Assignment for next week, Class #4, Sept. 23

1. Reading: Chapters 4 and 5 in Entrepreneurial Journalism; Chapter 11 in Newsonomics; and Ken Doctor's story on the runway that Jeff Bezos and other dot.commers are building for legacy media. As I mentioned in class, the future of journalism is kind of splitting into two tiers: existing media companies re-thinking their strategies, and individual journalist entrepreneurs trying to find a niche for themselves. The reading this week is more about the existing media reinventing themselves. These should give you fodder for some blogging. Remember, four blogs a week.

2. Most of you have identified a non-journalism (or could be a journalist) entrepreneur you would like to profile. Most of them are accessible, but one or two of you chose big shots who probably won't give you the time of day unless you have some inside connection. Those people will have to come up with someone new or pull off a miracle. I would like you to do a 600-word Q & A (question and answer) with this person or with another entrepreneur. This should be an in-person or over-the-phone interview. Obviously you are the Questioner and your entrepreneur is the Answerer and it's set up like this:

Question: What has been the most difficult part of becoming an entrepreneur?

Answer: Eating. Or not eating. It never seems there is enough money around and what does come in goes right back into the business. But as my appetite grows, so does the business, so I think we will reach a point where I'm gaining weight and the company is gaining customers and everyone is happy. But I must admit I have a lot of sleepless nights thinking about how far off that time is.

Question: What's your worst nightmare? etc.

The technique is to ask short, snappy, concrete, open-ended questions that elicit long answers. You can then edit those answers as you like as long as you do not change the meaning. Most of your questions should somehow involve this person's experience as an entrepreneur. They should be probing and insightful. Usually you will make up most of the questions beforehand, but it should read like a conversation. These are extended versions of the Q & A interviews in Ken Doctor's book. These should be on your blogs by class time Monday.

3. Start thinking about what you would like to do for a project this semester. This should be some kind of journalism-related venture, as we discussed in class. In one of your blogs, explain what it is you would like to do.