tice, political regulation and influence on this profession, change of the behaviour of young media-consumers. These five factors have determining impact in the life expectations of the new generation of journalists. My assumption is that changes in social environment and media consumption are the dominant factors. To prove my view and describe the situation I use statistics from governmental institutes, data from media-institutes and my researches too.
It is just amazing how these 25 years could lift and let fall journalism as profes- sion, the article try to show this complexity.
Motivation on choosing a profession
Choosing a profession at the age of 15-18 - when they are still in grammar school and focuses mostly on subjects useful for entrance exam of higher educa- tion - is always tricky, it’s influenced by anticipation. Everybody – also parents and secondary school teachers – want a prosperous future with good salary and high prestige to the young.
Future is not predictable in general, there are some approximations as data from labour - statistics, but most of the people don’t read statistics and get ideas about the possible outcome of the next years based on personal observations, and what others talk, chat and gossiping. The typical pattern of choosing a profession is shown by data from Research of the Youth in the Western Hungarian Region in 2005 (Neupor-Szakál, 2005:33). The question was: Where do you get inspiration from, while choosing your profession? The answers: 50 % - don’t know..., 35% - family, 23% - friends, 16 % - media, 11% - school, 9% - books and 7% - movies. So, choosing a profession is highly determined by family and friends next to different media effects.
I use my research’s results to show why the major Communication and Media Studies had been attracting so many students to Berzsenyi College2 in Szombathely
(Velics, 2006:83-95). In year 2002/2003, we had nearly 300 students on this major, and another 2000 students on Cultural Studies. Both had the opportunity to get
2 This was affiliated into the University of West-Hungary in 2008. I have been working here since 1999
specialization on public relations, but only those studying on Communication and Media had the opportunity to get specialization on journalism. I asked all first year students by a questionnaire, and got an overview of the underlying motivation be- hind the students’ application and of their expectations and assumptions relating to the field of communication as their future career. Choosing a career was highly motivated by the interest of the students, salary, fame and successful professional career. See table 1. (Velics, 2006:87) They have expected an interesting and excit- ing job where is a chance for self-realization and big money. See table 2. (Velics, 2006:91) and table 3. (Velics, 2006:89). The conclusion of my study was that stu- dents show a tendency for directing themselves towards the commercial side of the media and PR matters. They wish to see that their degree has a certain labour market value, and expect a training allowing them to meet market requirements.
Table 1.
Choosing my career was
affected by ... Rank 1. Rank 2. Rank 3. Rank 4. Rank 5.
cumulated scores and final rank
my own field of interest 38 6 3 1 1 1.
lot of specialization available in this profession
(journalism, PR, web) 3 8 12 5 1 2.
I would like to work for a
communication company 2 14 6 3 3 3.
I would like to get honour in
my society 1 5 6 10 8 4.
I would like to earn lot of
money 2 2 4 11 9 5.
it was the easiest to gain
admission 4 5 0 2 7 6.
the fame of this college/
university 1 4 4 1 7 7.
my parents’ advice 0 1 8 4 3 8.
I would like to be a media-
star 2 2 3 2 5 9.
I would like to be successful
quickly 1 1 2 7 0 10.
a media role-model 0 3 4 1 1 11.
my friends’ advice 0 1 2 3 4 12.
Table 2.
I have chosen this profession (journalism, PR)
because this person ... cumulated points (max.550-min.55)
1. has interesting and exciting job 464
2. has chance for self-realization 452
3. improves his/her talent 445
4. has chance for work independently and decide free 422
5. earns lot of money 348
6. solves problems “night and day” 317
7. makes successful career quickly 316
Table 3.
After graduating I would like to have a job at ... Rank 1. Rank 2. Rank 3.
biggest commercial TV of my country 8 5 2
PR-department of a for profit organisation 5 7 0
country daily-newspaper 5 3 3
PR-concern or agency 5 2 2
other field, using my second major 5 1 10
commercial radio 3 6 2
company for business-communication 3 4 3
somewhere abroad 1 4 6
local daily newspaper 1 3 2
local TV 1 1 2
PR-department of a not for profit organisation 1 1 0
my own business 1 0 3
public radio of my country 1 0 0
public TV of my country 0 1 1
on-line newspaper 0 0 1
I don’t know what to do 0 0 1
I don’t want to use my communication degree 0 0 0
Journalism is not a very common profession; you can’t have many journalists in your circle. But, you can have good views while reading newspapers and maga- zines, listening to radios, watching TV programmes and using websites. Users can build opinion about journalists by observing their products. Are they telling the truth or meet the requirements of politicians and businessmen? Are they intelligent or average? Are they trusty? Reading tabloids and watching similar programs in television give insight into the private life of leading journalists, editors and pro- gram hosts. Watching the wealth of these people can give you the idea that being a journalist is something that you can earn lots of money and gives you high prestige. It’s only partly true.
