Adding Relevancy with Media Entrepreneurship Courses
By Tracy Simmons, EdJ contributor
Gonzaga University’s journalism program is strong, but in today’s changing media landscape, it’s not relevant enough.
That’s why, like many j-schools, we’re adding media entrepreneurship to the catalog.
Students still need to know the basics — reporting skills, media law, ethics, literacy — but with newsroom employment falling, up-and-coming journalists need to be able to produce and market their own stories.
Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media 2015 reported newspapers in the U.S. employ 36,700 people. That’s 17,700 less than when I landed my first full-time reporting gig 13 years ago. Things look a little better for local broadcast news, though revenue is unsteady, which means wages have stayed stagnant.
Tomorrow’s reporters not only need writing, multimedia and digital media skills — they need an entrepreneurial spirit.
Meanwhile, Michele McLellan has a growing list of about 340 niche startups on her website, Michele’s List. This shows how so many journalists have embraced innovation. Tomorrow’s reporters not only need writing, multimedia and digital media skills — they need an entrepreneurial spirit.
That spirit can’t be taught, but it seems my classroom is filled with students who want to build something, and I’m guessing your classroom is too. We can, and should, work with that.
And it just so happens it fits well with Gonzaga’s Jesuit mission to cultivate in its students, “the capacities and dispositions for reflective and critical thought, lifelong learning, spiritual growth, ethical discernment, creativity, and innovation.”
Courses in media entrepreneurship will help students across majors prepare for variety of industries — much more than a class in page design will anymore.
Not all the students who go through our journalism program end up working as journalists. And not all students who flow through our building are journalism majors. Courses in media entrepreneurship will help students across majors prepare for variety of industries — much more than a class in page design will anymore.
By teaching media entrepreneurship students learn skills needed to advance professionally in today’s society including creating business models, effective use of digital and social media, fundraising, marketing and ethics. And the best part, for me, is that it’s all in the name of journalism.
At Gonzaga we’re moving in this new direction one class at a time. This semester [spring 2016] we introduced an “Emerging Media” course. The class filled up right away, leaving eager students on a waiting list. Students have been live tweeting, learning how to use their smart phones as storytelling tools and they just finished studying trending podcasts like “Presidential” and, of course, “Serial.”
In the Fall 2016 we’re teaching our first “Media Entrepreneurship” course. I want them to understand all sides of journalism start-ups; big ones like The Texas Trib, and little ones like mine, SpokaneFāVS. I hope they’ll walk away understanding how nonprofits work, as well as for-profits. I want them to learn about the legalities involved, about finding funding, networking, social journalism, multimedia, social media and so much more that I worry about fitting it into one semester. Ultimately I hope they’ll finish the class knowing that if they have a passion for something, and have some ingenuity, they can use these new, germane journalism skills to create something meaningful.
Tracy Simmons is a lecturer at Gonzaga University’s Integrated Media Department who was hired to help rebuild and update the university’s journalism program. She is an award winning journalist specializing in religion reporting, digital entrepreneurship and social journalism. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas and Connecticut. Currently she serves as the executive director of SpokaneFAVS.com, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, WA. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and for the Religion News Service.
