There’s tough, there’s month-old jerky, then there’s trying to break into the journalism business in 2009.

I remember about this time just two years ago some classmates and I were sitting in a CBS conference room in Washington, D.C. talking with the one-of-a-kind Bob Schieffer.

We were there to tour the studios, maybe pass on a resume or two, and glean what we could from one of the seminal faces in broadcast journalism. At the end of the talk everyone in the room had this little glow that, hey, maybe the business is not in so much trouble.

Two years later and now, I’m not so sure.

We talked that day about how Bob, after being rejected several times, had gotten his job at CBS by walking into their Washington Bureau without an appointment. He simply declared to the bureau chief’s secretary that his name was Bob Schieffer and he was here to see about a job, and was ushered in.

Apparently, another young reporter named Bob (Bob Hager, a longtime NBC man) had been scheduled for an interview that day and Schieffer just got lucky and got his spot.

Most veterans have stories that have similar little right-place-right-time rings to them, but the business just doesn’t work that way anymore.

It still takes as much luck to find a job, but that doesn’t just apply to the young anymore. With so many jobs gone and not coming back, it’s harder than ever to stay a journalist, let alone become one.

Personally, I graduated in May with a decent enough resume, loads of writing experience here and at other websites on top of traditional work like internships and clips from my school’s paper. Six months on and dozens of applications later, I’ve barely had a nibble.

At least I’m not alone.

Interviews and connections have led to freelance work and promises of holding my name aside, but nothing concrete. These days I’m just glad anybody lets me write for them. (Thanks Keith!)

Others have suggested turning to the online medium permanently, but that’s a long road getting longer.

The problem isn’t limited just to journalism, but you’d be hard pressed to find a business in more dire straits than the news business—especially sports news.

I’m still pounding the pavement looking for work, and have had some lucky breaks in the past few weeks, but I know plenty of great young reporters who have already given up and decided to pursue other careers, stay in school, or trudge off to law school.

And that’s the real problem, one that has been overlooked by many who openly fear for the future of journalism.

Ask any young, unemployed journalist now and they probably have at least one story of being passed over for some $20,000/year job for somebody with years of experience in the business.

Nobody’s going to say the rookie deserves the job, experience be damned, but what is journalism going to do when an entire generation of young writers simply give up on the business?

Recruiting young readers is hard enough, but convincing young writers to go to college, take on loans, and work long hours at unpaid internships might be an even taller task when the business seems unable to guarantee any kind of job security.

It has at least gotten easier over the years to advance quickly as the high-energy, do-everything reporters have found success at major outlets that seemed to never promote anybody.

A perfect example of the change is Bill Simmons, who has used the occasion of releasing his mammoth tome on basketball this week to discuss his tortuous career path.

This week on Boston radio station 98.5 The Sports Hub, Simmons joined Michael Felger and Tony Massarotti, two successful local sports writers, and reminisced how the three of them were once interns at The Boston Herald years ago.

Simmons’ time at The Herald discouraged him greatly, and he’s written and spoken several times how he felt that pursuing his dream of writing national sports columns wouldn’t come true until someone retired or died—if he stuck with the typical “start small and work your way up” route.

But is Simmons’ path to success something young writers can even attempt to emulate? Or was Bill simpy the beneficiary of the perfect confluence of talent and timing?

In another time, the online path would be easier to walk. Pay your daily penance as a young writer manning the phones and running the agate and at night, employer permitting, you can be the sports writer you always dreamed of being.

But these days, there’s no guarantee of even getting in the door except as an unpaid intern. I never thought that, six months out of school, the best job-hunt news I’d receive is that I’m covered by my parents’ health insurance until I’m 25.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not just going to go cry poor and beg for a job; I don’t have a family, I don’t have kids, I could be in a far worse position than I’m in.

But like any other aspiring sports writer, I just want a chance in a business that has desperate few to spare.