Countries wary of Internet, despite economic benefits

Reed Hundt

A single digital marketplace where ideas and goods flow freely across borders offers great potential for economic growth. It also makes many national leaders worry about loss of control of their people and culture.

Whether and how to control the Internet is the biggest unanswered question facing countries today, said Reed Hundt, who helped develop many of the policies that govern the web when he was chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in the 1990s.

He made his comments Sept. 24 during a lively discussion at Tsinghua University School of Journalism and Communication. Students argued about whether to censor web material such as the video that insulted the prophet Muhammad and led to anti-U.S. demonstrations and violence in several Islamic countries.

Journalism schools could re-invent the industry

Newton (Knight Foundation

photo)

(Versión en español aquí.)

University journalism programs are not changing fast enough to meet the needs of students entering an industry in which job opportunities lie in ventures that are entrepreneurial and multimedia, say experts writing a series of articles for Nieman Lab.

One of the commentators is Eric Newton, who says it is not enough to make changes every few years; schools need to embrace a culture of continuous change or rapidly become irrelevant.

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.