You find out what happened, check it, and tell people clearly and fast.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$77,000
First newsroom job
$42,000
Senior or national
$130,000
Job Bank's national median is $36.92 an hour, about $77,000 a year full time. That median is pulled up by long-serving staff at big outlets. Ontario is highest at $38.46 an hour, Prince Edward Island lowest at $24.90.
$42,000 to $52,000
Reporter at a local paper, radio station or regional outlet
Small markets pay least and teach most. Many people do two or three years somewhere small before a city newsroom will look at them.
$100,000 to $130,000
Senior national reporters, hosts and investigative staff
Public broadcasters and the big national outlets pay this, usually under a union contract. It takes 10 to 20 years and most journalists never reach it.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a recorder and a phone, then writing for free or for very little at community papers, campus radio and small websites until you have published work an editor can read. Editors hire on published work, not on a diploma. The high end is a four year journalism degree at the top of the tuition range. The cheap door is harder because a journalism school hands you a newsroom, deadlines, contacts and often a paid internship, while doing it alone means months of unpaid pitching with nobody editing you or vouching for you.
Toronto Metropolitan University's journalism school alone hands out over $140,000 a year in scholarships and awards, so ask about funding before assuming the sticker price.
Staff salary
The goal for most people. Often unionized, with benefits and a pension.
Contract
Six or twelve month terms are very common now, renewed until they are not.
Freelance per piece
Canadian outlets pay roughly $200 to $1,500 for a feature depending on length and outlet.
Benefits
Job Bank reports about 95% of journalists get at least one non-wage benefit, which is high for a creative field.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
No licence, no exam. Editors hire on clips, meaning published work they can read, hear or watch.
High school
Grades 10 to 12
English, history and any media class. Write for the school paper or start a newsletter. Learn to record clean audio.
Journalism program
2 to 4 years
A 4-year Bachelor of Journalism, a 2 to 3 year college diploma, or a degree in something else plus a 1 to 2 year Master of Journalism.
Student media and internships
During school
The campus paper, campus radio and summer internships are where your first real clips come from. Take them seriously.
First job, usually small
1 to 3 years
A local paper, a regional radio newsroom, a trade publication or an online outlet. You cover everything: council, court, weather, sports.
Beat reporter
3 to 8 years in
You move to a bigger newsroom and own a subject: health, city hall, business, courts. Sources start calling you.
English
Clear writing under a deadline is the whole job.
History and civics
You cannot cover a city council if you do not know how government works.
Math or data
Reading a budget or a spreadsheet correctly separates good reporters from embarrassed ones.
French
Bilingual reporters have a much bigger job market in Canada.
No government licenses journalists in Canada, because a government that could licence reporters could also take the licence away. What exists instead is voluntary: the Canadian Association of Journalists sets ethics guidance, press councils handle complaints against member outlets, and individual newsrooms enforce their own standards. Libel law is the real limit. If you publish something false and damaging you and your employer can be sued, which is why fact checking is not optional.
Ontario
Toronto Metropolitan University, Carleton University, Western University, Humber Polytechnic, Centennial College.
Quebec
Concordia University and Universite de Montreal, plus strong French language programs.
Western Canada
University of British Columbia (Master of Journalism), University of Regina, Mount Royal University.
Atlantic Canada
University of King's College in Halifax runs one of the oldest journalism schools in the country.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Data journalism
Spreadsheets, basic Python or R, and freedom of information requests. Small supply, real demand.
Video and audio
Shooting, cutting and mixing your own pieces. Most jobs now expect one person to do all of it.
A second language
French doubles your options in Canada. Others open communities nobody else is covering.
A specialist beat
Health, courts, energy, agriculture. Outlets pay for someone who already understands the field.
Court and council reporting
Unglamorous, always needed, and the fastest way to become genuinely useful to a newsroom.
A student press record
Campus papers are where most Canadian journalists actually learned the job.
Freedom of information practice
Filing requests to governments is a skill, and it is how a lot of original stories start.
Contacts in one community
Journalists who belong somewhere get stories that outsiders never hear about.
A backup skill
Communications, teaching or editing. Newsroom jobs disappear without warning and many people move sideways.
A lot of journalists eventually move into communications, government relations, policy or corporate writing, where the pay is higher and the hours are calmer. Some go independent, running a newsletter or podcast funded by subscribers. Others move into documentary and long-form production. The reporting skills, finding people, asking hard questions and writing fast, transfer almost anywhere.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Morning editorial meeting where assignments are handed out. Then calls: sources who do not answer, a spokesperson who sends a statement instead of an interview, someone who will only talk off the record. Out to shoot or record, back to write against a hard deadline. An editor rewrites your top line. If news breaks at 4pm your plan is gone and you start again. Some days you file three stories, some days one that took three weeks.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank counted about 10,900 journalists working in Canada in 2023. That is fewer people than fill a mid-sized arena.
Anyone in Canada can file an access to information request to a federal department for $5. Journalists use this constantly, and so can you.
Canada's Journalistic Sources Protection Act gives reporters some legal protection for confidential sources, but a judge can still order disclosure in certain cases. It is a shield, not a guarantee.
About 95% of Canadian journalists receive at least one non-wage benefit such as a pension or health insurance, which is unusually high for creative work.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.