EJCP: 90 Days of Challenge & Growth
Finding Myself As a Journalist & an Entrepreneur
If you had told me a year ago that I would be working on launching my very own podcast on my birthday in 2022, I would have laughed in your face. Uproariously.
At the time, I was in deep in the throes of career angst. Over a decade’s experience in print journalism had suddenly meant little when the pandemic hit in 2020, just four months after I quit my job of six years. Suddenly, I found myself unmoored, disillusioned, and fatigued. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know how to be a journalist anymore. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be one, given how much my profession was changing, most of it not to my liking.
However, receiving a scholarship to attend the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program (EJCP) at City University New York’s (CUNY) Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, rescued me.
It changed the way I thought about being a creator.
#1 You are more than you think you are
The program doesn’t tell you how to be a journalist. Instead, it focuses on helping you pivot, and gives you the confidence and tools to learn how be a journalist in this new media landscape. Many of us went in with a germ of an idea, while others had products — whether newsletters, podcasts, or even collectives — that they had been working on. The program took all of our ideas, work, and experience, and gave us a whole new way of thinking about it.
The real value of this program isn’t in the myriad apps and technologies you learn to use, the (frankly) fantastic lectures with instructors, or even the brilliant resources and reading materials you have access to. It’s in the community — of your colleagues, your instructors, alumni, fellow creators — that you build along the way.
#2 Don’t overthink, just do
EJCP challenges your beliefs about your work, and yourself. It started with Anita Zielina, Director of Strategic Initiatives at CUNY’s words, ‘Perfect is the enemy of good.’ As a chronic perfectionist, and therefore, master procrastinator, this was the jolt I needed to stop worrying and start creating. As I moved through the program, Anita’s words resonated with me at various points. Jeff Jarvis’s radical, big-picture thoughts about journalism, too, often made me think about what I was doing, and how and why I would have to step back and zoom out if I wanted to get somewhere.
Amanda McLoughlin, my mentor, was a wonderful listener and teacher, taking me through the nuts and bolts of recording my first podcast. She spent considerable time helping me get over my fears of the medium itself, while taking me through the basics of recording and editing an episode, and helped me think about a long-term plan.
#3 You can become sustainable
Journalists are great at creating, not often at selling. Ariel Zirulnick’s detailed (and I mean DETAILED) sessions on actually monetizing our work via membership, were extremely useful to get started on building a community, and creating a sustainable product. Ariel spent a significant amount of time teaching us to think about our value proposition, our audience, and our eventual goals. It was immensely helpful in thinking about myself as a creator, not just a journalist.
From Dan Oshinsky, I learned that email could be used to build long-lasting relationships with readers, which can be converted into subscription rupees. I now plan to use his strategies to link my podcast with a newsletter and reach a wider audience.
#4 Ambition is possible
‘I want to own an NBA team.’ These words from Bola Awoniyi, co-founder and publisher of Black Ballad — an award-winning digital lifestyle subscription that aims to help black women in Britain live their best lives — changed the way I thought about myself. Sure, I wanted to spark conversation around — and normalize the idea of — women with disabilities and their love and intimacy needs, but there was no need to think about it as separate from a full-fledged business. Ambition can co-exist with a desire to change the world — an idea that may sound fairly obvious, but often isn’t, to journalists who are taught to think only about the greater good.
#5 Learn to listen, and listen to learn. Then, do
Our lead instructor, Jeremy Caplan, helped me workshop and work through my idea several times, always asking the right questions about my product, and pushing me to talk to my audience to find out what they want. Along with a giant push from creators-in-residence Hillary Frey and Yvonne Leow, it was Jeremy’s specific tips, questions, and recommended readings that were instrumental in helping me to snap out of my decision paralysis, and just STARTING. I cannot overstate the importance of their intentional advice to me, and the way it gave me the belief to not quit before I got to the starting line, because I was so afraid of what people might have to say about my idea.
A new you
EJCP is a such a well-organized, structured, kind, fun, supportive, and inclusive environment that growth is inevitable at the end of it. Whether it’s a minimum viable product, better presentation skills, increased confidence, or even just an affinity for — and ability to — navigate technology better, you will leave this 100-day bootcamp transformed in some way. Among other things, it made me a more engaged listener and learner, gave me a community of some of the brightest, most brilliant journalists across the world, and showed me that I can choose my own path to being a creator. And for that, I will always be grateful.
My podcast, Come As You Are, where I interview women with disabilities about their experiences of love, sex, dating, and intimacy, is going to be on Sochcast.com, as well as Spotify and Apple Podcasts, on September 26. Do listen, and share your feedback. Thank you!
