In class last Friday, Professor Selvin made an interesting point concerning the proposed staff cuts we’ve all been hearing about set to take place at the New York Times this week.

I just thought it was worth reiterating—maybe we can get a bit of a discussion going on this. As always, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.

So, it seems that Times Executive Editor Bill Keller has fallen short of his goal of clipping 100 newsroom jobs off the payroll this year. According to the New York Post, it seems as though only 50 unionized newsroom employees agreed to take buyouts so far. Tomorrow, Times executives will be forced to make the choice for the remaining lot who have not yet made a decision by the Monday deadline.

In addition, according to the New York Observer, the Times staff plans on cutting an estimated 70 of its blogs from the homepage.

Cue Rupert Murdoch, the quintessential media boogeyman who always seems to be lurking behind every corner of the news industry. This April, the News Corp. giant plans to launch a New York City edition of his Wall Street Journal headed by John Seeley, a former editor of the New York Sun. The $15 million price tag will go towards the creation of a sparkling new newsroom and marketing staff.

With the new staff covering a range of topics from local politics to culture and sports, things could soon get heated between the Wall Street Journal and the Times.

On that note, who knows what other news organizations will attempt similar ventures in the future? I mean, the Wall Street Journal has a stake in the San Francisco Bay area and the New York Times launched its Chicago edition just last month.

I also remember reading not too long ago about a Washington-based news site that planned to compete with the Washington Post on a local level, although the name escapes me (most likely because I remember reading that no one had yet named it). How long will it be before the Washington Post dips its feet in the New York scene, as well? How long will it be until Patch.com takes over the world?

With the Times Metro section reduced to a greatly distilled version of its former self and New York Newsday long dead, one has to wonder what this will mean for the future of journalism in New York City?

Will those employees squeezed out of the Times as early as tomorrow morning find a new home with Seeley and Murdoch and compete directly with their former colleagues and editing staff?

Hmm.

Things could soon get very interesting on the streets of New York.

I found this one floating around in the Fishbowl the other day and figured I’d weigh in.

So, it seems that sometime in this past year, the Pulitzer Prize Committee acknowledged that perhaps not all material pushed out of a blog server is absolute garbage—excellent news for those of us in the hollows of cyberspace currently uninsured by a paper-and-ink justification of trustworthiness.

A recent modification to the Pulitzer rules states that now “entries for journalism awards must be based on material coming from a text-based United States newspaper or news site that publishes at least weekly during the calendar year,” thereby expanding eligibility to online contributors.

Based on the number of negative comments below the article, however, it seems as though some people very clearly associate the rise of the blogosphere with the inevitable violent death of ‘good’ journalism. I disagree.

The eligibility update was not only a step in the right direction, but entirely necessary for the brand of journalism I believe will come to dominate the industry in the future.

Again, this brings me to the whole ‘niche site’ school of thought. I’m sure I’ve brought this up at least a half dozen times by now, and for those of you who have been following this blog with any sense of regularity, I’m sure that all 0.5 of you are probably a little sick of hearing me talk about it.

I just can’t seem to disconnect online contributors from my vision of the future of journalism—with the gradual rise of reporter-citizen interactivity, homepage customization and social media-driven brand-making, it seems as though the days of prominent ‘bloggerism’ really aren’t too far off.

Now I get to bore you with my favorite theory again!

I love the idea of subscription-based niche news sites—absolutely love it. I think that people would put up money for something like this for the same reasons that they pluck magazines off newsstands (granted, they seem to be doing a lot less of this lately, but I’m still optimistic).

Obviously, the staffs of niche organizations would be significantly smaller than those of major dailies, but I don’t think that they would really need to be tremendous. Investigative hub ProPublica, for example, has some 32 fulltime reporters…I’m not sure if they’re planning to expand, but a tightly focused niche outlet would likely need even less than that to pull off something readable.

These people (however many) would saturate the coverage of one particular topic with a battery of thorough, well-crafted stories that would help to establish that essential reader-outlet trust. In other words, reporters would become quasi-gurus of a topic and write about one segment of that topic with incomparable knowledge, detail and insight.

