I'd love to get a job with a local news company like ABC. Do I need to start entry level in the mail room or will having a journalism degree help me start higher up?

A journalism degree will get you in higher up than the mail room, but you can pretty much count on it being a pretty low level position to start. If possible, the best option would be to intern for free right now and then leverage that to increase the probability of a higher level position to start.