Abstract
Entrepreneurial journalism has its genesis in the disruption shaking up the media landscape. As news organizations struggle to adapt to their evolving ecosystem, they look to new generations of journalists to drive progress. As educators, we have a responsibility to help prepare students to thrive in the evolving journalism ecosystem.
As entrepreneurial journalism (EJ) education matures, the list of competencies educators focus on continues to evolve (Schaich et. al., 2013). Although EJ classes have long emphasized business basics, they increasingly delve into topics such as design thinking, product development, and community engagement (Frandsen, 2019; Schaffer, 2016). In this Entrepreneurial Journalism 2.0 era, educators are updating curricula to address the rapid evolution of today’s media ecosystems. They are increasingly taking note of the competencies needed in newsrooms implementing new business models.
EJ programs address many of the 13 entrepreneurial competencies identified by Morris et al. (2013). Opportunity recognition and assessment, value creation, creative problem-solving, perseverance, resilience, and a compelling vision are among the competencies emphasized in EJ programs (Contreras, 2019; De Assis, 2019). The shifting media landscape, as turbulent as it is, has elevated the value of entrepreneurial skill sets and increased the urgency with which journalism organizations are looking to schools for pools of capable new graduates.
This challenge has given rise to creative courses and multiple efforts—by the Disruptive Journalism Educators Network and the Online News Association Educators Group, among others—to share best practices and teaching ideas. One related project is an open textbook titled Media Innovation & Entrepreneurship, initiated by professor Michelle Ferrier and Rebus Editor Elisabeth Mays (2017, 2018) with collaboration from journalism entrepreneurship professors in the United States and across the globe (Tsakarestou, 2017). Another related project, the Entrepreneurial Journalism Teaching and Learning Toolkit (Caplan, 2018), emerged as an effort to bring together useful materials from diverse sources for educators looking for creative new ways to strengthen their syllabi. The Scripps Howard Journalism Entrepreneurship Institute at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Arizona State University) offers an intensive, 5-day training program each year to journalism instructors interested in infusing the concepts and practices of EJ into their teaching. More than 100 journalism educators have gone through the program, which was launched in 2012 by Dan Gillmor, founding director of Cronkite’s Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship.
Journalism schools have adopted numerous extracurricular approaches to guide students’ development of core EJ skills and competencies (Casero-Ripollés et al., 2016). For example, The Startup Weekend Entrepreneurial Journalism Program in Athens, Greece, initiated by Betty Tsakarestou (Startup Weekend Entrepreneurial Journalism Athens Greece 2016 & Startup Weekend Athens and Summit, Audio & Radio Innovation- Entrepreneurial Journalism, 2018), helps undergraduate and graduate students take part in startup competitions alongside veteran entrepreneurs and journalists. At these Startup Weekends, the best new ideas quickly become prototypes. And at the Knight Lab at Northwestern University, students and educators work with designers and developers to build useful new products, learning product development skills outside of class. A growing playbook of extracurricular approaches to draw from is now available, including everything from the aforementioned startup competitions and hackathons to apprenticeships and industry–university partnerships.
As if teaching a fast-changing subject were not difficult enough, EJ educators must also manage the challenge of teaching an evolving discipline to an increasingly diverse cohort of students. Some students in EJ classes grew up on Snapchat and have never subscribed to a publication. Others may be news junkies who have already written for multiple outlets. Some are well versed in economics and business basics. Others are math phobic. Some may feel marginalized based on their culture, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status. Others may be skeptical about the impact of bias on the world of journalism. In recent years, the 134 graduate students who earned a certificate at the Tow-Knight Center Entrepreneurial Journalism program at City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism have been from 37 different countries. More than half have been women and about two thirds have been from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. Given this vast array of perspectives, educators have to consider how to optimize their classroom and extracurricular strategies to support students from a wide range of backgrounds.
As part of her creative approach to putting diversity at the center of the entrepreneurial process, Asmaa Malik (2016) has used a framework she calls “The five whys for diversity.” She found that students are excited to encounter a class that includes a diverse representation of entrepreneurs. In her model, Malik encourages students to consider diverse customers throughout the EJ process—while researching, prototyping, and testing a new product, as well as when building a team.
Graduates who have experimented with new approaches to creating, distributing, and monetizing journalism will be well-positioned to contribute to organizational change within journalism institutions.
Syndicate Discussion
What are the best ways to teach and develop entrepreneurial skills among a diverse range of journalism students?
