After graduating from a journalism school alongside more than thirty-four classmates in 2022, I can count on fingers who are still practising journalism. The rest have drifted away due to different circumstances: gaps in employment, low or no pay, or the lure of more stable careers. Wages and exploitation are major causes of this exodus. Why does this happen? Because the field is crowded by individuals treating journalism as a stop-gap, or simply as a title for access: former bus conductors, drama actors, video-shooting shopkeepers, Mobile Accessory sellers who accept free work in exchange for a press card. They undercut wages and saturate the profession, while trained professionals continuously find themselves switching fields or giving up altogether.

In the midst of renewed debate over

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