Having had a significant other that worked in journalism, this makes sense to me. Journalism has become a profession which is much easier to follow if you have an "elite" background. It can be a prestigious job, but with a low salary for decades. To break into it you often have to earn your stripes and work your way up. In "elite" journalism--major newspapers and outlets--this often includes very low paying or non-paying internships in some of the most expensive cities in the country. It's a lot easier to do this if you have parents that can pay your rent or max out their non-taxable gifts to you each year.
To even get these internships it helps to go to one of the top 5 J-school graduate programs, which are expensive ($30k+ tuition/year) and in high cost of living cities (except Mizzou). Due to the racial wealth gap in the US--which was caused by systemic racism--this means that upper-class White people are going to be the ones that can best outlast this system and end up making it as a journalist.
There's also an extreme supply-demand mismatch in journalism (as there is in acting, music, and similar fields), meaning that many persons in the field take a lot of their "income" from the profession via non-monetary sources: https://jakeseliger.com/2019/11/19/have-journalists-and-acad...
>Due to the racial wealth gap in the US--which was caused by systemic racism
I did some searching and couldn't find any articles about racial wealth gaps in other countries. Is there any evidence to suggest that the racial wealth gap is uniquely an American problem?
>this means that upper-class White people are going to be the ones that can best outlast this system and end up making it as a journalist.
This is not true. There is certainly an over representation of a group within journalism / media, but it is most certainly not people of a "waspy" disposition who are the ones vastly over represented to an absurd degree.
To even get these internships it helps to go to one of the top 5 J-school graduate programs, which are expensive ($30k+ tuition/year) and in high cost of living cities (except Mizzou). Due to the racial wealth gap in the US--which was caused by systemic racism--this means that upper-class White people are going to be the ones that can best outlast this system and end up making it as a journalist.