Entrepreneurial Skills Vital
Friday, January 22, 2010
When you think of a journalist, you may typically think of a stereotype created by the movies: a man wearing a long, tan trench coat carrying a notepad in his hand, conveniently running into breaking news around every corner. In today's world, though, this couldn't be farther from the truth. The world of journalism as we know it is changing and so are the skills a journalists needs to possess.
On Friday, January 8th, 2010, CUNY, City University of New York, hosted a conference call for more than two dozen educators around the world. These people may not agree on everything, but they do share one similar goal: to teach entrepreneurial skills to college students who want to become journalists. Not only is it important to have these skills to simply understand the importance of the economics of news, but to better your communication and people skills, which are of high importance as a journalist.
At Arizona State University they are now requiring journalism majors to take entrepreneurship courses to graduate. ASU feels that this will emphasize the importance of journalists possessing entrepreneurship skills that will teach them how to talk with people in other departments, which will then carry over to the work world.
2 comments:
CUNY and ASU are just some of the schools that are teaching their students the truth about journalism in the 21st Century — that today's grads are much less likely to find jobs in institutional settings (a company paying your salary and benefits and leaving you at its mercy as to whether you have a job) and much more likely to work in entrepreneurial settings (the journalists are creating and executing the business plan and earning a living for themselves).
So, underclassmen, think about it this way: You may not much care for business courses, but you're going to need them. I'd suggest you give the Simpson curricula on management and marketing and math a good look. As Tom Friedman said, it's a flat world out there.
BTW, I'd highly suggest a listen to CUNY's Jeff Jarvis on last week's On The Media, where he talks about the school's entrepreneurial journalism program.
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