The worst job is being a newspaper reporter, or at least according to the ‘Best and Worst Jobs of 2013’ list posted on the Wall Street Journal. The degree which will leave me qualified to do the job I have always wanted, is ranked lower than a bus driver and a dishwasher. The jobs are apparently ranked based on five criteria: physical demands, work environment, income, stress, and hiring outlook. But it seems to be missing an important factor: job satisfaction. Often when people choose their careers, they often don’t take this into account, whether they will be loving the job that they will be doing essentially for the rest of their life.

When you have witnessed the hardships of living in a third world country first hand, knowing that the rest of the world doesn’t know the truth, it makes you realise how important that it is for the truth to be reported. That is one of the many reasons I wanted to become a journalist, to change the living conditions of people around the world. If I know I can make any tiny bit of difference just by highlighting issues to people, then that is going to make me happy. It’s a job that is rewarding, perhaps not necessarily money wise, but to me it is more important to get up every day and enjoy the job you are doing rather than be focusing on the salary the whole time.

For example, the importance of journalism was demonstrated in the recent story of the Primark factory collapsing in Bangladesh. It is a known fact that clothes factory workers in third world countries endure tough working conditions to benefit big clothes firms with cheap labour. However there is obviously not enough being done about it, and just by reporting this news to the rest of the world, it highlights the issue of these poor working conditions to the world so that a change can be made.

Since that has happened and been reported, there have been protests for Primark to compensate the victims of the collapsed building which they will be doing as well as giving emergency aid, and have shown that the problems of the clothes making industry need to be addressed. If us journalists who apparently have ‘the worst jobs’ did not report this incident to the world, then no one would understand the extent of this issue which could lead to a change for the better for clothes factory workers.

It’s no secret that the ethics of journalism are often under scrutiny, but a job which is trying to ensure a change to an issue by promoting awareness, a job which people choose to do mainly because they want to and have a passion for it over a job which will give them the most money, does not deserve to be on the bottom of the best and worst jobs list. It may be a known fact that the newspaper industry is dwindling, which could perhaps be one of the reasons it is lowest on the list, but it does not mean its dead, and being a newspaper reporter is a job which so many people still enjoy doing. Publishing a list and putting reporter as the worst job is not achieving anything, and it is a bit difficult to judge the job if you don’t know the first thing about what makes being a journalist so special.