Journalism grads get entrepreneurial

I like this post on Wired Journalists about three journalism graduates in Philadelphia who didn’t find work straightaway so set up a local tech news service called Technically Philly.

We spent the next few months building connections, covering events and interviewing community leaders to serve a population that, until now, was lucky to receive a write-up every few months in the local media.

They write about their learning curve on legal and business issues, and especially on selling ads.

Once we decided to get a little more serious, we had to create Technically Philly as a legal entity. But we didn’t have the slightest clue about the procedures. Do we incorporate? Do we want to be a partnership?

And then it came time to sell advertising. Can we, as the editorial side, also sell ads? How do online ads typically get paid for? What’s the protocol? As three journalism nuts we shamefully had no idea how, exactly, the advertising process worked.

They’ve since come up with a range of ad packages and have applied for a Knight Foundation grant to set up an ad/admin bureau for news startups like theirs.

Picture a single office with a small handful of salespeople, a computer programmer and legal advisers that could take the administrative burden off of local news startups to allow them to focus on their core competency: covering the hell out of their community.

I particularly like the point they make here:

Journalism in Philadelphia doesn’t need a non-profit. We don’t need donations. We need investment. We need entrepreneurship.

Mostly, we need to cultivate a culture of journalism-as-business to fund (big J) Journalism.

Right on.

This story on Technically Philly grabbed my attention this week. It’s about news stands running news tickers which can be commandeered for public messages in emergencies:

Mayor Nutter was on hand Tuesday morning to announce a partnership that will feed news, weather and sports updates from CBS-owned radio and TV outlets onto 24-hour news tickers and flat-screen, high definition televisions outside Center City newsstands, according to a press release.

In addition to content from CBS 3, CW Philly, KYW News Radio and four other radio stations, the tickers and TVs, mounted inside the newsstand, will be able to be used by the city to provide alerts in case of an emergency, including Amber alerts, as coordinated through the city’s Office of Emergency Management.