Would you recommend Journalism as a career?

DREAM JOBS? WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A CAREER IN JOURNALISM TO BRIGHT, AMBITIOUS YOUNG HISPANICS TODAY WITH THE SAME CONVICTION AS YOU MIGHT HAVE 10 OR 20 YEARS AGO?

That was my question to some of the most successful,respected Latinos and Latinas in the business. With such expert, powerful and clashing responses to Sin Pelos’ question about Hispanics choosing journalism as a viable and challenging career, I ran out of space in Hispanic Link’s Weekly Report.

So here, unabridged, are what the experts, with more than a century of experience among them, told me following the abrupt, voluntary departures of two of our still-young stars, Rick Rodríguez as executive editor of The Sacramento Bee, and Gilbert Bailón, from his stratospheric positions with the Belo chain — executive editor of The Dallas Morning News and editor/publisher of its bold, Spanish-language daily offspring, Al Día.

Both served as presidents of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Bailón is still completing his term. They were the first Hispanics in history to be elected as leaders of ASNE, with its 527 member-publications.

Bailón left Belo to assume duties as editorial page editor of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a lesser title at a smaller — but more prestigious — paper. Rodríguez has yet to state his future plans.

Our loss of these two strategically placed visionaries, and the fact that large corporations are grabbing greater control over what we read and watch prompted our question. To increase profit margins and meet the bottom-line demands of Wall Street, corporate media owners have lessened their commitment to informing the communities they are supposed to serve.

This appeared to be at issue in Rodríguez’s departure.

So, my question?

Is journalism still a smart career choice for bright Hispanic college graduates who want to make a difference? We sought out answers from some of the most respected veterans in the once-proud profession. Over the years, all five have contributed fine commentaries to Hispanic Link.

Ricardo Chavira’s career reads like a young journalist’s dream: from early beats along the Mexican border to a decade covering the State Department in Washington, D.C., for Time Magazine, key editorial management responsibilities for the Dallas Morning News, foreign correspondent in Latin America, lots of exclusives out of Castro’s Cuba.

Like Bailón, he bailed from Belo. Now he’s a professor and soon-to-be author.Here’s his succinct reply:

“Not at all. The business has turned hostile toward us. I suggest to Latino students that they will need to think long and hard about dealing with this changed atmosphere.”

Next, the counsel of Tim Chávez, who realized another young writer’s dream. He became a regular columnist with his newspaper, The Nashville Tennessean.

The unfortunate postscript to his success story is that he was felled by leukemia a couple years ago and recently, when he felt ready to return to his job, he was informed that it didn’t exist anymore.

Tim replied to our inquiry, “In good conscience, I could not make that recommendation. The profits-over-people mania gripping and ripping apart my profession will only get worse.

And the diversity and value Hispanics bring to my profession is considered readily sacrificeable by the black-white power structure that directs most of newspapering and this nation, particularly in the South.

“Despite our mushrooming numbers and enormous economic contributions, the power structure refuses to recognize and provide a meaningful place for Hispanics. Instead, we are most readily recognized and represented from immigration raid to immigration raid by most newspapers. That fight against this wrong is for the veterans of my profession. We must continue to wage and ultimately win this battle before exposing the best of our youth to journalism as a career.”

Next, Carolyn Curiel, the Hispanic influence on The New York Times editorial board, who grew up as a Midwesterner and whose journalistic past includes various editing posts at the Times and Washington Post, as Caribbean division chief with UPI, producer/writer for Ted Koppel’s Nightline, senior speechwriter in the Bill Clinton White House and, after all that, U.S. Ambassador to Belize.

“Is this a trick question?” was her first reaction. Then accepting its legitimacy, she moved forward: “OK, here's my answer, which will have to be quick as I have a meeting to go to. The whole debate over journalism now reminds me of the milkman.

You and I are old enough (I was, of course, but a baby in the crib but I have a fantastic memory) to remember when milk was not typically bought at the store but was delivered by a milkman.

“There was a lot of competition for my family's business, what with seven milk-chugging kids. Eventually, my mother found it more practical to get the milk from the store, usually whatever brand was on sale.

“The milk delivery business ended. The same could be said of the changing market for diaper services. But people still drink milk, maybe more than ever. And there are still diapers, but they are disposable (and it turns out, worse for the environment than the old way, which may see a revival).

“My point is, news — the people who cover it, edit it, present it, write it, manage it -- will all be needed. The basics, truth and integrity, have not changed, but the ways the product is delivered and its format will change.

The Internet has made change quicker and more volatile, but in most cases, web sites are just repackaging what The New York Times and other trusted news organizations produce every day. Kill that golden goose of respected, responsible journalism and everyone goes down.

“Ultimately people want news they can trust. That can only be done with staff that is trained and compensated. Yes, there's a future for journalism, and the people who get in now can help figure out what that is. “It could be a really exciting time.”

Adding to that comes Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte, University of Texas-Austin journalism professor now also teaching sociology and history. She spent some years writing for the Los Angeles Times editorial pages.

De Uriarte suggests to her students that they look at alternative careers, too: “I try to teach them ideal journalism as it is ethically defined and protected under the First Amendment. I also try to prepare them for recognizing the corporate product it has become. I concentrate on critical thinking skills because that is a survival skill wherever one is. And I always discuss the need to strategize for alternative career paths.

“It’s an uphill battle, because journalism education teaches to the prevailing needs of mainstream journalism, whatever its direction, because corporate communications industries are important paymasters to journalism education. And because there is a symbiotic relationship between the number of journalism professor jobs and the number of students wanting to enter the field.”

Finally, I asked Félix Gutiérrez, also an icon among the nation’s limited supply of Hispanic journalism professors. He is former senior vice president of the Freedom Forum, now a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication.

His assessment: “Two major trends make this the best time ever for young Latinas and Latinos to go into journalism and other media fields.

One is the tremendous current and future growth of our people in the U.S., which means there are more stories to tell and more people needed to tell them. The second is the expansion of more technologies providing more will to report and share stories through broadcast, print and digital media.

With the growth in both demography and technology, there will be more opportunities to get into media and then move up or move on to other media as careers evolve.

“The only cautionary word I have that it is probably not an era in which people will sign up with one company or technology and stay at the same place until they retire. The most successful journalists for today and tomorrow need to be both multimedia and multicultural.”

There you have it, sin pelos en la lengua, without hair on their tongues.

— Kay Bárbaro

For more, visit www.hispaniclink.org.