Perhaps these niche sites would eventually join together to create some kind of gigantic online newspaper with independently operated sections, but I’m not a hundred percent sure how that would work.

Anyway, I suppose I’m wandering a bit. My point is that I’m basing this idea off of ideas that I’m already seeing take shape…and this new modification to the Pulitzer rules would open the door for a lot of great online niches already out there. Think about all the talent we have out there. ProPublica is basically trying to perpetuate the legacy of Bob Greene, Politico’s keeping an eye on the Hill…even the Huffington Post prompted “bittergate” (HuffPost is not a niche organization per se, but nonetheless boasts a very unique business model).

And many of these organizations still have a lot of growth potential.

I mean, ProPublica is led by a former Wall Street Journal editor and a former investigative editor of the New York Times.

The potential for Pulitzer-worthy journalism is out there. Personally, I’m looking forward to the day one of these niche sites claims a win.

Cheer up, fellow journalists! Newspaper companies may actually be holding onto their audiences with the romantic lure of their bulky ink-stained bundles of joy after all.

A recent Scarborough Research study found that an average of 74 percent of adults in the United States read a newspaper at some point in the past week, while 10 percent more college grads and/or those racking up six figure incomes did the same.

Oh, boy. Put down that Kleenex.

That odd sun-splotched patch of optimism we’ve so desperately needed in the bleak desert of the chronic bad news that is the media industry has finally arrived!

I think.

Maybe?

Uhh..

The sad truth is, I’m still left with an unsettling amount of unanswered questions after reading the details.

First of all, I’d be really curious about the reading habits of younger consumers in particular.

While it’s certainly nice that the majority of American adults (at least, the majority of those who Scarborough got a hold of) are actually sitting down to read the paper, (or digitized fraternal twin) to what extent was the younger generation represented here?

On what age brackets in particular did the researchers focus for this study?

I mean, my generation is essentially going to responsible for carrying on the tradition of reading news the ‘old-fashioned,’ non-blogger-assisted pattern of news consumption…if they are so inclined. Some statistic on the news consumption habits of my peers undoubtedly would have been helpful, or at the very least, interesting.

Just from personal observations, (I have by no means attempted any form of scientific research and, admittedly, nor do I plan) it doesn’t seem like a great amount of my non-journalism peers aren’t really ‘up’ on current events.

Not long ago, I heard what I thought was a particularly well-done David Letterman Top Ten List on the radio during my regularly agonizing drive to campus for an eight a.m. class. The topic: ‘Least Popular Musical Standards,” a cleverly written series of parodies of classic big band tunes interspersed with snippets from major news stories.

Anyway, the events in the lame little songs (sung by Gramy Award winning artist Michael Buble, who I assume had some sort of album coming out at the time( weren’t exactly what I’d call trivial–Web-surfing Northwest Airlines pilots, president Obama’s candid denunciation of Kanye West and of course, that bizarre balloon incident that took place in Colorado.

I eagerly sent it off to my boyfriend, a chemical and biomedical engineering major, and half the references went right over his head. Really. You could almost hear the audible ‘swoosh.’

My best friend’s sister, likewise, seemed to be unaware of the fact that the Senate might want to have some sort of say in healthcare reform after the bill passed in the House…as evidenced by an overly enthusiastic Facebook message.

I always have to laugh to myself when a professor takes a hand count of everyone in class who reads the print version of the newspaper while he or she is standing in the middle of a journalism class. It’s even more amusing when he or she acts as though the high number of raised hands is realistically any consolation.

I mean, come on. Many of us are practically bribed into reading the thing with the possibility of a god-awful news quiz grade. Initially, I was a part of this group, I’ll admit. Now, as much as I enjoy my daily dosage of the Times, I still read the whole thing online for free.

Even so, I’d be interested in knowing how many 18 to 24-year-olds read the paper on a daily basis. This group, after all, is going to be the main consumer group in an ever-changing market. It would certainly be nice to know what they think.

