63 Reasons To Quit Your Entertainment Journalism Job in 2025 (NOT Clickbait!)

"If it sucks, hit da bricks." - a wise meme

A note: the views expressed here solely reflect the author’s perception of their own experience and of the experiences of colleagues over more than a decade across multiple companies and organizations. The comments and examples included below are not directed at or in reference to any single company or organization unless otherwise cited.

Fellow freelancers: take care if you choose to read this, and know it may be emotionally triggering. Reach out to professionals and to your support system if you need help.

Why would you quit an entertainment journalism job in 2025?

1. Because it's not the job you signed up for four years ago.
2. Because it's not the career you signed up for over a decade ago.
3. Because it’s not the life you’ve been dreaming about since you were 12.
4. Because your livelihood shouldn't be dictated by Google trending topics.
5. Because the freelance budgets are shrinking to nothing, and important verticals and columns keep quietly disappearing.
6. Because you guess maybe no one is coming to stop AI.
7. Because one of the most beloved websites you've ever worked with slowly died for years for no apparent reason, and there was nothing you could do to stop it.
8. Because losing that website also means losing your access to screeners, PR relationships, and the fancypants guild membership you worked your ass off to earn.
9. Because salaried jobs in this industry barely exist anymore, and being categorized as “permalance” means paying more taxes for fewer benefits and protections.
10. Because you haven't had a paid sick day or vacation day in years, you have no retirement fund, and every year you get thousands of dollars deeper into debt while trying to live on less and less money.
11. Because you know other people are in the same boat, and it's not enough to keep passing the same $5 around by subscribing to each other's work or contributing to each other’s GoFundMes.
12. Because job security isn’t really a thing anymore, and there's a scarily thin line between your situation and those of the more “stable” writers and editors who have offered to help you pay bills when your pockets were empty.
13. Because some days, your dynamic disability makes you too tired and foggy and run-down to write, and not getting paid on those days doesn't actually constitute “job flexibility.”
14. Because this industry has always had barriers in place that make everything harder for people of color, queer and trans people, disabled folks, and anyone from a working class background, and the progress that was being made on these structural issues appears to be stalling.
15. Because every woman you know has gotten death threats or been subject to doxxing for something they’ve written, and the industry is structured in such a fractured way that in most cases, it is no one’s job to protect them.
16. Because if festival coverage, interviews, recaps, personal essays, expert columns, and reviews don't get enough clicks to justify their existence, what's left?
17. Because, listen, you don't even have the bandwidth to get into the influencers versus critics issue right now.
18. Because you are not going to join Tiktok.
19. Because who the fuck is Googling “Actors From The Waltons That You Didn't Know Were Dead” anyway, and why is the future of the industry in their hands?
20. Because that thing you've been telling yourself about how SEO can be fun if you do proper research and dig into primary sources doesn't really hold up when other freelancers end up rewriting your work without your consent or knowledge anyway.
21. Because you once watched roughly dozen of your friends get laid off throughout a single year, culminating in a round of surprise layoffs that came the day after Christmas.
22. Because everyone on the schedule was still expected to work that day.
23. Because freelancer layoffs typically don’t come with notice or severance.
24. Because a guy you’ve never met named Reggie Renner once told Google that Static Media, the company he co-created, reinvests the profits it earns from 100 million viewers a month to “acquire new properties” and “launch more sites.”
25. Because you got a surprise gig at one of those new properties, a site you’ve read and loved since its inception, and didn't even tell everyone.
26. Because you only recently noticed that the Wikipedia page for the company that owns the website you were recruited to as a TV and news writer lists “contextual advertising,” not publishing, as the company’s product.
27. Because site management has fallen on too many swords to protect the team, and the only reward they ever seem to get is another pile of swords.
28. Because lately it doesn't even feel like you have a boss, and kind of feels like you're sitting in a forgotten basement office with a stale pot of coffee and one flickering light.
29. Because nearly every writer you know is too tired, burnt out, and scared to even think of the word “unionize.”
30. Because moving abroad made you realize how relentlessly anti-union America still is, and plenty of your brave, tenacious colleagues who have worked to unionize have gotten laid off anyway.
