How the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program helped me become a better journalist
It offered me a springboard to test my newsletter ‘The Chennai Emailer’
This March 2022, I was one among 32 journalists from 15 nations to be blessed with the opportunity to pursue the 100-day online Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program (EJCP) at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism (City University of New York).
I had a fantastic time learning from amazing instructors, guest speakers, and fellow cohort members. As part of the course, I learned how to create my newsletter — The Chennai Emailer — a local journalism project that brings out original human-interest features and news compilations from Chennai.
I gathered a new set of skills from this ‘mini-MBA for journalists’ that is extremely valuable in an era when newsrooms are undergoing rapid changes to adapt to today’s trends in journalism.
Here’s a list of a few things that will stay close to my heart:
Asking for help is not a bad thing!
I always felt that being a journalist is a lonely job, particularly when you work on a report. But this program made me realize that journalism thrives in collaboration. My cohort members who have worked in a range of news organizations across the globe have taught me the impact that a powerful team can have in producing high-quality journalism. They were super kind to offer exciting ideas as we created our projects.
Likewise, my colleagues at The Hindu BusinessLine, my program mentor John Samuel Raja of howindialives.com, and EJCP’s alumni HR Venkatesh were instrumental to help me learn as much as I could during this program. I believe that you are likely to receive help if you are just honest and talk to someone about the problems you face at work or as you build your venture.
Nurturing a product mindset
I personally feel that journalists who start their careers often focus more on just reporting stories. Writing a report, producing a video documentary, or else a podcast are skills that can be learned through practice. However, it’s crucial to also have a product mindset as it’s essential to see our journalism as a “product.”
As journalists face different challenges in building trust and developing a sustainable newsroom, it’s vital to know our mission statement, our value proposition, figuring out who our audience is, an editorial plan that will work and the ability to monetize. I realized that having at least a basic understanding of all these terms will reflect positively on the journalism we wish to offer to our community.
Knowing and understanding your audience
At times, we may end up writing reports that aren’t needed by our audience as we often forget who our readers are. EJCP made me understand how audience research, crafting a niche content plan, and conducting surveys can help a newsroom to know who they wish to serve.
Our course instructor, Ariel Zirulnick, taught us that serving a niche audience is far more powerful than aiming to reach out to larger generic readers.
Trying new tech
In this program, we were all exposed to some of the best productivity tools to manage our projects and also tools that help us craft great journalism.
From using podcast creation tools like Anchor or Zencastr to Canva for visual designs or work management apps like Coda or Notion, it was fascinating to explore all of them. The coolest thing is that many of these tools are available for free and it’s certainly enough to use the free versions when you start creating your news platform.
Content is the king, yes, but offering a seamless user experience should also be our priority as these tools can help us produce visually appealing, great-quality journalism.
While trying new tools may be exciting, it’s also important not to become too overwhelmed. I remember what Jeremy Caplan, Director of Teaching and Learning of this program, taught us: he said tech tools should be used simply as a means for us to produce better journalism more efficiently.
Being flexible to new ideas
Throughout the program, we were blessed to be exposed to incredible ideas for developing our journalism project, creating a new audience, and charting a business model, among others. We may not know what will and won’t work until and unless we try it out.
As we test these ideas, it is natural for the goal of our news venture/project to change too. I was taught that I need not be afraid if it happens and that I should be flexible. It’s okay to feel frustrated when your plan doesn’t work but never ever hesitate to reach out for help. You will be surprised to find a light bulb moment in the most unexpected scenarios.
Working on scalable goals
Ariel Zirulnick spoke about the importance of first executing achievable goals and charting a concrete plan that helps us build a solid foundation for our newsrooms.
The Membership Puzzle Project is a brilliant material we were fortunate to learn. It’s “a resource hub filled with tools, practical advice, and various case studies around membership models to help address challenges many news organizations now face with trust and sustainability.”
Ariel also taught us the Eisenhower matrix which helped us understand how to manage our time efficiently, prioritize our work goals, and most importantly, celebrate small victories without ever feeling burdened.
Finding your north star
One of the most important takeaways would be the session conducted by Candice Fortman of Outlier Media. She told us to find our north star: the goal we wish to achieve through our journalism.
It’s going to be hard to figure it out but that’s okay, Candice said. It’s important to be brave. Keep working on it. Also, don’t forget to take care of yourself and your mental health.
Her words will stay with me always. Looking back now, I am immensely grateful for the EJCP experience. Today, I am looking forward to the next 100 days and beyond. It’s a challenging yet exciting time to be a journalist!
