J219 Entrepreneurial News – 5 weeks

This is a five-week mini course that covers topics related to business models, new ventures, or more generally the economy of news. Sweeping changes in the world of journalism have transformed the business environment for news and the opportunities for skilled practitioners. No longer must aspiring reporters compete for salaried jobs. By understanding business basics, and marrying them to a determination to serve the public with editorially valuable journalism so they can enter a professional world that is open to an as-yet unimagined array of ventures. This course will have three phases. First, it will introduce students to how journalism is currently paid for. Second, it will acquaint them with some existing start-ups so they see how imagination and perseverance may be rewarded. And finally, students will team up to produce an innovative idea and compose a preliminary business plan for turning their concept into a thriving reality. The teacher, former Berkeley Journalism dean Ed Wasserman, is a veteran journalist and former CEO of a newspaper company whose academic background includes a PhD on the politics of technological innovation.