The crash in the legal sector is five years old. Lawyers and even some partners have had time to absorb the dwindling opportunity in the industry. They know they are highly verbal. Actually, many of them love language. Some were even English majors way back when.
"Should I try journalism?" That's what they ask me. They recognize the edge they have entering the niche of legal writing or related fields such as covering dealmaking. After all Elie Mystal and David Lat carved out their own space on Abovethelaw.com. Instead of focusing on billable hours they pay lots of attention to page views, number of comments, and their advertisers.
The risk in entering journalism is that many parts of the industry are downsizing + being highly volatile. Daily readers of Mediabistro.com get bug-eyed with all the comings and goings of players, ranging from the executive suite to rank and file. Is shifting to journalism only, to use the cliche, changing deck chairs on the Titanic?
However, there may be a reduction of that risk. Mobile can change the industry. Already, newspapers are leveraging mobile to provide everything to readers from daily deals to weather reports to trusted reporting.
I look at this possible magic bullet for the financial information company Motley Fool. Here you can check out the odds that you have a chance to make a good living in journalism.
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