Embracing the Journalist as Entrepreneur

By Zack on October 28, 2009

As Mindy yesterday's post we just wrapped a great interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times financial reporter and author of Too Big To Fail, a very extensive and very engrossing play-by-play of last year's Wall Street Crisis. Andrew was great, we got some really good info from him, and I can't wait to put the interview up online. But in the meantime, it got me thinking about careers in Journalism.

Andrew did not have what use to be called a traditional path to the Times. He didn't start at as a cub reporter at a small town weekly or daily and work his way up the markets to a prime time gig. He scored an internship and used his specialized knowledge of the internet to land an opportunity to write a feature story. He did a great job and parlayed it into a successful career.

20 years ago, this would have been rare. Anymore, however, it's the specialized journalists, consciously aware of their own career paths, who are going to succeed. I point to blogger Conor Friedersdorf post today at The American Scene in which he expounds on the interesting work at NYU's Journalism School.

Though I understand a graduate degree in journalism seems like an insane proposition to many right now, applications are up at all the programs where I’ve spoken to faculty, and if you’re going to pursue that course of study, I am more convinced everyday that NYU is the place to do it. Among readers of The American Scene, Jay Rosen is probably the most well known professor. His analysis of the changing media landscape is certainly more sophisticated than anything being done at Columbia University. And beyond Professor Rosen, the program as a whole is making an effort — how successful it’ll be is beyond knowing — to train students for the actual world they’ll be facing, rather than running a program as if they’re all going to get jobs as cub reporters at daily newspapers.

An example just posted on the course listings: “Entrepreneurial Journalism, taught by Adam Penenberg.”

Journalists who can successfully navigate these turbulent media times must be equal parts journalist and entrepreneur. In this seminar students will learn how to build successful freelance careers, manage their own journalism brands that they will extend through social media platforms like Twitter, pitch ideas for media start ups, write their own business plans or book proposals, and explore ways to attract venture capital. There will be a lot of learning by doing. Students will work as media entrepreneurs and run their own online publications, which they will operate as a business. At its center will be a blog, where students will post several times a week.

They’ll retain an ad server, market their work to the blogosphere (and beyond) and track traffic. The semester will culminate with students either drafting their own business plan for a media start-up that they will pitch in class to a venture capitalist, or penning a formal book proposal, which a literary agent will also critique in class. Guests will include well-known journalists, successful media entrepreneurs, literary agents and venture capitalists.

I'm familiar with Rosen's work (even follow him on Twitter) and Friedersdorf is absolutely right. He quite simply has an amazing grasp of and insight into how technology and the changing media landscape could be used by existing and future journalists. Rosen's Rebooting the News podcast with Dave Winer is a great example of this. So if you cannot get into NYU, are still an undergrad or just have a passion for journalism, you should be paying attention to Rosen.

Similarly, I love this concept of journalist as entrepreneur. I'm a bit hesitant to fully embrace all the "personal branding" talk, but there is something to be said for cultivating the public's perception of you as a journalist. A personal blog, twitter, LinkedIn and even Facebook can be useful, as a student or young journo, to spread the reach of your work. Furthermore, you can use your personal work and online presence as the foundation for future work (this is all loosely established in Chris Anderson's Free which lays the groundwork for using free content to promote yourself or your product). The more (positive) results you have in a Google search, the more credibility and authority your work will have. This means that for freelance purposes or even snagging a full-time writing job, you have an advantage of recent grads who don't have that kind of presence.

Is Journalism School Wrong For Your Career?

By Zack on October 20, 2009

I'm a pretty big Malcolm Gladwell fan. Say what you want about his quirky approach to writing (or his hair) and the leaps and liberties he takes with the science he presents, the fact of the matter is that the guy opens up your mind to ideas and experiences you wouldn't normally consider. His books and his New Yorker articles are a must read and, to me, he is an excellent example of the magazine journalist.

That being said, he should be a pretty good source for advice on a career in journalism, right? Time has a great Q&A with Gladwell that covers topics like how he chooses a story, his thoughts on education and what advice he has for aspiring writers:

The issue is not writing. It's what you write about. One of my favorite columnists is Jonathan Weil, who writes for Bloomberg. He broke the Enron story, and he broke it because he's one of the very few mainstream journalists in America who really knows how to read a balance sheet. That means Jonathan Weil will always have a job, and will always be read, and will always have something interesting to say. He's unique. Most accountants don't write articles, and most journalists don't know anything about accounting. Aspiring journalists should stop going to journalism programs and go to some other kind of grad school. If I was studying today, I would go get a master's in statistics, and maybe do a bunch of accounting courses and then write from that perspective. I think that's the way to survive. The role of the generalist is diminishing. Journalism has to get smarter.

