When your environment is changing radically and fast, the attitude with which you approach that change can make all the difference in whether you thrive, survive, or keel over. For journalists, that can mean taking the future of the news business (emphasis intended) into their own hands.
That point has rarely been made more clearly than in a recent exchange that digital media entrepreneur Elizabeth Osder had with students at USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism.
Today Online Journalism Review features a post by Geneva Overholser, the new head of USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism. It’s a wrapup of Osder’s discussion with students.
Overholser reported that Osder refuted one student’s lament that online news business models aren’t working. Then, to figure out which online business models can work, Osder advised, “Start with the impact you want to have. Figure out what audience you need to assemble to have that impact. And what kind of content is needed to do that. Then price it out: How much money do you need to do it?”
According to Overholser, a J-student groaned in reply, “If I wanted to do that, I’d have gone to Marshall (USC’s business school),”
While Osder acknowledged that response as understandable, she also made the point that thinking through the business side of journalism “forces you to be relevant and useful versus arrogant and entitled.”
Yes! I couldn’t have said it better. That’s exactly the reason why everyone involved in the news business and civic/community information field should have a strong awareness of — and at least some direct involvement in — the business side of media. It keeps you in touch with real needs, real people, and real opportunities. Essentially, it keeps you honest. Especially with yourself.
Being involved in the business side of media also keeps you in touch with what kinds of news and information people really value (that is, what they’ll demonstrably support with money or engagement). That’s often quite different from the kind of news and info they might claim — or even believe — is important to them.
Overholser closed with this observation: “Hmmmm. This nostalgia we’re feeling: Is it for The Wall, which guaranteed the purity of our journalism — or for the folks on the other side of it, who had to worry about whether it was read and paid for?”
…By the way, you did hear that right: Online Journalism Review is back. I was dismayed when this pioneering publication was suspended earlier this year. But now OJR has found a new home at the Knight Digital Media Center (also at USC Annenberg). I’m very glad that OJR is back — and that founding editor Robert Niles is still at the helm.
(Disclosure: I consult for the Knight Digital Media Center, including writing for its Total Community Coverage blog, and offering some advice to KDMC about the OJR relaunch.)
