What journalism schools can and can’t teach students

Versión en español aquí. A master’s degree in English literature might not seem an ideal preparation for a career as a business journalist. Actually it served me well, for all the reasons given by advocates of a liberal arts education.  But my own experience seems to have little to do with what the journalism job […]

Read More »

My MOOC experience and what it means

Versión en español aquí. If you want to study journalism, you have more choices today, at lower cost, and of higher quality than ever. Sometimes you will get that at a university and sometimes not. That represents a challenge for universities. In a lecture at a journalism conference in Puebla, Mexico, I described a personal […]

Read More »

Bezos purchase of Post has parallels in China

Versión en español aquí. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos isn’t the only e-commerce billionaire making news with acquisitions. Jack Ma, chairman of China’s e-commerce leader, Alibaba, has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a Twitter-like microblogging service and a mapping service. Both of these giants have been bolting on companies that can help them gain synergies […]

Read More »

5 dirty words journalists have to learn to say without blushing

Versión en español aquí.Journalism is the best job in the world, and working with journalists is fun. They’re funny, irreverent, intelligent and excellent storytellers. Still, as a group we tend to be arrogant, self-righteous and holier-than-thou (I include myself in this criticism). We tend to view ourselves as high priests of an exclusive profession and […]

Read More »

10 entrepreneurs test new style of learning

Tenth in a series on teaching entrepreneurial journalism. Parts of this post are adapted from an article originally published in Revista Mexicana de Comunicación. Latin American journalists have a great thirst for establishing independent media. Many of them are tired of working for low pay at media outlets that protect the friends and punish the […]

Read More »

How to overcome objections, get meetings with funders

More news organizations are trying to adopt a nonprofit model, but they likely have no experience in fundraising. They might want to look at Andy Robinson’s book “How to Raise $500 to $5,000 from Almost Anyone.” As someone who did fundraising on many boards, I can say that Robinson knows the territory. The website for nonprofits Guidestar ran an […]

Read More »

WeChat as social media strategy for news

Once again I find myself learning new things from my students here in China. The social media marketing strategies they proposed in class included techniques and platforms I was ignorant of. Their assignment was to recommend a strategy for a news organization or business that they would like to work for. They chose, among others, […]

Read More »