Then, there’s the financial issue. When I read this article, I thought exactly what most of you probably thought initially: ‘Great. So, 74 percent of people are actually doing something to educate themselves. How in God’s name is that going to make money?’

Researchers claim that this exulted 74 percent read either the print or online version of a newspaper at least once in the past week. However, I’d really love to know how many people actually paid for that content?

Who’s to say that the majority of these people didn’t just read something that a friend e-mailed to them, or grazed over a few articles on the digital version of the the wall Street Journal before they hit the almighty pay wall?

In that sense, I’d really like to know exactly how committed these readers were to consuming news. Did this particular group of people read the paper (or digital alternative) only once a week or five times a week? Would they actually be willing to spend money on a subscription for something that they only glance over fleetingly, or was this a group of diehard news junkies who would be willing to pay with their first born?

Once industry executives (or budding entrepreneurs) find concrete answers to those questions and find a way to monetize online news without alienating the majority of their readership, they’ll be back in business.

And thus, all will be well in the kingdom of Printopia….

or at least, the online version.

Screenshot: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food-network-magazine/package/index.html

It’s that time of year again!

No, no.

Not Thanksgiving…although it is safe to say that one thing I’m certainly not thankful for this year is the dismal journalism course list for spring 2010, to which I was actually referring in my (mildly sarcastic) opening sentence.

Yes, it’s officially enrollment time here at Stony Brook—a two-week period of anxiety, compromise or momentary delight, depending, I guess, on whether you happened to get lucky with your enrollment appointment.

For journalism students, it’s also become sort of a viewing window to the struggle between the journalism department and the budget office, and from what I understand, the journalism department is about to be the budget’s latest K-O.

The latest casualties seem to be the required JRN 330’s, the three-credit ‘nichey’ sort of classes that zero in on one element of reporting. Last semester, I vividly recall seeing Business Reporting, Science and Health Reporting, Sports Reporting and Narrative Journalism (formerly Feature Writing) in the course catalog, mainly because I’m still partly scarred by the fact that I got shut out of Narrative for the second semester in a row.

This year, my choices were limited to either Narrative or Sports Reporting, a less than exhilarating prospect for someone who can only name two players on the New York Yankees, and this, I say, is incredibly disappointing.

After being bombarded with myriad PowerPoint presentations on emerging niche sites, (GlobalPost, Bitmob, ProPublica and the like) I’m pretty much of the notion that subscription-based niche sites are going to be the thing wherein we’ll catch the conscience of the publisher.

I’m a huge advocate of the idea of concentrating expertise and saturating the coverage in one particular area. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the fact that ‘concentrated’ courses are suffering is driving me moderately insane.

If you want evidence of the rising ‘niche’ trend, check out Folio’s analysis of the top 15 magazine launches this year.

First of all, this post was surprising to me because it basically kills popular opinion.

All semester long, I’ve been hearing that we should basically hold a mass funeral for all print magazines—the name Condé Nast has become, at least amongst Journalism 301 students, more notorious than that of Kanye West.

Let’s get something straight—I’m not saying that it is in any way amazing or surprising that the top 15 launches focus on specific niches.

That in itself isn’t cause for alarm—after all, the packaging of a narrow subject matter between glossy pages and subject-specific advertisements is essentially the purpose of a magazine.

One need not look further than Vogue to understand that.

The thing that surprised me, however, was how truly ‘nichey’ these new titles actually were.

The monumental thing about them was that they essentially focused on a subject that was really a small fragment of a much broader topic—they each created a distinct market for themselves by blanketing the coverage of an area that might escape notably deep or mainstream coverage.

In this sense, it doesn’t surprise me at all that the top honors went to Food Network Magazine—that’s really about as ‘nichey,’ and at the same time, as mainstream as it probably gets in this industry.

According to the Folio article, the success has been pretty staggering, as well as evidential of the fact that you really shouldn’t underestimate the strength of a woman in an apron. After all, even Martha Stewart spent some time in the ‘joint.’

