Entrepreneurial Journalism Education in the US

Donica Mensing@donicaAcademia.edu / dmensing@unr.edu

Entrepreneurship is the process of creating and implementing innovation-based solutions and responses to economic or societal problems and gaps in the private marketplace.

Mars and Metcalf (2009)

ContextGlobal transition from the industrial age to

the digital information age

40 years of stagnation in the publishing business (Hoag and Seo, 2005)

Economic crisis in journalism organizations

Journalism education that focuses on reinforcing the way things used to be done

Few students will find jobs in traditional news organizations.Journalism education programs continue to grow.The journalism industry is in dire straits.What is our response?

Entrepreneurship offers a theme for energizing journalism education

Questions

Motivations for developing entrepreneurial journalism efforts in journalism education

Major trends in entrepreneurial journalism curricula

What these efforts represent in terms of the future direction of journalism education

Developing literature

An education for independence (Baines and Kennedy, 2010)

Learning from layoffs (Nel, 2010)

Creative destruction (Nee, 2013)

How jschools are helping students learn entrepreneurial journalism skills (Breiner, 2013)

The overall pictureApproximately 30% of US journalism

education programs teach some aspect of entrepreneurial journalism (Becker, Vlad and Kalpen, 2012)

List of 25 relevant journalism education programs (and counting)http://bit.ly/11GsD2L

Strong foundation support (Scripps Howard Foundation/Knight Foundation)

Three emerging models: “traditional classroom teaching and degree programs, innovation laboratories, and partnerships with news publishers and nongovernmental organizations.”(Breiner, 2013)How j-schools are helping students develop entrepreneurial skills

Motivations vary:To save journalism To save students

Many programs focus on graduate students or midcareer professionals, rather than undergraduate students

Some of the largest programs receive multimillion grants to fund their work.Arizona State, City University of New York, Columbia University, University of Southern California, University of North Carolina

Most entrepreneurial courses focus on new product development and revenue generation

Courses are usually electives, generally taken by a small number of students within a program.

Course design is often similar: students work alone or in teams to develop an idea, do market research, create a business plan, build a prototype and pitch it to a potential investor.

However, entrepreneurial concepts and approaches could be embedded in small, creative ways throughout a journalism program – in courses, meetings, activities.

Conclusions

Entrepreneurship is one way to change the “culture of journalism”

Faculty can (and need) to practice entrepreneurship in pedagogy and practices

Entrepreneurial concepts could be more systematically applied in other ways

Entrepreneurial concepts could be applied to:Professional practices (e.g. story forms,

sourcing, interviewing, etc.)

Civic practices (organize, contribute)

Technological practices (new apps, sites)

Economic practices (new forms of revenue)

Pedagogical practices (alternative teaching methods, lessons, assignments)

Questions of assessmentNumber of new ventures created

Success of students in finding and creating their own jobs

New journalistic practices developed

Number of experiments launched

FinallyEntrepreneurial thinking offers a path for

journalism educators to innovate and change

Rather than teaching students in ‘teaching hospitals’ we can help students engage fully on the streets doing the work they imagine

Confining entrepreneurial ways of thinking to a few classes for a few students limits possibilities. Entrepreneurs embrace change; so can we.

Growing list of entrepreneurial journalism programs/classes/ideas. Please add yours.

http://bit.ly/11GsD2L