The latest research which focused on working and life condition of Hungarian journalists was made in 2007 by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Eötvös Loránd University and Association of Hungarian Journalists. The data show signif- icant rejuvenation in comparison with the data of 1997. The young working in me- dia was only 10% in 1997, after 10 years data show that 33% of employees are un- der 30 years, 25% are 31-40 years, and rest are older than 40 years. It was caused by headway of commercial and web based journalism. Interesting, that 47 % of journalists are women, the third best rank in EU after Finland and Spain. The most revealing and startling data was about salaries. I show the results in comparison with the minimum and guaranteed salary of 2007 for those having degree, which was 98250 HUF (around 390 euro).3 See table 4.
Table 4.
The salary is … % of the
guaranteed minimum. It’s true for …% of Hungarian journalists.
under 100 % 20%
100-120 % 13% 120-200 % 32% 200-300 % 20%
over 300% 12%
Those working in commercial TV, weekly magazines and online media got the biggest salaries, but they even felt themselves underpaid. The journalists working at public media or countryside got the worst salary, under 100% of the guaranteed minimum is not rare, showing the paradox of regulation and practice.
Nowadays, the salaries (gross salary, changed in daily rate 1 euro=310 HUF) in my town4 are: editor in chief of local commercial radio ~ 1000 euro, journalist in
regional daily newspaper ~ 500-700 euro, newsreader or technician in local com- mercial radio ~ 500 euro, junior journalist at local weekly get 65 euro for 10 hours/ week.5 In comparison, the average salary in 2013 in Hungary6 is 230700 HUF = 745
euro, in 20147 the minimum and guaranteed salary is 118000 HUF = 380 euro for
those having secondary or higher education, junior teacher with university degree earns 175494 HUF = 570 euro, junior public servant with degree get 127000 HUF = 410 euro, but junior engineer easily get 800-1100 euro. The latest data from 2012
3 Minimum and guaranteed salary was first introduced in Hungary in 2006 by regulation 306/2005.
These “numbers” are defined for different educational stages need for a job: without basic education, with professional secondary education, and with higher education. Employers must provide minimum this salary for their employees. Numbers are defined for each year in the midst of heated debate.
4 Szombathely is located near to the Austrian border and has been county town for ages. 5 All data was collected confidentially from my students working there.
6 Data from Hungarian Central Statistical Office. https://www.ksh.hu/keresetek, Visited on 02.04.2014. 7 Data from Public Service Portal. http://www.kozszolga.hu/illetmenyalap, Visited on 02.04. 2014.
show8, that a junior with communication and media degree get around 530 euro,
but they expected to have twice as much!
So, being a journalist in the capitol of the country, working in top daily news- papers and commercial media, especially in television is really productive, but it’s open only for the few. Being a journalist in the country-side is something very dif- ferent. The difference between the salaries can be double or triple or even more, and in general this means a lower middle class standard.
Experts of job-market reports each year that final year students are ignorant of real life and usually have huge expectation on salary, and working conditions. As the last four years show us, Hungary is still struggle with difficulties in economy, the unemployment rate among young9 is significant 24,5 %, the average time to get
a job after having degree is 7 months but if you were active in your student years and had work experience during studying it could succeed in 5 months!
Misunderstanding is general, those who choose studying journalism has limit- ed knowledge about the real possibilities and standard of living in this profession.
