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. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $77,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $42,000 at the lower end to about $130,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$500 to $52,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Limited demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$77,000
Lower end
$42,000
Upper end
$130,000
Job Bank's national median is $36.92 an hour, about $77,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end is $20.19 an hour and the upper end $62.50. The range covers everyone in the group.
$38.79 an hour
The median in British Columbia, about $81,000 a year at 40 hours a week
Ontario is close behind at $38.46. Prince Edward Island's median is the lowest, at $24.90, and Saskatchewan's is $25.48 (Job Bank). Big city newsrooms pay more than small local outlets.
Roughly, all in
$500 to $52,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a recorder and a phone, then writing for no pay or 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 about $13,000 a year, the rate Concordia charges students from other provinces. 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 says many of its students are awarded scholarships each year, 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
Rates for a feature vary with length and outlet, and are set piece by piece.
Benefits
Job Bank reports about 95% of journalists get at least one non-wage benefit.
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, University of Ottawa (in French), and college diplomas at Conestoga, Fanshawe, Mohawk and Seneca.
Quebec
Concordia University in English, UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) in French.
Western Canada
Mount Royal University, MacEwan University, Thompson Rivers University, University of Regina.
Atlantic Canada
University of King's College in Halifax, and UPEI (University of Prince Edward Island).
Quebec adds 2 years of CEGEP (public college) between high school and university, so a journalism bachelor's here usually takes 3 years instead of 4.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Work on both French and English. Write for the school paper, a student newsletter or a community outlet so you have clips.
DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
2 years
A 2 year pre-university CEGEP program in any field. Social Science (300.A0) or Arts, Literature and Communication (500.A1) are both pre-university options.
Or the college journalism option
3 years
The 3 year Media Communication Techniques DEC (589.B0), journalism option, at Cégep de Jonquière. In French, aimed at regional, local and community media.
Journalism degree
3 to 4 years
In English, Concordia's BA (Bachelor of Arts) major in journalism, paired with a second major or minor. In French, the 3 year journalism bachelor's at UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal), 60 places a year.
Internships and French
During your degree
UQAM students can do one or two 140 hour media internships. Concordia journalism students must show working French, by an oral test or a French course, unless they studied in French.
The FPJQ (Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec, the Quebec federation of professional journalists) is a voluntary association. You do not need it to work. Professional membership is for people whose main paid work is journalism for Quebec media and costs $180.50 for 2026 to 2027, or $104.50 if you earn under $40,000. Students and recent graduates pay $48. Every member commits to its code of ethics.
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 look 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 hours are often 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.
Since 2017, Canada's evidence law protects a reporter's confidential sources. A court can still order a source named, but only if the evidence cannot be found any other way and justice outweighs keeping the secret.
An access to information request to a federal department costs $5. Journalists use these requests constantly, and you can file one too.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Writing and media first, then the rest of the field. See every career in creative.
Last checked October 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. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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