REPORT ON

Bringing Entrepreneurship to the Journalism School

Michael Edward Lenert, PhD, JD

Professor and Reynolds Chair in
Critical Thinking and Ethical Practices
Reynolds School of Journalism and
Center for Advanced Media Studies
Mail Stop 310
University of Nevada, Reno
Reno, Nevada 89557

email: Lenert@UNR.edu
website: www.unr.edu/journalism

Dept. tel. 775.784.6531

Dept. fax 775.784.6656
Mobile 646.245.6200
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Bringing Entrepreneurship to the Reynolds School of Journalism, The

University of Nevada, Reno

Can journalism students imagine new businesses that serve their communities and make a
profit? Can journalism students write award-winning business plans that attract the
attention of venture capitalists? The answers to both these questions from the recent 2007
Nevada State Governor¹s Cup competition is, "Yes!"

At the end of a 15 week class in entrepreneurship, two Reynolds School of Journalism

graduate students, Abbey Smith and Melissa Voigtmann, each with no prior business
experience, placed third in a statewide business plan competition, and took home a
$5,000 cash prize.

Drawing upon the curriculum and coaching in a special topics class, Journalism 691,
New Journalism Entrepreneurship, journalism students Smith and Voigtmann
conceptualized and articulated a Web 2.0-inspired business plan for a company called
Simply Healthy Foods. In the judging, the panel of Governor’s Cup judges recognized
both the power and the practicality of their Simply Healthy Foods idea of creating an
online community that brings together local food producers and consumers. When
implemented, Simply Healthy Foods will be an advertiser-supported site that directly
links farmers and consumers, while hosting forums and presenting independent
journalistic content about organic and other types of health food.

What’s more, two other teams from the class of 14 students made it to the finals.

At the graduate level, journalism students Emily Setzer and Jeff Stephens won
recognition and praise from the judges for their business plan for Wildermaps.com, a rich
media, wikipedia-style collaborative online guidebook for non-motorized outdoor
recreation. As one of 6 statewide graduate finalists, they left the contest with $1,000.00 in
prize money.

Undergraduate journalism major Stevi Wara, along with her partner, business major
Jocelyn Pulido, also took home $1,000 as one of 7 statewide finalists in the
undergraduate competition. Their business idea, parfamilia.com, is an advertiser-
supported website where local Hispanic/Latina mothers communicate with one another
and create a culturally aware community where marketers, community health
professionals and journalists can directly reach a growing target market.

By some measures, an extraordinary event had taken place. Journalism students have for
the first time won statewide recognition while directly competing with teams headed by
MBAs and graduate-level engineering students.

In a university context, how did this entrepreneurial success come about?

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Implementing the class

Overcoming the journalism school culture

Universities, like large lumbering warships, are slow to react to change. Typically, a
University’s change of course needs to be plotted months, if not years, in advance. Most
often, its movement is executed slowly, and its progress toward a new destination is best
measured by a calendar rather than clock.

A professional journalism school is no exception to the slow to change model of

management. Like all professions, teaching practices and assessments have deep roots,
and as institutions, journalism schools are resistant to change.

However, at the Reynolds School of Journalism from 2004-2006, there was an exception
to the general rule, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the reason for this forward-
looking perspective was a single man: The late Dean Cole C. Campbell.

Coming to academy from industry, Dean Campbell, a former editor of the St. Louis Post
Dispatch, supported change and expected the Reynolds School of Journalism to respond
to change more like a corporation than an academy. His support for a new course in
entrepreneurial journalism made the critical difference. He recognized the need for rapid
and substantial change while insisting that we maintain the best traditions of journalism.
In the planning stages, six months before the course was offered, Dean Campbell wrote in
an email:

I think the course would need to be a 400/600 course to serve both our
undergraduates and any graduate students who want to take it. [...] We would
need to supplement them with business and computer science/engineering folks at
a high count to get a full roster, I think.

I would like such a course, perhaps in its second iteration, to feed into the
business plan competition sponsored by the Reynolds Foundation. And in the
courses I took on entrepreneurship at Stanford lo these many years ago, the
business plan was the central document. Should this course require development
of a business plan (plus whatever summaries and pitches are required to bring the
plan to life in presentations)?

