Fortunately, the Kiwi work ethic has a strong reputation around the globe, and the willingness of our nation's youth to work overseas is equally well-known, so you find Kiwis in newsrooms all over the bloody world. There are little enclaves of ex-pats working at Al Jazeera, or the Telegraph, or in US cable news, and they soak up many of their countrymen and women that are away from home for a few years.
Some of them thrive on their overseas adventures and become big shots in big organisations - journos who have a global reputation include former 3News reporter Elizabeth Puranam at Al Jazeera, and Taranaki's finest Lucy Hockings, who has been a familiar face at the BBC for well over a decade.
And some of them disappear inside these megalithic organisations, swallowed up by huge multi-national news beasts. Big names in the NZ media pool fade away when they try to swim with the big fish, and some barely make an impact at all.
That's if they can even get their foot in the door in the first place. Unfortunately, when it comes to looking for jobs in the news media, it's all about who you know, and that is especially true when you're thousands of miles from home and nobody knows your name.
Unless you do know somebody at one of these tiny enclaves of NZ journos, it can be really tough. Nobody in the UK or the States or even Australia cares about all those Canon awards you won, or how you fucking nailed Michael Laws in that interview that one time, what makes you any different from the thousand other people looking for work?
It has become a lot harder to find a good job overseas, and a lot of that is because there are way, way more people looking for media work over there. After two decades of cutbacks and redundancies, thousands of journalists in countries like Canada and the UK apply for jobs, and standing out in that pack can be an absolute nightmare.
Even though we've had our fair share of cuts in our tiny island nation, the smaller scale of the media scene in this country has helped, because there aren't the same huge amount of folk floating around in freelance hell or short-term contract nothingness. Even a strong job in NZ's news media will only have a few dozen serious candidates - which can still be shitty odds, but it's better than thousands.
This is likely to change again soon - the Fairfax/NZME merger disapproval means there will be a flood of unemployed journalists suddenly looking for work soon, and they are likely to run smack into a bunch returning home from overseas, looking for a bit more stability in the world.
But it's not all doom and gloom, there are always good jobs going here at home as somebody else heads off on a grand adventure. And there are all sorts of new opportunities for journo work overseas if you think outside the box a bit. Kiwi reporter Laura McQuillan does terrific work for Fairfax from her Canadian home, and can provide invaluable overnight coverage of a big international event for the Stuff website.
The world is getting smaller and smaller, but that also means new doors are opening all the time, and there are plenty of us ready to rush through them.
- Ron Troupe
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