They sold us a lie

As the end of my third week of 'real' world work experience approaches an increasing sense of depression is beginning to prevail. My first two weeks were at FHM (owned by Bauer) where they used to share offices with Arena. Arena had closed a few weeks before hand. So I had the joyous task of clearing away the Arena side of the office which really pushed home the point that the industry was in a state. A few days later, we heard before most, that Maxim was closing (someone in the Q office had a friend there who informed them immediately after they got the news).

While on FHM the staff there made it very clear that the industry was in a state. This should be all to0 evident to anyone in the industry, but my 'work experience' made me really feel this. One colleage at FHM had ranted about how educators are selling a lie by 'training' people to enter the media industry, when there are no jobs to be had. He pointed out that there is an incredibly bloated industry for 'training' people to enter the media, while the media industry itself is shrinking rapidly.

After two weeks at FHM I moved onto Q (also owned by Bauer), where it immediately became clear that jobs had just been cut on the Q website. This brought my thoughts back to the colleague at FHM, one comment in particular, "These educators are selling a lie when they train people to enter the media, there are no jobs to be had."