How far down the path of conceiving a business must students be to get value
from this course? Several of the topics in the syllabus seem designed to help them
sort through possibilities, not merely advance a given idea brought to the class by
students.

Some topics, such as social entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship

(entrepreneurship within an organization) seem like great extensions of the main
idea. I'm wondering if they might wait until toward the end of the course, to allow

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the topics most directly shaping development of business ideas to come as quickly
as possible.1

It is difficult to concisely summarize the influence of the Dean’s leadership on this

initiative. This exchange is reprinted here because it is typical of the vision of Dean
Campbell. It shows his support for innovation within the structure of the journalism
school and his thoughtful guidance of the process. Without this kind of encouragement, it
would be unlikely that a faculty member would propose and expect to have approved a
new course on a subject such as entrepreneurship that had never been taught in a
journalism school.

Dean Campbell anticipated that we might not be ready to have our students compete in
the business plan contest the first time out. As it turned out, the instructors were able to
get four of the nine teams ready to submit their business plan for judging within only
eight weeks from the date of the first class meeting and three of the four teams that did
enter the business plan competition went on to the final round of judging.

The problems of journalism in the context of entrepreneurship

Dean Campbell supported institutional change at journalism schools because he
recognized that the future of both the institution and the business of journalism are in
serious trouble. He saw the development of entrepreneurial skills as an important remedy
for what is ailing journalism. On this point, New York University professor Jay Rosen
has written that,

Facing a host of challenges, the craft of journalism now finds that its intellectual
weaknesses have become problems of survival. Unless it gets smarter about many
things and the right things, American journalism may not be around much longer-
although the media, we can trust, will be bigger than ever.2

Could an entrepreneurial journalism lead us toward a solution? As journalism Professor

Mindy McAdams has observed, the word “entrepreneurial” is popping up a lot in the
journalism blogs lately.

Anyway, to expand upon this entrepreneurial idea: I think the conversation needs
get specific. Whether we’re discussing individual journalism, independent
journalism, or citizen journalism, the thing that always drives me nuts is that it
never gets down to the money question. All of these independent efforts are
lovely, but last time I checked there wasn’t an independent journalist war chest
funding all our efforts. (If there is, please tell me where to find it — I need to
make a big withdrawal).

The sad truth is that we need to learn the basics of business. We need to know
about online advertising (it’s much different than print or broadcast), we need to

1
Campbell, (2006). Personal communication on file with author.
2
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=101810 (2006)
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know how to monetize content without venturing into ethical quagmires (no pay-
to-play blogging, please), and — most importantly — we need to understand our
own value and seek that value from the folks who (hopefully) pay us.3

Like Rosen and McAdams, Dean Campbell saw journalism as a social practice being
threatened by the commercial pressures that affect all modern media organizations, and
he sought entrepreneurial solutions.4

So how was the plan for the new course organized and implemented?

The instructors and students

In our conception of the class, we imagined that the students would be interdisciplinary,
and that we would enroll a combination of journalism, business, and engineering
students. Unfortunately, due to a combination of inertial and internal dividing lines
among the fiefdoms of the university, all of the students were journalism majors. (One
student partnered with a business major who was not enrolled in the class).

The class consisted of 14 students, 8 enrolled in our interactive journalism master’s

degree graduate program 6 from the undergraduate majors, including advertising and
public relations. 5 Overall, the class included some diversity and was divided evenly
between male and female, and with one student coming from Kenya and another from
Chile. However, the majority of the students were Caucasian and from Nevada.

There was greater interdisciplinarity in the background of the co-instructors. Mary

Jurkonis, Publisher and General Manager of the website Reno/Tahoe.com, brought her
substantial finance and industry experience to the classroom. Edward Lenert, Professor of
Journalism and attorney, brought his knowledge of innovation and the Internet, including
recent developments known as “web 2.0” to the mix.6

The synergy of the backgrounds of the instructors was an important factor in the success
of the class, as neither instructor alone had all of the skills necessary to for the task at
hand: Writing a business plan for web 2.0 Internet-based journalism venture.