This sounds like some pretty sound advice to me. Look, traditionally, to be a journalist, you needed to be flexible. Over the course of your career you may cover a number of different beats. I have a friend who started out covering real estate. She moved to the local crime beat and ended up the bureau chief in Iraq. That's flexibility.

But one trend I see in a number of journalists that I interview for The Blank Page is that they have formally studied something other than journalism. Journalism is something that you learn on the job, in the field, much better than you can in a classroom. Economics, statistics and political science are the exact opposite. They are steeped in research and theory and are better understood from a scholarly angle than in the thick of the action (if anything related to statistics can be termed "Action").

So I have to agree with Gladwell here. If you are a graduating J-student or a recent grad thinking of Grad School, consider strengthening another core knowledge area and using that specialization to land yourself a job.

A perfect example of this is The New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin, a mergers and acquisitions columnist and reporter, whose newest book Too Big To Fail tackles the economic crisis and releases today. Andrew will be a guest next week on ThinkTalk, where among other things, we will discuss collegiate background at Cornell. If you have questions for Andrew, make sure you get them in right away.

And since we're on the topic of journalism, and I promised to post bites from our National Book Festival show each day this week, here's our interview with PBS's Gwen Ifill. Enjoy!

"Malcolm Gladwell" courtesy schipulites via Flickr Creative Commons

Using Tech Skills to Supplement Your Career Development

By Zack on May 11, 2009

The journalism is in a precarious situation. Revenues and circulation are dropping for the print medium, while readership grows online. The problem: revenue isn't following readership to the web. There are no lack of opinions on what the future may hold (trust me on this, I just spent 3 months up to my eyeballs researching this very trend), but one incontrovertible truth is that the web will play a very significant role.

Yesterday, on technology blog Techcrunch, I noticed a post discussing J-School's calls for coders.

Some question whether a journalism degree is critical to success as a reporter. A talented programmer certainly doesn’t need a journalism background to create successful digital platforms. And journalism school may be irrelevant for programmers who are more interested in coding than writing.

One aspect of this that I find most important is that anymore you simply cannot afford to have zero grasp of the technology involved in your day to day career. I don't care if are in journalism, finance, business or anything, you have to have a firm grasp on the technological peripherals involved in that career.

Now, more than ever, it is easier to learn this information. When we decided to start a blog, none of us had any experience blogging daily. So we looked it up. I took some tutorials on html and did some background research. I'm I the most technologically informed person in this industry? Clearly not. But the more you know about the technology of your business, the more you can take advantage of it. I think it would behoove aspiring journalists to take advantage of some other classes on campus to pick up some of this knowledge and information. That and listen to our Blank Page interviews with some top journos ;)

If Journalism isn't your thing, don't worry, we've got plenty of useful advice for all careers in The Links ...

Lindsey Pollack Addresses: The benefits of membership in professional groups. "These organizations exist to support, educate and provide resources for professionals in a particular industry or profession. Some are really small and others are as huge as corporations. Some are full of young members and others could use some fresh faces. Some are super active and some only meet occasionally."

College Recruiters Suggest: Some resume add-ons. You want to make your resume stand out. Some non-conventional suggestions in the post include a head shot, short bio and even an elevator pitch.

GradSpot Reveals: How to get paid for taking notes: GradeGuru. "This genius site will pay you actual money for the notes you took in college and that you probably thought were just taking up space on your hard-drive for no other reason than to remind you that you once learned some stuff. But now, with GradGuru, you can upload them to the site and get a nice little payout for your efforts."

Cheezhead Contemplates: An alternative to the traditional job-board. "You see, times have changed. The Internet is now much more people focused, much more open. People/users demand more from Internet services and they want these services to be free. Any Internet service that is going to succeed in a massive way must focus on the benefits for its users, open its doors and let the people in. Job boards simply do not focus on their users." This is certainly something to think about.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed's Wired Campus Blog Reports: The University of Missouri's Journalism School will require students to purchase an Apple iPhone or iTouch for classes. Once you get past the whining about the price and mandatory aspect of this I have to say I think this is an excellent idea. I love to see schools (especially in the journalism industry) embracing the aid that technology plays in their field. These devices are becoming a mandatory tool for journalists, so why not students?

