To change media, first start changing skills and roles
“We as an industry need to drive policy reform, allow portfolio careers, allow sabbaticals, and allow careers that are a combination of entrepreneurship and corporate employment,” said Anita Zielina from Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.
Takeaways
HR professions in the media industry should bring in new, diverse talent, and those with unconventional career paths and deep industry understanding.
The secret of branding yourself as a journalist or the project is to focus on emotions, vision, mission, and the problems you are trying to solve.
Entrepreneurship can mean picking your one or two passion projects, or side projects — start a newsletter, a Facebook group, a meetup — and that might end up becoming your career.
Context
The next generation of media entrepreneurs need to know more than just editorial. They must be equipped with tech, product, and business skills. But how can we, as an industry, identify and support these people or become one of them?
Anita Zielina, the director of strategic initiatives at Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, is a modern newsroom leader. She was Neue Zürcher Zeitung Media Group’s chief product officer — one of the many jobs she’s held in her 15-year career that didn’t exist before she started.
At Splice Beta Online, the Austrian native talked about the media entrepreneurs whose careers are found at odd intersections (or those who can’t explain to their parents what they are doing) and how they built their careers.
How should the industry cultivate entrepreneurial mindsets?
The next generation of media leaders needs to understand how to navigate the intersections of product, business, technology, and editorial.
The industry doesn’t cater to nontraditional careers. But career paths for people who are at the intersections of different trades need to be created in legacy media organizations.
Rethink entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship right now is still defined as the big Silicon Valley-style of venture, but it “doesn't have to be the scary, big, giant leap, going-all-in, quitting-your-job,” thing said Zielina. “We as an industry need to drive policy reform, allow portfolio careers, allow sabbaticals, and allow careers that are a combination of entrepreneurship and corporate employment,” she noted.
Opportunities to check out
CUNY: One-Year Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership (Application opens on October 19, 2020), which Zielina developed.
CUNY: Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program (Applications for the first cohort are closed; the next program opens in January 2021).
CUNY x Google News Initiative: Product Immersion for Small Newsrooms training that’s going to start in early 2021. Sign up for the mailing list here.
The News Product Alliance, which aims to empower news product professionals in the form of a community and bolster our industry’s focus on product strategy.