3
See http://mindymcadams.com/tojou/2007/what-do-we-mean-by-
entrepreneurial/#comment-907 (2007).
4
For more discussion on journalism as a social practice, see Edmund Lambeth (1996) ,
Media institutions and their public obligations.
http://www.mtsu.edu/~masscomm/seig96/bogart/lambeth.htm
5
For more details on the graduate program, see http://journalism.unr.edu/grad/index.htm
6
See for example, www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-
20.html

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Journalism a social practice: Implementing a journalism with a social

entrepreneurial aspects
A key element of the student business plans was the requirement that the essence of their
enterprise concern journalism and that it was potentially profitable. However, following
Dean Campbell’s admonition that “journalism is a social practice,” we insisted that there
be an element of service to a community as part of the business plan.

For the traditional entrepreneur, profit is the primary consideration. For social
entrepreneurs, the social mission is explicit and central. The class was conducted on a
middle ground between traditional and social entrepreneurship. For inspiration, the class
drew upon the writings of Guy Kawasaki, who urges entrepreneurs to initially give
primary focus on making meaning and not money. 7 He writes:

Focus on making meaning, not money. If your vision for your company is to grow
it just to flip it to a large company or to take it public and cash out, "you're
doomed". Kawasaki says that great companies are built around meaning,
including the idea of “Increase the quality of life. Make people more productive
or their lives easier or more enjoyable” (p.2).

His specific advice:

Forget mission statements; they’re long, boring, and irrelevant. No one can ever
remember them—much less implement them. Instead, take your meaning and
make a mantra out of it. This will set your entire team on the right course (p. 3).

Following the model articulated by Art of the Start, students were encouraged to see
journalism-related impacts as having equal standing with wealth creation. This idea
meshes well with the ideal of journalism advocated by Dean Campbell, that journalism is
a social practice as well as a business.

Each of finalist teams’ business plans reflected this emphasis on a social mission, and
merged emerging technologies and business practices with the concerns of traditional
journalism. For example, the Simply Healthy Foods plan emphasized the students’
interest in sustainable agricultural practices while building and opportunity for journalism
to serve an online community that brings together health food producers and consumers.

In a similar fashion, the students behind the parafamilia.com project envisioned a website
where local Hispanic/Latina mothers communicate and created community, and would be
served by highly targeted and relevant journalism and the students who proposed
Wildermaps brought together in their business plan their love for outdoor recreation and a
new kind of journalism that serves the enthusiasts.

7
Guy Kawasaki (2004). The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide
for Anyone Starting Anything.
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In each case, a new business model made possible by the Internet was intermixed with a
concern for a journalism that focused on increasing the quality of life for its readers and
participants.

Teaching and learning

The Syllabus and class content

The class got off to a fast start by requiring that each student read both assigned
textbooks prior to the start of class. During the first class meeting, the instructors began
working with the student on developing their idea and “making meaning” as outlined by
Kawasaki.

We were on a very compressed schedule and we aimed to get as many students as

possible ready to enter their business plans in the competition, a deadline that was only 7
weeks away after the end of the first class meeting. We joked among ourselves that this
compressed schedule was not a problem since one of the assigned texts was Rhonda
Abrams’s The Six-week Start Up. 8 As it turned out, we had a full week to spare, we told
the students.

The lectures and discussions in the early sessions had a dual focus. First, the instructors
strove to get the students to recognize the business opportunities created by emerging
media technologies and the diffusion of the Internet. Second, with this foundation
established, the class turned its attention to toward rigorously conceptualizing business
ideas and entrepreneurial leadership.

In the middle part of the course, the instructors met extensively with the individual
groups of students, and helped them work on their ideas and their business plans.

The final part of the course was dedicated to oral and PowerPoint presentation skills.
There was repeated emphasis and practice concerning achieving clear and concise
presentations, including a super fast “elevator pitch” of their ideas.

Finally, a student’s Mastery of knowledge and concepts tested by a final exam,

reproduced as Appendix II.

The syllabus is attached as Appendix I.

