Chasing a passion of field photography. Barriers to entry?

Hello everyone. I hope this is the right section. A little about myself; My name is Bryan and I'm a Senior in High School. I love photography, love adrenaline and want to make a difference in the world. Currently I'm in charge of photography for my yearbook (2nd year) and am very dedicated. I sold just about every possession to my name to buy a lightly used 50D and MKII 70-200 2.8 (being my age and having to sell my xbox was very painful), and spend about 20+ hours a week of my own time on top of the 6 hours a week I'm in the class.

I see blogs like this, http://www.boston.com …nes_from_afghan​istan.html , and see myself there - I want to be there.I want the next Tienanmen Square or Nguyễn Ngọc Loan Vietnam photo that will forever tell a story. I never really saw myself perusing my passion of photography but now that I've looked into the job description, I feel drawn to it. I feel like I fit the personality (independent and apathetic enough basically) to be good at what I'd like to do.

I look on Reuters every morning before I go to school to see whats going on in the world - And occasionally I see a great picture like somebody poverty stricken on Wall St's doorstep with that big American flag behind it - Or a real moving picture like something you'd see in the blog above that you never seem to see on any cable news station.

Anyways, enough about that. My real question, is how hard would it be for me to start and stay in a successful career in field photography with a company such as Reuters? I see print is dying - The large photo budgets appear to be dwindling. Since the expansion into DSLR the competition has risen (hypocritical of me to point out, yes I know) And I get the idea that despite how much talent you have in other fields, there's so much competition, most appear invisible.

How do I branch out? How do I make myself noticed without freelancing a one way ticket to Kabul? Everyone's input is appreciated, thanks for reading.

get a job with a local paper, work your way up, get experience shooting all sorts of events, if you do make it as a photojournalist you'll have to be as comfortable shooting a press conference as you would standing between 300 riot cops and 3000 angry protestors
Once you make a bit of a name for yourself locally and have a strong and varied portfolio you can see whats available with the bigger players like reuters, AFP etc

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=955554

Do a search here. Your question or similar ones have been asked thousands of times.

Photojournalism is a tough one to get into. You need a degree(journalism, possibly a photo-minor), and then a great port and the tough one is experience as the most experienced tend to get the best assignments. So eventually you'll get into internships, work at a local paper and/or college newspaper, and work your way up.

Photojournalists also have to be good writers, sometimes even writing not just captions but the entire articles themselves. Also video is a must to stay competitive and adapt with the age of the internet, so plan on learning that as well.

You've got to be a well-rounded, outgoing, multimedia,writing, photographing machine.

I'm a college student aiming for the same thing.