“That’s a fairly severe employment issue,” Kae said. “It’s one thing if you’re from a state and you have a community there, and you know how to navigate things. But journalism requires you in many cases to move from state to state early in your career to get new opportunities.”
There are bright spots, though. TJA, for example, is currently hiring a co-director. Kae is also finding hope in the organizations that have popped up locally, such as small, worker-run co-ops and investigative outlets devoted to covering LGBTQ issues, with trans journalists deeply involved.
“A lot of us are getting pushed out of traditional media or are not able to get into it in the first place and the response to that has been ok, I’ll build my own publication,” they said. “For a lot of people that’s working and there are a lot of people doing really good work out of that model.”
Francisco Vara-Orta, DBEI director at Investigative Reporters and Editors, has been fielding questions from journalists about how much of their identities to bring into the job search. Journalists do seem to be leaning into their multiple skill sets in application processes — data analysis, interviewing, beat expertise — rather than on their personal identities as many employers encouraged after the 2020 racial reckoning, he said.
“I would say the vast majority of us don’t want to be defined by our identity solely. We are just as proud of all the expertise we have acquired through our work, through our life experience, through studying,” he said.
But the reality is that many of us can’t hide the identities that people in power seek to eradicate from the workplace, nor do we want to.
“From experience, ultimately you don’t want to work anywhere where they’re not going to value you holistically. You’re going to end up unhappy. The money, and the title and the prestige of the outlet is not worth it. It’s going to eat at you slowly. So be yourself,” Francisco said. “It’s hard, but it’s better in the long run. Go to where you feel valued because even then, there’s going to be other obstacles, so try to make it as easy on yourself as possible, especially in times of duress.”
What questions are you asking right now, and what is giving you hope? Email me to share.