Assessment
From the faculty perspective, the strongly favorable results of this initial class in
journalism entrepreneurship were not entirely anticipated. In the fall, before the start of
classes, one of the instructors from the graduate program offered this gloomy assessment:

I agree about our grad students. Right now, many of them do not have what it
usually takes to be entrepreneurial, especially if you define that as "leadership.”

8
Rhonda Abrams (2004). Six-week Start Up. (Planning Shop publishers).
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By disposition or habit, most of them are closer to the employee than the manger,
with only a few exceptions.9

As it turned out, all of the student teams, including the ones that did not participate in the
formal business plan contest, delivered solid results by the end of the semester. The
students were intrinsically motivated to succeed and the high final grades assigned to the
students reflected a high level of motivation and achievement.

From the perspective of students, the class was well received. The quantitative numbers
from the student evaluations were strong, with the class earning a score of 4.5 on a scale
of 5.0. The lowest score of 4.1 out of 5.0 was received in response to the question, “The
course content is well organized” and the highest 5.0 out of 5.0, was given in response to
the question, “The instructor is enthusiastic and stimulates my interest.”

In terms of qualitative evaluations, there was a wide range of student comments

pertaining to issues related to the textbooks and course organization. In terms of areas for
improvement, some students noted that the class needed to focus even more on the
financial aspects of business plan development and wrote that the class felt “disorganized
at times.” Others requested “more written feedback.” Typical summary positive
comments included, “overall, a tough rewarding class” and “this course opened new
doors for me.”

Conclusion
What is the upshot of the first year? I think that the most important results are not the
cash prizes and state wide recognition won by the journalism students. What is really
significant are the emerging changes within the culture of journalism education at the
Reynolds School of Journalism. Journalism students are beginning to see themselves not
only as potential employees but also as the owners and managers of journalistic
businesses.

As Journalism Professor Jeff Jarvis has observed in relation to other efforts to bring
entrepreneurship to journalism schools: “The real lesson in all this, I think, is not about
tools, skills or business forecasting. It is about embracing change, instilling a culture of
innovation and experimentation and a willingness to question and try and fail.10

Indeed, it is this spirit of leadership and entrepreneurship that is most needed by the news
business today, and this class provided evidence that journalism schools have an
important contribution to make.

9
Personal communication on file with the author (November 2006).
10
See, http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/03/05/journalism (March 5th, 2007).
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Appendix I: Original Syllabus

NEW CLASS FOR SPRING SEMESTER 2006

JOUR 490/JOUR 691 -- 004:

SPECIAL TOPICS: NEW JOURNALISM ENTREPRENEURSHIP

E- Entrepreneurship and journalism: A Workshop for New Media

Startups

Units: 3
Location and time: Reynolds School of Journalism, room 105, Wed. 5:30-8:15 PM.
Instructors: Edward Lenert, Dept. of Journalism, Mary Jurkonis, Reno/Tahoe.com

Description: This course will introduce you to the major principles, concepts and tools
of entrepreneurship. The focus is twofold: First, this class will help you recognize the
business opportunities created by emerging media technologies and the diffusion of the
Internet. Second, this class will help you rigorously conceptualize your business idea
and realize your potential as an entrepreneur. The course will be conducted as a
combination of lectures, workshops and laboratory that explores issues and problems
typically faced by entrepreneurs as they convert their ideas for new ventures into
successful companies. Through a process of developing your own idea and exposure to
other student’s ventures, you will gain a detailed understanding of the knowledge, skills
and problem solving abilities that are typically required of entrepreneurs starting a new
media venture.

Classes will be supplemented by guest lectures or videoconferences with new media

entrepreneurs. Students will work in teams and team members will be expected to
develop and deliver various presentations to the class on selected aspects of their
business idea. An important element of the class is the option to participate in the 2007
Reynolds Governor's Cup competition, sponsored by Nevada’s Center for
Entrepreneurship and Technology. More details about the contest are at the end of this
syllabus.

Class requirements:

1. Weekly assignments that help develop a plan for your company during the
semester.

2. Company documents including Business Plan, Executive Summary,

PowerPoint pitch, and Elevator pitch.

3. Name of outside business advisor (must be chosen and in place by mid-

semester).

