Beauty and the news: A marriage proposal
My colleagues at DAWNING and I resist talking much about what we do, a stance built on putting the issues first. Any self-reference (a meticulously crafted website, publications with 11 major media, an upcoming book, and a series of exhibits) has been carefully curated to do just that. We have always let our work, where in-depth social science meets journalism and the visual arts, stand out in-front — where it should. What we do is to uncover and artfully communicate issues the very best we can, and try to innovate ways for those living them to take center stage.
So why write this? What changed? In the past 100 days of CUNY’s Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program (EJCP), I’ve benefited from a valuable array of tricks and trade tools, presented generously by industry innovators, but perhaps one crucial thing most of all: a safe communal space for the consistent questioning required of real growth. Students can expect to become more comfortable with questions than answers. In the presence of the faculty and esteemed peers, they are asked to define and redefine on a weekly basis what it is they’re trying to do, who they’re doing it for, why it matters, and how the process can be improved. It was only by putting myself, as a student and founding member of DAWNING, through that encouraging gauntlet that I arrived at exactly why I think organizations like ours should talk about what we do: It’s crucial to how we grow. It was a highly refining and bolstering process. So I hope this can serve as inspiration to other entrepreneurs, students, colleagues, and creators who have shared the same all-too-human doubt: Can we really do this?
DAWNING is perhaps a wildcard venture for EJCP, a 100-day program designed to incubate ideas and skillsets necessary to sustaining entrepreneurial endeavors in journalism, most of which are built on subscriber models. DAWNING is not. We are a business-to-business research and media company that considers itself more of an innovation lab, and we offer our work to the press freely. Our business model, and the way we partner with news media is constantly evolving. But I had faith that the mystery of just how we fit in would reveal itself. Like any program, it is up to the student to define and extract the relevant insights and connections. I extracted a lot. Some of my takeaways about running a venture are hunches-turned-convictions. Others represent insight where before, there was only mystery. They have become the unassailable commandments of running a venture for myself, and DAWNING. I hope they are as insightful as they were refining.
1. Risk is required.
We learned quickly in an early session with Jeff Jarvis that “form follows service.” It is inherently risky to improvise what form your storytelling will take as you go along. But innovating the forms we employ can only materialize out of a fascination with the relational side of news and storytelling: What is the human problem we’re trying to solve and how can we do it in ways that will make other humans feel something? To do so requires both humanity and a sense of joy behind the risk-taking without which others will not rally behind us. As businesses, we must consistently be open to redefining how we work.
2. Business is a human endeavor.
Especially this one. There is no quick journey from struggle to success, and it requires your heart. The enormous vulnerability of sailing into the unknown, against the headwinds of tradition, will evoke both your humanity and deep doubt. That healthy doubt must dovetail with true resilience, and they are inherent of any worthy human endeavor.
3. Worthy endeavors require a heart.
You cannot run a venture without one. It’s simply too risky. Sure, you risk having your heart broken, but without actual love for the thing you do and the people you serve, the work is simply too demanding to be met with anything less. Your colleagues, daily work, and projects become part of your relational life, to which you owe the similar creativity and sensitivity of any loving partnership. I was moved and motivated by the obvious expressions of heart behind each endeavor in this cohort, with a strong nod to the CUNY faculty and its eye for quality students.
4. Love must be expressed healthily.
In other words, we have to develop our entrepreneurial love-children into healthy adults. They need to take care of (sustain) themselves, and have healthy built-in outlets for inevitable frustration. Building a structure and strategy to support the growth of companies while supporting the health of its individuals is the only route to sustaining them. Our capacity for self-care, self-respect, and ability to compartmentalize, or downright step away when needed, are necessary to maintaining our (relationship to) business.
5. Define what you do, and stand up for it.
The way you talk about what you do defines how you do it. Make it specific. For example, DAWNING is a for-hire research and media company committed to shining light on social and environmental issues. Our mission is to address the major information gap between international research, the communities it focuses on, and the journalism ecosystem. We do it by designing interdisciplinary projects that create valuable feedback loops of research, community participation, and multi-platform storytelling that can push the ball forward on global development issues more effectively. We know what we do, and what we don’t, and we’re proud of it.
6. Beauty is an ethical commitment.
It is DAWNING’s mission to marry the facts with art. I am more on-fire than ever about the necessity of this. Storytellers must frame the facts carefully in ways that are both true and engaging. To maintain our attention, and, furthermore, move us to action, the crucial issues of our time must intermingle with the highest heights of our sensory experience. This is where innovation comes in. Without the skills and sensibilities required to officiate this type of marriage, we are wasting the facts we are entrusted with and people’s time.
7. Without community, we fail.
It’s why this program represents a coveted touchstone in my career, and why I decided to write this: as an affirmation of the power of community. The EJCP community I became a part of now constitutes an ever-widening circle of trust, in my colleagues, in my business, and in myself. Both doubt and confidence tend to become overblown in isolation. But in the process of sharing and testing those doubts and faiths, we form them into something new: resolve. Resolve that refines and defines who you are, the knowledge of what you can and can’t do, and the actionable steps ahead. Similarly, the marriage of fact and beauty that DAWNING proposes require community to make them real. The encouragement I’ve received as a member of this cohort only strengthens that stance, and the community behind it. I’m grateful to my EJCP instructors, mentors and colleagues for fostering the necessary circle of trust to help me move forward the ideas that might have otherwise stagnated in isolation, and strengthening those that already existed.
In the end, the ideas won’t come if we’re not having fun. This is a fun program, highly resourceful, and hell-bent on supporting the process of innovation. I hope these commandments support yours.
