Professional development
Employment as a journalist is not linked to any formal criteria. Journalists do not necessarily need to have a higher educational degree, nor are they bound by law to attend professional trainings. Most journalists, however, have a BA or MA degree. According to the last research on journalism as a profession, conducted in 2006 by Mária Vásárhelyi and her team, 83 percent of all journalists had a higher educational degree, of which 32 percent had one in communication and media studies, and an additional 35 percent came from the humanities. Fifty-three percent of journalists were men, but the ratio of female journalists had significantly grown in the decades preceding the survey. So had the number of journalists under the age of 30, reaching 31 percent by 2006. Young journalists mainly work for online outlets and commercial broadcasters. Journalism is an urban profession in the sense that 39 percent of journalists were born in the capital city Budapest, and an additional 57 percent in smaller towns.