4. Presentations to the class on assigned topics.

5. Final examination

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Students are required to attend all classes and come prepared to present on that classes
topic. Each class member is expected to contribute actively in the discussions and
presentation critiques.

Evaluation and Grading: Grades will depend on the student's mastery of the textbooks
and lectures, progress in developing his or her team project, level of participation of
presentations in class, and the quality of their peer-to peer advising/consulting for other
student's projects.

Weekly class participation: 25%

Business plan and related documents, including presentations: 50%

(More detail about the business plan and related documents will be distributed at
the start of class.)

Final examination: 25%

Required texts:

Guy Kawasaki (2004). The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened
Guide for Anyone Starting Anything. (Portfolio Press.)

Rhonda Abrams (2004). Six-week Start Up. (Planning Shop publishers).

Recommended texts:

Stephen Fishman (2006). Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Independent
Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants (Nolo Press, 6th ed.)

Tentative Class Schedule

Any changes to the assigned readings will be announced in class.

Please read both books, Art of the Start and Six-Week Start Up, prior to
class. We will go over specific chapters as indicated below.

1. January 24

Topic: Introduction to entrepreneurship. Old media economics: Strategic change in the

media industries including creative destruction and new opportunities.

Readings due: Kawasaki, Introduction, ch. 1, and ch. 4

Assignment due: A one-page description of your business idea.

2. January 31

Topic: Invention, product definition and commercialization. New venture creation:

Understanding the challenges and business models of media entrepreneurship. What are

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the opportunities created by open source and social media, Internet, databases and web
technologies?

Readings due: Abrams, ch. 1

Assignment due: (The items before refer to specific worksheets in Abrams’ book.
Please photocopy each worksheet, fill it out, and turn it in at the start of class. Be sure
to keep a copy for yourself.)
o My personal goals: The Four C’s (p. 6)
o My business values (p. 10)
o My role models (p. 11)
o My bright idea (p. 13)
o My business concept (p. 14)
o Basic business description (p. 16)

3. February 7

Topic: Markets and customers

Readings: Kawasaki ch. 2; Abrams ch 2.

Assignment:
o Business name comparison chart (p. 27)
o Creating my identity (p. 38).
o My research questions (p. 52)
o Who are my customers (p. 57)
o My customer profile (p. 58)
o Size of my market (p. 61)
o My competitors (p. 65)
o Competitor’s price comparison chart (p. 66)

4. February 14

Topic: Operations, management and the entrepreneurial team.

Readings: Kawasaki ch. 5, ch. 6, ch. 8; Abrams, ch. 3

Assignment due:

Reynolds Governor's Cup Intent to Compete Form Due

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o Potential strategic partners (p. 71)

o Organizations to join (p. 75)
o Business licenses and permits (p. 92)
o Vital statistics (p. 94)
o My support system (p. 104)
o Who do I need on my team (p. 107)
o My leadership skills (p. 122)

5. February 21

Topic: Capital and financing. Exploration of various funding sources: Deal structuring,
pricing, valuation.

Readings: Kawasaki ch. 7; Abrams ch. 5

Assignments:
o Discussing partnership terms (p. 20)
o What are my existing assets? (p. 198)
o Sales projections (p. 214)
o Marketing budget (p. 215)
o Profit and loss projection (p. 216)
o Cash flow projection (p. 217)
o My tax deadlines (p. 220)

6. February 28

Topics: Business communications and presentations. Introduction to deal making and

negotiations.

Readings: Kawasaki ch. 3, ch 10

Assignment: Consultation and development of business idea into a business plan,

part 1

o My elevator pitch (p. 236)

o My sales pitch (p. 260)

7. March 7

Assignment: Consultation and development of business idea into a business plan,

part 2

8. March 14

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Assignment:

Reynolds Governor's Cup Business Plan Submittal Form Due, for participating at
3:00 PM.

Business plan due for students not participating in Reynolds Governor's Cup, 5:30
PM

--- March 21 (no class, spring break) ---

9. March 28

Topic: Know Your ABC's --Alternatives Beyond the Corporation: Lifestyle

entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, independent consulting.

