Advertising v. Journalism

Over the summer I started an advertising job. The workload is light--a couple hours of emailing a week and a handful of phone calls every month.

And the pay is double what I make between two jobs in journalism. At each of these jobs separately I put in more time than I do into advertising.

I know this isn't always the case when comparing ad and journalism jobs in media. I have part time jobs at publications that don't publish on a weekly basis and I know there are many advertisers out there who work as hard as journalists, and journalists who don't work as hard as advertisers.

But I have been warned to stay out of journalism if I want to make a decent living while my consideration of majoring in advertising in school was never challenged.

With so much content being free, publications often must rely heavily, or solely, on advertisers dollars to make a profit. But it's important to remember that no one would even want to advertise in a publication that didn't have great content that made people want to pick it up and read it.

In my experience each side sees what they bring to the table, but forgets how much they rely on the other. Getting to work in advertising for a publication has helped me appreciate what they do so much more, and my experience as a journalist was useful in my role in the ad sales department. Maybe if everyone had to spend a little time in each role pay would be more equal and disputes about how many ads could go where in publications would no longer take place.