I’m wondering also what could be done to help increase those wages?

>How do people wind up working for seemingly big outfits at a young age?

Most likely connections (and talent). They have also almost certainly done some journalism work, even if only freelance and student newspaper, so they have a resume to point to. The more common historical route was to work through a bunch of small market papers as the parent suggests.

>recipe for a very slow to grow or advance career

Not sure why--at least more than journalism generally. If I had a choice, I'd get on board the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times early on rather than spend a decade "paying my dues" covering high school sports and whatever else mostly passes for news in a 10,000 person town.

"If I had a choice, I'd get on board the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times early on rather than spend a decade 'paying my dues.'"

What an asinine remark.

Do you want the work? Do you want to be in the industry at all? Then you take the jobs that are on offer.

Who wouldn't skip to the top if they could? In all other cases, you take the long road, the hard way, the slog, and tough it out because you're made of thick skin, stern stuff, and strong character. You don't bail because it's hard.

What the F are you going on about? The parent suggested that going with a big outfit early on was a recipe for slow growth. I responded that, if you have the chance to land with a major pub early on, you should probably grab it. Of course, most will not have that opportunity and--perhaps more than many fields--may well have to work their way up. And, if that sounds singularly unappealing, maybe it's not the profession for you.

Leaving aside the question of whether, say, Google is actually a great place to work or not, I'd say more or less the same thing to a would-be software developer who didn't want a job in the field unless they could get a top-paying position at Google HQ.

Actually my impression was it would be difficult to find work at a big outfit early in a career.

Yes, that is certainly the case unless you have great connections and are likely especially talented.