Journalism students need to know business
Couldn't agree more with Pat Thornton on that one.
And I've got some skin in this game. Not only is my son, Colin, a junior in the Journalism School at the University of Montana, but LexBlog is going to be employing a fair amount of journalism grads and interns in the years ahead.
Rob LaGatta, a senior journalism student Seattle University has been interning with us for the last year. He may have earned himself a position on graduation by his desire to learn business.
Problem for Seattle U is that he didn't learn the first thing about business or entrepreneurialism while he in school. Rob and his fellow grads may have learned journalism skills but that ain't going to pay the rent as he tells me he isn't sure if anyone in his class has a journalism job upon graduation.
Pat makes some excellent points.
Journalism needs enterprising journalists to think of new ventures to modernize journalism. Opportunities in journalism will increasingly be from entrepreneurial routes as the mainstream media continues to wither away from obsolescence....... Traditional media companies are failing, journalists don't understand how to make compelling products and new media ventures are beginning to take over. That's where solid entrepreneurial skills come in.
The opportunities are out there, they're just different.
The opportunities for journalists are growing, not shrinking. The traditional, MSM routes are rapidly shrinking, but the avenues for business savvy, enterprising young journalists are ever expanding.Journalism schools need to give students the skills needed to succeeded in modern journalism. That means a little business sense is now needed.
We've got another Seattle U j-school student joining LexBlog as an intern this week. I feel good not only about the contributions she'll make to our mission of empowering lawyers through publishing, but also about what she'll learn about the business of journalism today.
As a former j-school grad from Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) in 2007, I can definitely attest to the lack of entrepreneurial training I received. I really wasn't sure what I could do in journalism and am now in law school pursuing a different field. I made the decision to enter law during third year when I realized I didn't want to slog away at a newspaper. At that time I was very narrow minded as to the possibilities of the trade. It wasn't until I reached fourth year that I discovered the world outside of newspapers--PR, marketing, web--that really provides the majority of jobs.
I think it really comes down to who they have teaching the programs. All my professors were wonderful with excellent credentials, but they also were mainly from the traditional areas of print, radio and broadcast. They would each have over 20 years experience in a traditional field, but couldn't share much about what else was truly out there.
Sometimes I felt the school had the view that j-school produces traditional journalists and if you want to do something else you have to figure it out yourself.