One thing we don't talk about much in public radio and journalism in general is how the fact that journalists, esp. in early careers are paid so so little is a deterrent to bringing in Black and Latino reporters from poor or working class families. @Sonari @MelbaLara

If you don't have a family that can help support you, it is very hard to live on the salary of an entry-level reporter.

Also, a big entry point are internships. At WBEZ we only offer internships for 10 months, which means most young people who get them have graduated from college.

I do not know how much WBEZ pays interns, but I do know that a lot of young people and their parents would balk at working for 10 months for low pay without job security, especially after just struggling to pay for college.

Also, back in the day (I don't know how true this is now), the idea was journalists had to go work in the middle of nowhere at some small newspaper or radio station and work their way up... Places where you can live on not much...

But I also know that a lot of these places are not places that r welcoming and could be dangerous for Black and Latino people. We have to acknowledge this and think of other paths.

I think about this a lot when I think about my husband and I. @danoash would have been a wonderful journalist and has passion for journalism (I think it is one reason why he likes me)...

But coming from a black working class family... his mother, a homemaker, and his father, a steel mill worker, he did not have the same options as me, a white woman from a solidly middle class family who could and did help me financially in the early part of my career.

. @Sonari I used to run a program that was training high school students for careers in journalism, but when I realized how much the system was stacked against poor students of color... I started to think it was sort of useless...

Now I am done ranting and will hop on this Zoom call.