Universities can lead in incubation of new media models

Ninth in a series on entrepreneurial journalism programs at universities and media organizations. 

Mark Briggs, the man who wrote the book about entrepreneurial journalism, believes that universities are among the best places to experiment with new business models for news.

Universities embrace experimentation and risk-taking, he says. "Those are two traits that are not very inherent in legacy news organizations. That's why I've always felt that the university was in a prime position to be the startup incubator for testing new ideas in digital news and publishing."

He favors the model of a lab where students are encouraged to propose new products and applications and try them out on real audiences. Since the students have no investment in the old ways of doing things, they can approach some of the problems facing media organizations with an open mind. 

Mark Briggs: create labs for journalism innovation

Versión en español aquí.

The dilemma for journalism schools dealing with rapid technological change is to decide whether what they are teaching today will be relevant a few years from now.

Many of the social media tools that are transforming journalism and society did not even exist just five years ago, said Mark Briggs, author of "Entrepreneurial Journalism."

"What should journalism schools be teaching five years from now?" he asked during a lecture to students and faculty at Tsinghua University Dec. 14. It is hard to predict, he admitted. His last three jobs -- managing websites for newspapers and a TV station -- did not exist when he was in journalism school. How can we prepare students today for jobs that do not yet exist?

In an environment of rapid technological change, he says, journalism educators need to do at least four things:

You don't need all the skills to get started

Entrepreneurial journalists have a tough job.

They need skills not only in journalism but marketing, technology, sales, managing online communities and basic accounting, among other things. Fortunately, they don't need to have all the skills mastered at once.

Start small, but start

This is one of the takeaways from entrepreneurs profiled in Mark Briggs's book “Entrepreneurial Journalism: How To Build What's Next for News.” 

The profiles should give hope to beginners because the founders of successful web ventures such as Paid Content, Talking Points Memo and West Seattle Blog started small and gradually built their sites into authoritative sources in their respective niches.

Making money Part I: Mark Briggs

This weekend I spent a day and a half participating online in NewsU's Revenue Camp for Journalism Entrepreneurs, an intense session on some of the new ways journalists are making money on the Web. (The entire course will be available to view online in a few days; find Twitter comment at #revcamp.)

One of the key presenters was Mark Briggs, director of digital media at King 5 TV in Seattle and the author of Entrepreneurial Journalism: How to Build What's Next for News.

Briggs has used a case-study method that is perfect for this new world of journalism in which the models are still being invented.