Condition of education
There was time when only the most trustworthy to political ideologies had the chance to become journalist. In the past (before 1989-90) it was impossible to study journalism in universities. The general way was, that first you had to get any kind of degree such as teacher or engineer or anything you like, and only after this you were able to seek a possible newspaper or magazine and ask the editor in chief to employ you as journalist. Of course they assessed your ability and kept a check on your background too. Only those who went through these steps had the chance to study journalism. Only the Association of Hungarian Journalists provided the special training for them, it was two years studying in line with working in your ed- itorial job. This system was also changed by the changing of the regime in 1989-90. Part of the story is, that during the final years of the socialist-regime even more and more newspaper and local media started to work, these open-minded people gave different kind of journalism which was not familiar in the Eastern block before. Discovering secrets and telling the truth, working on the basis of western journal- ism standards gave them support and respect from the public. Around 1990-1993 was the golden age of Hungarian journalism, it helped universities to start faculty of communication, studying journalism getting more popular and became the top choice among the students. Many chose it instead of the also popular career of law- yer or economist!
Soon - as a result of this phenomenon - more than 20 universities and colleges offered the line of communication and media sciences all over Hungary. All univer-
8 Data from Education Portal. http://eduline.hu/felnottkepzes/2014/2/25/friss_diplomas_fizetesek_
Y9U4LR, Visited on 02.04.2014.
9 Data from Trading Economics. http://hu.tradingeconomics.com/hungary/youth-unemployment-
sities and even small town colleges took advantage of growing needs. It was not rare that 100-300 students started first year in each institutes. Universities and colleges based in Budapest easily had larger number of students, even if it was well known, that it’s impossible to provide enough practice to 200-300 students each year, even 100 students on a TV or radio seminar is too much. Yes, it was obvious, that dropping of the size is inevitable, if you would like to provide high standard. But it’s not inevitable that all institutes focused on good quality of education and practice. Part of the truth is that universities get financial support from the state by number of students, so institutes have interest in larger number of students. And of course larger number of students pays more tuition fee too. Keeping a popular line in top often means that institutes can provide rare or less popular lines by cross-fi- nancing, e.g. provide studying Lithuanian or Latvian languages. So, what happens in the academic world is not only for the sake of professional education but also for the sake of financial stability of the institutes and political bargain of the cities.
Communication and media studies has been among the ‘five most popular line’ in each year until the economic crises in 2008 and change of the governing party in 2010. Then something very complex followed. Media industry was not collapsed but statistics show the decline of buying newspapers and magazines, many use blogs and web-based information which were free instead of buying institutional journalistic products. Salaries fallen off, many were sent off in media too, being a journalist is not rewarding anymore.
There was a bilateral workshop in summer of 2012, Budapest, where Hungar- ian and German academics and representatives of media discussed about the situa- tion of education (Bánlaki, 2012). One of the Hungarian speakers declared: “there is neither journalism school in Hungary nor standardized way of education in media!” The debate revealed several aspects of difficulties:
- studying journalism in universities often means theoretical approach only, compensated with half year practice somewhere in media or business,
- students are under educated and under motivated in some aspects, (e.g. they are highly interested in writing about cultural events or sport, but not politics. If they got a task to summarize a decision of Constitutional Court in short article, they would be shocked. They often choose easy opportunities instead of making an effort.)
- students don’t like to read - neither books nor newspapers - often have no idea about life in general,
- hundreds of journalists get diploma each year, but only about 10% can have a job as journalist, PR or marketing professional.
The government started reform of higher education, and it also significantly affected the line of communication and media studies. In answer to the economic crises, the government made effort on stabilizing the economy by industry. One of the actions was that number of students who can obtain state financing10 was cut
dramatically in faculty of arts and increased in science and especially in engineer-
ing! Last year 1165 students applied to communication and media studies, but only 25 was financed by the state, the rest had to pay fees. The statistics of the applica- tions in 2014 shows11, that communication and media is not in the top 15 anymore,
and attracts only around 1000 students, while there are five different technical lines among the top 15 most popular lines, studying engineering is the second most popular after management and business.
For the year 2014/15 tuition fee in each semester will be 150000-280000 HUF = 485-910 euro on communication and media studies.12 BA studies have six semes-
ters, so to get a journalist degree you have to pay minimum 900000 HUF ~ 3000 euro for tuition fees all together and of course you have to cover other costs as well as accommodation, living, and having fun during these years too! The state pro- vides two types of credit for students with low interest, one is for tuition fees only, and one is for other cost of students. In theoretically everybody can have access to higher education, but practically those who have less opportunity in life in general they could be more motivated by studying on free lines. Dropping of number of students in Faculty of Arts especially led to difficult situation, financing some of Hungarian universities and colleges became dramatic. Closing lines, layoff academ- ic staff en masse has been the typical solution.