Teaching journalists to be entrepreneurs

Posted by Marion Geiger on April 21, 2009 at 12:12 PM

"I don't know a journalism dean in the country who knows what the solution is, or where the journalism industry is going...I am convinced that those answers are going to come from people of the students' generation, not my generation," says Christopher Callahan, the dean of the Cronkite School in relation to the future of journalism schools.

While some people argue journalism school is negligible today, others still believe there is a future and are changing their programs so that students can benefit from them. Other than incorporating computer programming, multimedia and online ethics courses, journalism schools are also focusing on teaching their students to be entrepreneurs. As newspapers transform rapidly online, the big question has been "how to monetize?" The journalists of the future are going to have to adapt with the internet, anticipate and create.

The journalism track at Arizona State is innovating to incorporate journalism values and Web skills, as well as create business savvy students. Professor Tim McGuire is teaching a course new to the curriculum called "The Business Future of Journalism," with this semester's theme being "How do we pay for journalism?" One of the items on McGuire's required-reading list for the class is Romenesko blog.

Another journalism bizz professor, Dan Gillmor said the class goal is to teach how to "invent your own job." It's the same idea that Maureen Skowkran talked about in her article, "Reimagining J-School Programs in Midst of Changing News Industry" where she presented a hypothetical journalism curriculum and talked about how j-schools need to anticipate and prepare students "for newsrooms and jobs that don't yet exist".

Another example of business knowledge being incorporated into j-school curriculums is The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which plans to add a type of co-op experience in "communication, business and entrepreneurship," according to Brian Stelter.

Alyssa Aalmo, a senior in public relations at Arizona State said she has a poster in her apartment that says "want stability in journalism? Get a job in P.R."

Source: NYT.com