“No other magazine launch can match what Food Network did this last year.  In such a short period of time the magazine circulation jumped to over one million. It took Gourmet 74 years to reach close to a million circulation. When I asked publisher Vicki Wellington where she expects the magazine to be in five years, she jokingly said, “achieving world domination.”

Like many of you, I’m sure, I have a mother who is borderline obsessed with the Food Network. That said, I’m about 90 percent positive that Channel 66 runs more often in my household than any of the major news networks (I admit it—I watch broadcasts online).

Maybe, in that sense, it’s a question of finding a print journalism ‘celebrity.’

As a country, I think it’s pretty clear that we have an unhealthy obsession with fame (*ahem* Perez Hilton *ahem). In a music class my freshman year, my professor asked us for our input on how to go about making classical music more mainstream and appealing to today’s youth. Interestingly enough, one of my classmates suggested that what the realm of the symphony orchestra or the opera needs is a true celebrity…a “hot violinist,” I believe, is how he phrased it.

That said, I’m pretty confident that Paula Deen will be able to take over the world, not unlike a ham-wielding version of Oprah Winfrey.  

But, I digress.

Other top publications on Folio’s list were just as niche-oriented. Music magazine Blurt, for example, focuses on independent groups. According to the article, this type of publication, which is, coincidentally, exactly the kind of publication I dream of working for, could have real staying power.

“The day that folks will stop practicing in garages and launching music bands via You Tube and other social networks sites,” wrote Samir “Mr. Magazine” Husni, “will be the day that music magazines aimed at the underground music groups will cease to exist.”

Hmm. So, there’s hope. 

Meanwhile, new title “Guitar Aficionado” celebrates “guitars and the relationship we have with the instrument,” as opposed to drooling over various well-known guitar gods or reading more like an instruction manual, while “Rebel Ink,” a tattoo zine describes not the tattoos themselves, but the people they garishly decorate.

Even the Dog Whisperer is cashing in.

Case in point: I really don’t think that this is the time to cut back on ‘niche’ classes in the journalism department. If anything, the powers that be should be stepping up their efforts to make classes like these a more dominant theme of the major…after all, there is a very real possibility that the future of the industry could involve an abundance of niches and, as the analysis suggests, super niches.

If I were to graduate from the safe haven of the journalism school this December, I’m sure that my first move, before I even made any valid attempt to find a job—or, yes, even start my own business, Michael Rosenblum–would involve unadulterated panic.

After all, the news briefings haven’t really done much to boost my morale.

All we’ve been hearing lately are the words “layoffs,” “buyouts” and, subsequently, “print media apocalypse” while all the facts in between regarding the specifics slowly but surely start to sound like the incomprehensible teacher from Charlie Brown. It’s like they’re on a constant loop.

It’s sort of like a broken record broken record…the scratched up soundtrack of the journalism industry.

If I had to find a job one month from now, however, I could definitely see myself contributing to—or, even launching my own—niche news Web site. I’ve always really enjoyed the challenge of trying to accurately describe the quality of a sound—why not write for a music hub?

In the future, I believe that the culture of the generalist is going to evaporate—just as general interest print outlets all same to be in an advanced state of a terminal illness, so too will the general interest reporter gradually fade.

The fact is that more and more people are passively grazing on Internet news rather than thoughtlessly chewing on every last bit of the newspaper as though it were a homework assignment. They are increasingly taking it upon themselves to decide what is important to them—beats, in short, are becoming blogs.

The established general interest newspaper is taking on a much narrower focus online. The Internet is a wonderful canvas upon which innovators can develop a secure concentration in one particular area of coverage, (health, science, politics, investigative journalism) and provide consumers with a complete collection of articles on any one topic in which they are interested.

In short, the Internet saves a reader from having to handle a print paper in its bulky entirety and strip it bare of the sections that they would actually be interested in reading.

We see this in the emergence of hyperlocal blogs. New York City has become a sliced-up planarian of locally-fixated news hubs. Honestly, I think that this concept, at least to some degree, will help the concept of good journalism to sustain itself.