"No Technology in Brighton" courtesy Sammy0716 via Flickr's Creative Commons.

The Daily Roundup: Journalism is Dead, Long Live Journism

By Zack on December 15, 2008

Welcome to the Daily Roundup. Each day at the ThinkTalk Blog we will post some links that we find informative, interesting, or just plain funny. The goal is to let you know what else is going on out there, and ultimately help you with the development of your career.

I studied journalism in college and some of my internships were with news organizations. So while what we do at ThinkTalk is not news and we by no means consider ourselves journalists, I do have an interest in the field and tend to keep tabs on the industry. It may not surprise many of you that media is at a crossroads of sorts, with substantial growth in the online medium coupled with a substantial decline in the print medium.

Some have gone so far as to declare print media – newspapers, weekly magazines, etc - dead. And they may be right. Journalist, author, and blogger Andrew Sullivan dug up some pretty depressing numbers.

Between March and September the 500 biggest newspapers in America reported an average circulation decline of 4.6%. In six months. That’s close to a 10% decline per year. No newspapers showed any but fractional gains. It is therefore a near-certainty that many towns and cities in America will no longer have a newspaper after the down-turn. And that may apply not just to small names but to some big ones as well. The Los Angeles Times, for example, has gone from a circulation of 1.1m to 739,000 since the turn of the millennium.

This article came just days before America’s largest employee-owned media company - the Tribune Company - filed for bankruptcy protection. Tribune – which counts the aforementioned Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune among its empire – listed $13 billion in debt to just $7.6 billion in assets. Downsizing, layoffs, and the eventual folding of a number of papers is no doubt imminent.

So what does this have to do with ThinkTalk, and, perhaps more importantly, your career? Well, it might stand to reason that now would not be the best time to pursue journalism as a career. The print arena is too unsteady, and the online medium, while there has clearly been growth, has not seen the rise in advertising dollars to justify any sort of massive expansion. Many career counselors, and perhaps journalists themselves, would advise students to pursue other areas of study until the future of journalism becomes more clear.

So why, then, did I come across an article in today’s Albany Times Union reporting the increasing popularity of the journalism major? This is truly baffling to me.

"It's cool that you can get paid to want to know what's going on," said Arias, 19, of the Bronx. Her enthusiasm is reflected in the growth of new programs in New York and the record number of students pursuing degrees in journalism and mass communication nationally: nearly 200,000 undergraduates as of 2007, up from 130,000 in 1995.

However, this may be misleading. The piece adds that many students have turned to Journalism as a type of liberal arts major. After graduating these students apply the skills and knowledge they learn to law school, public relations, or advertising. Which may be a smart move given a recent survey by University of Georgia professor Lee Becker on the market conditions for actual journalists. The survey "found a flat job market hovering well below the 2000 high point, with the 2007 crop of grads getting an average of 1.6 job offers on graduation. The median starting salary: $30,000. That compares with $50,507 for economics grads."

Now, I argue that this is actually a good thing. A large number of these journalism students will have a passion and determination for this field. Perhaps the poor job market and lack of opportunity will force the students to pursue other avenues to practice their skills. As the Internet becomes more important and solidifies as the mainstream source for knowledge and information, this generation of students could be responsible for leading the charge.

Ideas like the independent, non-profit news organizations Voice of San Diego are proving that there is room for web-based platforms for the gathering and distribution of news. And when young professionals find an obstacle in their path to pursuing journalism they will have no choice but to adapt and innovate. If necessity is the mother of invention, the need for gainful employment and an outlet for reporting the news just might lead to the new future of journalism. (HT Romenesko for the Times Union piece.)

Some other links to start off your week. Speaking of Journalism . . .

One Day One Internship Profiles: Internships at Atlantic Media Company. Atlantic Media, among other ventures, publishes magazines The Atlantic and The National Journal. Print isn’t dead yet, so I say get in there and get the experience while you still can.

U.S. News and World Report Released: Their 2009 report on the Best Careers. The report includes the perennially popular Ahead of the Curve Careers and Overrated Careers, to accompany the Best Careers section. I’m sure we will address this later in the week, but for now jump on over and take a look. You know, just in case that whole journalism thing doesn’t work out.

The Career Doctor Advises: A journalism student who is considering heading back to school. Maybe my whole future of journalism rant was a bit premature. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. If you are interested in a career in Journalism, I would also recommend checking out some of our previous The Blank Page guests. In particular I would point to Jackie Spinner, Michael Weisskopf and Dan Schulman.