Participants engaged in a creative exchange and coauthorship of shared ideas. During their meetings, they explored solutions to four existential questions: Why, what, how, and to whom should we teach EJ? This led to highlighting three roadblocks to successfully teaching EJ:
A lack of entrepreneurial experience among many faculty members;
Creating and sustaining an entrepreneurial mindset for students;
Journalism students’ resistance to the idea that they need to learn entrepreneurship.
Journalism educators around the world should keep these in mind while implementing and testing several approaches to introducing entrepreneurial education within J-schools. Participants shared a variety of ideas that should be part of EJ teaching, with a preference for experimental and interdisciplinary approaches. They concluded courses and modules should focus on topics such as business strategy, branding, advertising, public relations, audiences, product–market alignment, data, ethics, revenue models, social media platforms, people skills, negotiations, legal frameworks, pitching, self-branding, self-reliance, freelance versus entrepreneurial mindsets, technology assets, and a risk mindset.
Several participants argued educators must teach future journalists how to succeed as entrepreneurs (Browers, 2017). After all, the job market is tight. Journalists in many countries are no longer being paid a living wage. Creating one’s own opportunities is important. Entrepreneurship also develops key life skills and mindsets that can help students navigate this complex professional market. That said, striking a balance between becoming a business builder and nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset is important. Entrepreneurship plays a role in shaping new business models for journalism, and the media industry needs to understand sustainability and vulnerability.
Recommendations
Participants shared a solutions-oriented mindset and came up with five recommendations for J-schools:
Schools should introduce the concepts of EJ early to help students cultivate a robust entrepreneurial mindset. Journalism educators should ensure that entrepreneurship is a core element of the journalism curriculum from the start and that it includes financial, personnel, and resource management tools.
To address the lack of entrepreneurial experience among many journalism educators, schools can curate entrepreneurship resources that are widely available. Programs should also incorporate opportunities for students to practice this mindset through human-centered design and idea development.
As a part of orientation, students need to pitch and embrace the entrepreneurial mindset that is imperative for journalists today. This could include creating media projects and products that serve communities on and off campus.
Journalism schools should foster a culture of entrepreneurship in collaboration with the greater community. Institutions can incorporate the expertise of media entrepreneurs, either as faculty or guest lecturers. Entrepreneurs in residence can provide inspiration as well as tactical guidance to both students and faculty.
Students who complete journalism programs should have a clear sense of how media organizations sustain themselves, how their business models work, and how new products and services might benefit underserved communities. J-schools should demonstrate how to run and sustain a news media organization using the tools of entrepreneurship.
Instructors should be encouraged to draw from experiments in innovation from all over the world.
Educators who teach EJ can effectively help position graduates to be a force for creativity and progress within news organizations. To successfully prepare diverse students for the next era of shifting news industry, business models will require continued innovation in how EJ is taught.
Footnotes
Authors’ Note
Entrepreneurial Journalism: Teaching Innovation & Nurturing an Entrepreneurial Mindset syndicate participants: Annalies Orye, Free University of Brussels, Belgium; Kim Fox, American University of Cairo, Egypt; Turo Uskali, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland; Ed Madison, University of Oregon, USA; Louisa Ha, Bowling Green State University, USA; Olivier Standaert, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium; Kurt Barling, Middlesex University London, UK; Aphrodite Salas, Concordia University, Canada; James Wasajja, University of Kigali, Rwanda; Paulo Nuno Vicente, iNOVA Media Lab, Portugal; Amber Hutchins, Kennesaw State University, USA; Nikolaus Koller, Kuratorium fur Journalistenausbildung, Austria; Inger Munk, Danish School of Media and Journalism, Denmark; Fassy Yusuf, University of Lagos, Nigeria; Anders Lange, Danish School of Media and Journalism, Denmark; Augie Grant, University of South Carolina, USA; Toon Brouwers, University of Applied Science Utrecht, Netherlands; Mary D’Amborsio, Rutgers Univeristy, USA; Patrizia Furlan, University of South Australia, Australia; Margaux Gjurasic, University of Southern California, USA; Mpinti Abaas, Media Challenge Initiative, Uganda; Akuteruz Zaman, Massey University, New Zealand; Brett Popplewell, Carleton University, Canada; Indra de Lanerolle, Jamlab, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; Robert Hernandez, University of Southern California, USA; Jeremaiah Opiniano, University of Santo Tomas—The University of Adelaide, Philippines; and Carol Wicken.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.