One benefit is that there is no need to pay a huge staff dispersed in different bureaus. Reporters will simply saturate the coverage in one particular area of news (music, arts, science, etc.). In addition, it is still possible to get ‘capital J’ journalists on stories—they can still be active contributors in this system, although they may not necessarily work for ‘yesterday’s newspaper that had expansive bureaus in Iraq, New York and Southeast Asia.

In short, I could see myself working for an online niche publication that caters to my individual interests and writing abilities. Not only do I think that this would be extremely enjoyable, but it’s also the direction that journalism might take in the future, although I’m not yet sure to what extent this change would occur in the news ecosystem.

Photo: http://www.digitalmediatraining.com/media/graphics/products/instructor_pic/rosenblum.jpg

Michael Rosenblum:

Rosenblum seems to be in the business of forging an international network of photogs and information-hungry, yet perhaps incongruously low-tech, one-man band setups. This, as you can imagine, drastically lowers production costs while simultaneously yielding vast amounts of content—due to barely there operating costs, roughly 85 percent of the revenue is pumped into the editorial side, Rosenblum said, which has resulted in the incorporation of this style into a dense bloc of news outlets, including NY1, the New York Times Television, the BBC and Current TV. The lesson, Rosenblum said, is that millions of people are not only willing to make content, but straightforwardly want to do so.

Points for discussion: If millions of people are involved in this hands-on, inexpensive, open-to-all brand of journalism however, how will the increased competition shape the field of journalism? What qualities will determine the best content producer? What will it take to be successful using this model in order to edge out all competitors? Will ‘socially important’ pieces survive, or will they be outwardly replaced by interesting color stories that may have no intrinsic ‘value?’

Rosenblum criticized the Columbia University School of Journalism report on the future of journalism, which stated that major media outlets need to seek financial help from government subsidies or foundation support. He further stated that in the current system, student journalists are manufactured as “good employees” who graduate with the expectation of working under an omnipresent minority of businesspeople, the mysterious ways and methods of whom they will never fully understand for as long as they remain wary of them—in short, they tend to become sort of hopeless, always at the mercy of an outside party in terms of their financial wellbeing. Rosenblum, therefore, believes that journalisms need to eliminate their phobias of the business realm and, in his words, “own the Web and the technology.”

He encouraged his audience to raise their “own money if [they] think something is important,” and to avoid idly waiting for someone else to create it for them.

Points for discussion: Will this change the content of journalism as we now know it? In what ways? Will this be an asset or a detriment to the public as a whole?

Photo: http://www.magazine.org/userdata/content/images/22823/Farnham,%20Brian.JPG

Brian Farnham:

Farnham clearly embraces the potential of local news dissemination as a business model. Although the intent is to eventually start generating some sort of sustainable revenue, this localized approach does have greater implications. Small businesses, for example, stand to benefit tremendously from the advertising services of Patch—Patch now features a “Directory,” or digital yellow pages that offers free listings for community businesses—data fields essentially pull information about the business and yields an SEO-friendly advertisement free of charge to the business owner. Two of the goals of Patch, Farnham said, are to “educate small communities about online advertising” and “examine what a community is, what it wants to know about itself.”

Points for discussion: How will this change consumers’ views about what news is? Will people pay attention to local and national news equally if the Patch model takes hold, or will one supersede the other? How are Patch services better than those provided by a traditional local paper?

Farnham currently relies on local editors at Patch hubs who take on a lot of the workload themselves in terms of making news judgments and calling on freelancers to help with coverage of the community. Several unsolved problems, however, currently exist with this model. How, for example, does one define a ‘community?’ How far outside of town borders can a local reporter reach without confusing the reader about what neighborhood he or she is covering? In addition, when editors post personal profiles on Patch, no one is quite sure how much information is quite appropriate to reveal about oneself. Farnham said that he hoped that dissatisfaction with some aspect of an editor’s profile would generate a comment from the offended party, which, in turn, would breed conversation.

Points for discussion: how will a greater ‘conversational’ element change the face of journalism? How diligently should local reporters stay in town borders?

2) How exactly does one launch a Patch division in his or her community? What are the necessary steps? How does an interested party go about assembling a team of working journalists within the community?