31. Because your heart just hasn't been in it since Static canceled the /Film Pride series.
32. Because you've been quiet quitting as hard as you possibly can for a year or more now, so it's probably time to get louder.
33. Because your account has already been overdrawn, so the difference between quitting and staying is pretty much just peace of mind at this point.
34. Because why would you ever want to write for any company that doesn't want you to write honestly about what's happening in the world right now?
35. Because you have a moral prerogative to fight the rise of fascism with every breath, and you do not need to feel loyalty to any publication or person who won't let you.
36. Because fuck Amazon links.
37. Because not to be “old man yells at clouds” about it, but boy, do you miss a proper good, old-fashioned newsroom.
38. Because the online communities you've contributed to over the past 15 years have never quite felt the same after Twitter died.
39. Because you miss the conversations that used to come from your writing when your readers were inspired to be vulnerable or try something new.
40. Because every place on the internet feels like it could be the next Nazi bar, so why should you try to become a regular somewhere new?
41. Because you know how annoying and demoralizing it is to talk about this bullshit when other people are still trying to make it work, so in an effort to keep a lid on things, you've fallen out of touch with many of the critics you value and call friends.
42. Because you'd love to be able to say hi to all of these friends again without a decade's worth of baggage teetering on the edge of every conversation.
43. Because it breaks your heart to see how many talented, experienced, and empathetic writers deal with depression and suicidal thoughts that are often directly related to the state of the industry.
44. Because you know what it feels like to want to die when you log onto work, and even when that feeling is gone, you never know if it might come back.
45. Because you want to shake the friends who still tie their self-worth to this rotten system and tell them “It's not your fault” again and again until they believe it.
46. Because the second you moved to a place that felt like home and started treating your own depression and anxiety, you realized that at some point, you started to love a hundred different things more than you love this job.
47. Because at this point, you like working with your hands and heart as much as working with your brain.
48. Because personally, you need coworkers with whom you can actually speak out loud.
49. Because it turns out that treated OCD sometimes looks like ADHD, and you can’t be bothered to stare at a computer all day without talking or walking or petting your dog or playing Stardew Valley.
50. Because people in Scotland don’t give a shit what you do as long as you’re nice.
51. Because all of the above has kind of made you into the “female skew, lean back, comfort viewing” customer that Warner Bros Discovery prophesied, and maybe it's okay to watch bad Netflix documentaries and old game shows instead of prestige TV for a while.
52. Because you don't need to be on the clock to infodump about Quark and Odo or AMC's Interview With the Vampire to anyone who will listen.
53. Because even though you’ve only been to the movies a few times this year, you've finished 56 books and listened to 59 podcasts so far, and the part of you that is still obsessed with numbers thinks that's pretty cool.
54. Because when you were watching over 100 new shows a year, you weren't actually sleeping or eating or exercising enough, and you sure as hell weren't budgeting time for reading or gardening or going on dates or playing with your nephews or hugging your mom.
55. Because you've never been the kind of person to do just one thing, and you always liked writing better when it was something you did on the weekends.
56. Because contrary to what your brain tells you, you're not any less of a writer if you write less.
57. Because you do still write, whether it's a poem no one reads or a message to an old friend or a journal entry or a color-coded to-do list or an angry letter to congress.
58. Because this newsletter is a blank slate that you can use however you want.
59. Because your creativity has been blooming in weird and unexpected ways since you started logging off and getting your health in check, and you're excited to see where that leads you.
60. Because you have a mind-boggling 2700 bylines to your name, and some of those are pretty great, and if you decide to, you can pitch more whenever you damn well please.
61. Because you've already been published in a book, walked red carpets, interviewed award winners, championed diverse art, had your work performed for an audience, voted to shape the film canon, been quoted in movie trailers and TV promos, inspired watercooler conversations, and connected with thousands of pop culture lovers and hundreds of fellow writers.
62. Because no matter what changes, those people are still out there, just a click away.
63. Because you wanted to do your dream job, and you did it. And now you can do something else.