Journalism Is Losing Talented Graduates It Can’t Afford to Lose
Tickaroo survey reveals economic barriers are filtering out the talent newsrooms desperately need.
Eighty per cent of journalism students enter the profession to tell meaningful stories. Except 69% think they’re walking into a struggling industry that needs reinventing, and they’re not wrong.
Tickaroo’s Future of Journalism Survey—172 UK students and early-career journalists—lays bare what anyone who’s worked in newsrooms for the past decade already knows: the entry economics are brutal, the preparation is mismatched to reality, and the industry keeps talking about diversity whilst doing sod all about it.
Start with the money. 80% cite low wages and high living costs as barriers. 72% mention a lack of paid opportunities. When your entry route involves moving to London on minimum wage or worse, working for free, you’re selecting for people whose parents can subsidise them.
“Entry-level positions are competitive - fair enough. What isn’t fully appreciated is the financial cost of picking up your life and moving to London for a job that pays around minimum wage.”
This isn’t new. It’s been this way for years. What’s changed is that young journalists now see it clearly and call it what it is: a system that filters for privilege whilst preaching about public service.
The skills gap is worse. Universities teach writing and fact-checking; students rate themselves 4.1 and 3.9 out of 5, respectively. Meanwhile, AI and automation? 2.0 out of 5. Business skills? 2.1. Career sustainability? 2.4. The industry demands short-form video (63% predict it’ll dominate within a decade), AI-generated summaries (41%), and subscription models (43%). Students feel comprehensively unprepared for the actual future.
The AI training gap is even starker. 75% of respondents identify navigating AI-generated content and misinformation as journalism’s top ethical challenge, yet they’ve received almost no training in this area. It’s ranked fourth in their concerns after misinformation, financial instability, and declining trust. So they’re worried about it, they know it’s coming, and they’ve got no idea how to handle it professionally.
The diversity conversation is bleak. 89% say it’s essential. 74% want hiring improvements. Nearly three-quarters want better access for underrepresented voices and changes to editorial decision-making. Yet respondents describe current efforts as “surface-level,” the industry as “exclusionary of less privileged/underrepresented voices,” even “corrupt” and serving “the interests of a few rich owners.”
Naomi Owusu, whose live blogging platform Tickaroo works with over 350 newsrooms globally, commissioned the research precisely because these voices rarely get heard in industry discussions. She’s frank about what she’s seeing. “The industry isn’t aware of the value these people can bring,” she says. “On one hand, we have an industry not reaching certain audiences and lacking trust. On the other hand, we have highly motivated young journalists who want to get into the business. They could be the missing link.”
Tickaroo evolved from a 2010 sports app into infrastructure for real-time coverage, Ukraine war blogs that run for years, interactive formats with polls and Q&As, and TV shows integrated with live blogs. The company works with universities, including the University of Sheffield, the University of Salford, and the University of Lancashire, providing students with hands-on experience. But even Owusu acknowledges the contradiction at the heart of journalism education: “I don’t benefit when everyone tells me how great my software is. I need the critical voices, people telling me that’s too complex, we could never implement this because we don’t have time.”
That gap between what’s taught and what’s needed isn’t closing. If anything, it’s widening.
Some organisations are trying. JournoResources bans job postings without salary ranges, the only major jobs board doing so. Mill Media demonstrates subscription-based local journalism can work. We Are Black Journos, QueerAF, and similar initiatives create pathways for marginalised voices. The University of Lancashire’s leadership programme trains journalists to champion change within their organisations.
But let’s be honest about scale. These are small interventions in a systemic problem. 43% of survey respondents want greater institutional support. What they’re getting is grassroots efforts operating on goodwill, whilst legacy publishers continue hiring from the same narrow pools.
The profession still attracts idealists, 60% entered to uncover truth, 52% to hold power accountable. They still believe journalism matters for democracy (64%) and can drive social change (49%). That idealism crashes into reality fast. 48% describe the industry as facing financial problems, and 42% cite cultural challenges.
Some responses are harsher: “an industry in denial,“ “an engine for political campaigns,” and journalism that’s “stoking culture wars whilst ignoring vital topics.“ When your future workforce describes you as corrupt before they’ve even started properly, you have a trust problem that goes beyond declining reader numbers.
Publishers face a simple question: do you actually want these people, or are you content to select only those who can afford to work for nothing? Because that’s the current system. 81% report high competition for jobs, which sounds like healthy market dynamics until you realise the competition is partly artificial—created by unpaid internships and poverty wages that exclude talent.
The monetisation conversation has shifted entirely. When Tickaroo started, publishers wanted fresh formats and audience connection. Now every conversation leads to revenue, advertising, syndication, subscriptions, and sponsored content. There’s nothing wrong with that. Media is a business. But if your business model requires free labour from young journalists whilst executives discuss innovation strategies, don’t be surprised when they call you out for it.
Owusu is particularly clear on the diversity challenge. “How are you going to reach audiences if you don’t understand them? How are you going to write about people’s concerns, beliefs, issues if you can’t relate?” The answer, apparently, is you don’t. You keep hiring from the same demographics, publishing the same perspectives, and wondering why trust keeps declining.
The survey shows a generation that understands journalism’s purpose, sees its current failures clearly, and has little faith that its institutions will reform. That’s not youthful cynicism. That’s pattern recognition.
70% expecting to struggle isn’t a skills problem or an attitude problem. It’s a structural problem that the industry has failed to address for years. These are people who understand both digital formats and democratic accountability, precisely what struggling newsrooms need. They’re offering themselves up. The question is whether anyone’s actually interested in investing in them?