3) How large is a typical community staff? How does the pay compare to say, a journalist working at a local print paper?

4) Right now, it seems like Patch is concentrated in one specific region. Do you hope to achieve a more national focus in the future, and how do you plan on accomplishing that?

Today, the journalism department of Washington and Lee University will host its biannual Washington and Lee Journalism Ethics Institute, a two-day examination of the myriad moral challenges facing media professionals in the terrifying ‘real world’ of editorial decision-making.

In past years, the University has pulled esteemed working journalists from the dense briar patch of business-driven morality and paraded them before hordes of students as living case studies of what, in most cases, one could or should do when faced with a seemingly unsolvable ethical equation in his or her line of work.

While keynote speaker positions have generally gone to quasi-superheroes of the industry, however, this year’s honors will go to none other than—drum roll, please—former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair.

I’m sure that many of you already know why the “former” part is significant.

Many in the industry likely still see Blair as somewhat of a one-man demolition derby who essentially flattened the tenets of ‘good’ journalism with a monster-truck sized predilection for fabrication.

Apparently, Blair has become a life coach since the days of essentially making up lives himself for the sake of perpetuating his career…or rather, for the sake of feeding a mind-numbing addiction for the former.

According to this recent N.P.R. piece, Blair’s habitual, well…lying, was really the quintessential monkey on his back.

“I remember crossing that line and telling myself, ‘Man, I am not going to do that again,’” he said. “Tomorrow, I’m going back on the side of angels and I’m going to, you know, do things the way they are supposed to be done.’”

In 2003, Blair’s exposure forced the Times to yank several dozen fabricated or partially fabricated stories from its archives in addition to then 27-year-old Blair from its payroll.

And now, for whatever reason, department heads at Washington and Lee think that it would be a fabulous idea for a man who many journalists see as morally corrupt to speak to a group of impressionable little journalism students about media ethics.

When I heard about this last week, I’ll admit that I initially reacted with an emphatic mental “Huh?”

I mean, at first read, I guess it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense.

Now, as much as people write off Blair’s appearance as irrelevant or downright confusing, I see this as an incredible opportunity for the students at Washington and Lee.

Blair could be the perfect example for these kids of, essentially, what not to do in the journalism industry…sort of the anti-guidebook, if you will.

Look at it this way—college professors basically beat the concept of NOT plagiarizing to death. There always is, and likely, always will continue to be, a boxy little blurb on every course syllabus that explains what plagiarism is and how NOT to do it. It will probably appear on every syllabus you will ever get for any class that you take at the college level.

It’s just that important.

Blair’s lecture basically serves the same purpose as the whole ‘plagiarism is sinful’ speech we typically get before turning in any kind of paper. It takes those same exact principles and presents them in a form that is relevant to journalism students.

If you want to use my awkward syllabus analogy, it’s essentially the journalism edition of the stereotypical anti-plagiarism warning …only this time, it comes in the form of a real-life former New York Times reporter. In that sense, I guess it’s slightly better than a paper copy.

Anyone else remember “Shattered Glass?” For those of you who lacking a clue, it’s the dramatization of the downfall of Steven Glass, a disgraced New Republic reporter who more or less fell off his pedestal for serial fabrication.

I’m pretty sure that every section of News Literacy was forced into watching it…and for good reason. It’s a visual representation of what you’re not supposed to do.

Here’s the trailer:

Also, Blair would just simply be an interesting egg for the students to crack. Blair’s speech provides an excellent opportunity for journalism students to learn how to really evaluate what the speaker is saying, hence honing their interviewing skills.

Hopefully, the student body will bother to challenge him, and I’m pretty confident that they will. I doubt many of them will be too willing to take the words of a man known for his serial departure from the truth at face value.

I mean, the title of the lecture alone (“Lessons Learned”) is enough to raise significant questions—I guess it’s up to the students to decide whether this headline is, in any way, appropriate.

It will be the ultimate exercise in listening and analyzing. Six years after the Times fiasco, Blair has launched a career rehabilitating the mental health of addicts and the abused.

