Reinventing a Profession

Journalism schools are also trying to give students the tools they need to invent new models of the profession.

In addition to multimedia skills, Temple also teaches an elective undergraduate course on "entrepreneurial journalism," which, according to the syllabus, helps students "understand the changing media landscape and recognize underserved niches."


Students study why the field is changing so fast, anticipate which direction it will go, design business models, and begin the process of creating new journalistic outlets.


"There's not a great future in working for mainstream media," says Mr. Harper. "The future is for smart, hard-working students to band together, create their own media, and make a business out of it—and that's what a lot of them are doing."

Christopher Wink hopes to be part of that reinvented future. He graduated from Temple last year and spent three months stringing for daily newspapers in Pennsylvania before heading on a European backpacking trip with a journalism-school friend.

"We returned to an economy in recession and the print industry in free fall and said, 'Hell, let's build something of our own,'" he says. In February the duo began publishing Technically Philly, a news site that covers local technology and innovation.


Although it has yet to make a profit, Mr. Wink remains optimistic. "I very much feel in this media environment you have to create your own job," he says.



Fonte: http://chronicle.com/