Ideas

Last week we announced an awards project to help Baby Boomers launch news startups. This week, we chuckle at our new nickname and shine a spotlight on the history that gave the project momentum. “Geezer grants” is the term some wags have applied to the $12,000 startup funding open to people age 50-plus who want to launch a news project. Bring it on.

If the journalism industry really wants to engage its audiences and woo new ones, and if the academy wants its journalism schools to flourish – it’s time for journalism schools to embrace a larger mission and to construct a different narrative about the merits of a journalism education.

After two decades of work at the forefront of journalism innovations, interactive journalism and news startups, J-Lab executive director Jan Schaffer weighs in with some observations and lessons learned. This post addresses journalism innovations.

Women comprise only 36 percent of the journalism workforce and only 23 percent of the leadership (where they make 25 percent less than their male counterparts). Yet they make up 64 percent of journalism school enrollments, where many will elect careers in public relations.

So far, two cohort groups, some 21 people, have gone through my Seminar in Media Entrepreneurship for mid-career professionals. It is the first seminar that each cohort group takes as they embark on the 20-month, 10-course journey to a MA in Media Entrepreneurship at American University.

Jan Schaffer writes in Nieman Lab’s 2014 predictions for journalism series: “Let’s stop the handwringing about losses in legacy journalism and work on creating and growing the next acts in media.”

With the release of the “American Hustle” movie about Abscam, I’ve been moved to remind myself of some takeways of my involvement in that FBI sting operation. Full disclosure: This originally appeared in the American Press Institute’s “Survival Guide For Women Editors.”

Creating public-radio and indie-media partnerships may open new paths to fundraising, station executives told a session at Tuesday’s Public Radio Super-Regional meeting outside Washington, D.C.