It will undoubtedly be an interesting opportunity for the students to decide for themselves whether he himself has been rehabilitated.

My question is then, who is going to replace the missing faculty?

No one has yet completely solved the Internet equation despite repeated efforts to do so–since that is the case, who would you say is qualified or, for that matter, prepared to fill the gap?

2) In this new school of thought, what precisely separates “good employees” from entrepreneurs? Is this a path that all future journalists should follow? Should all student journalists strive to be entrepreneurs, and if not, what would be the alternative to “Entrepreneurial Journalism?”

3) On that note, where would potential ‘investors’ for such a project come from?

Why do you feel they should be willing to invest in a student-generated business plan that may or may not get off the ground?

4) If the “dirty” business side and the “pure” editorial side of the industry were to merge, how do you feel this would influence a news outlet’s coverage of an issue that could negatively influence the business itself?

How does your ideal business model protect news consumers against another ABC-refusing-to-report-on-Disney-World-sex-offenders scenario?

5) In your post regarding the schism between the journalistic ‘church’ and ‘state,’ you replied to a commenter by noting that you don’t think you would feel particularly compelled to read the work of “someone who writes for the pure passion of it and is not interested in getting paid.”

What is your response to those who feel that hyper-local bloggers and citizen journalism represent the future of journalism? Do these models have a place in the foreseeable future?

Photo: http://www.getentrepreneurial.com/operations/10_tips_to_keep_business_afloat.html

I would say, at the very least, that my experience in this class has been positive. Being more or less being forced to scan the feeds every day has exposed me to the a world of remarkable relevance that I somehow, even after two years of heavy journalism coursework, neglected to explore to the fullest—or, for that matter, even the weakest–extent.

I’ll be honest…when I realized that “Journalism 24/7” was just clever slang for “The Business Side of Journalism,” I could have groaned out loud.

In addition to “business,” I heard “math.” I heard “statistics” and “financial jargon” and “hours upon hours of the most boring and time-consuming reading that you will likely ever have to do in your life,” and then, perhaps understandably, I thought, “could I get away with not taking this?”

My opinion, however, has taken a serious 180 since those pessimistic times.

I can’t even explain to you how ignorant I was about the business side of the media industry—I’m sure that anyone who took an interest could have convinced me that major media companies produce revenue through the dark arts.

Simply put, business journalism was about as unfamiliar to me as sports journalism…and to give you a rough idea of how pathetic that is, I can still only name two players on the New York Yankees (Jeter and A-Rod, if you’re curious). In that sense, I do have to say that this class has been a legitimate eye-opener.

I’ll admit that in the past, I’d always deliberately dodged the Media & Advertising section of the New York Times in my frantic quest to dive straight into those articles I suspected would hold precious answers to news quizzes. Even then, I used to get legitimately angry when I opened up the Times only to realize that half the day’s top stories came straight out of the business section. Somehow, I could never get myself too excited about the idea of rummaging through innumerable pages of undecipherable financial terminology—for me, it was the equivalent of Greek.

Now, however, I do understand the significance. If happy-go-lucky Joe Journalist is considering a reporting career, after all, I guess it would be useful for him to have a basic understanding of what models look promising and which look about as exciting as dirt.

The blogging, in addition, has really become somewhat of an unexpected hobby—in short, I find it fun. There’s something about it that’s just intellectually stimulating. This may sound a little weird, but it makes me feel ‘smart’…’informed,’ I guess, is a better word for it. It’s oddly refreshing.

I do, however, have one critique: the constant PowerPoints are getting a little old at this point, (no offense to any recent presenters) and I don’t think that something like that should continue in a class of that size in future semesters.

Of course, I understand that this may have been unavoidable this semester, but in the future, I think that enforcing stricter time limits (not that I’m one to talk—I completely shattered that rule with my Dow Jones PowerPoint) would be something to consider.

Overall, though, I’ve really enjoyed myself in this class. The hour and 20 minutes really goes by quickly…especially considering the fact that one of those time slots just happens to fall on a Friday afternoon.