Reading: Kawasaki, ch. 9

Assignment: Develop your business plan and presentation, 1

10. April 4

Topic: Know your 1-2-3's: Legal, accounting and taxation issues. Marketing strategies
and tactics, part 1

Assignment: Develop your business plan and presentation, 2

11. April 11

Marketing strategies and tactics, part 2

Assignment: Develop your business plan and presentation, 3

12. April 18

Assignment: In class presentations of final business plan, group 1

Reynolds Governor's Cup Finalist's Presentations Due

13. April 25

Assignment: In class presentations of final business plan, group 2

April 26, 2007 Graduate and undergraduate finalists give oral presentation at
the Siena Resort in Reno Nevada. Winners announced at gala.

14. May 2 (last class day)

Summary and review for final examination

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May 16 Final examination

Exact time and place, TBA.

Appendix II: Final Examination

JOUR 490/JOUR 691 -- 004: LENERT/JURKONIS

SPECIAL TOPICS: NEW JOURNALISM ENTREPRENEURSHIP, SPRING 2007

Take Home Final Examination

Instructions: This examination is an opportunity for you to demonstrate what you’ve

learned in this class. Length: For undergraduate students, 4-5 pages; for graduate
students 7-8 pages. Your paper should have a title, be double-spaced and use a uniform
system of references (footnotes or endnotes). You may consult any sources that you like
(including discussing the sites with classmates) but you must do your own work and turn
in a paper that is solely of your authorship. Due date: Not later than 4:00 PM, Monday,
May 14, 2007, to my office in RSJ 303A. Also email a copy of your examination to
mjurkonis@tahoerenoonline.com. Papers up to 24 hours late will suffer a one-letter
grade penalty. Failure to turn in a paper at all or turning in your paper more than 24
hours late will result in you receiving less than a passing grade for the course.

Background: For this examination, imagine that you have a job as an analyst for an
investment-banking firm that specializes in new media ventures. Your boss asks you to
carefully review these two new publishing ventures and then write her a memorandum
evaluating these two opportunities.

1. Washington Post Newsweek Interactive’s "Sprig" http://www.sprig.com/. The site is

the first new property the company has built from scratch. The site has green product
database, videos, original news-style coverage and audience-submitted content.

2. Hearst Corporation's “The Daily Green”: http://www.thedailygreen.com/

(still in beta). “The site is being designed as both a service outlet for those who are
interested in living a more eco-friendly lifestyle, as well as a community through which
green-enthusiast Web users can connect."

Drawing upon the knowledge that you gained in this course, compare and contrast these
two sites from a business-planning standpoint. Specifically:

• What is the nature of each business? How creative, innovative, and exciting is the
business idea?
• What market(s) do they cater to or reach out to?

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• Advertising opportunities…what are they…what kind of ad models do they use?

Outside of advertising, how does each site make money? Does either site have a
“Sustainable Competitive Advantage,” and if so, what is it?
• What are the web 2.0 capabilities (user participation/user generated content)
employed by each site, and how important are they?

Question: Drawing upon the above criteria, conclude your memorandum by answering
the question, “Which is likely to be the better investment, and why?” You must make
sure that your answer is supported by your analysis of the above criteria. For your
memorandum, you may use a “business” rather than an “academic” style of writing.

Appendix 3: Summary of Reynolds School of Journalism Finalists in the

2007 Governor’s Cup Competition

Undergraduate team: parafamilia.com. Stevi Wara and Jocelyn Pulido.

Summary of Parafamilia.com is a new website where local Hispanic/Latina

mothers Communicate and create community. Not only can the Hispanic/Latina
mothers communicate culturally, but this is a linguistically sensitive site where
they can exchanging shared concerns. What's more, parfamilia.com is a site where
marketers will be able to directly communicate to a growing target market.

Graduate teams:

Simply Healthy Foods. Abbey Smith and Melissa Voigtmann.

Summary: of Simply Healthy Food is an online community that brings together

health food producers and consumers. Producers can sell their products on the
website for a small commission. The owners of the site will host forums, and
write journalistic stories about organic and other types of health food to better
educated consumers on product and producers on what their consumers need.

WilderMaps. Emily Setzer and Jeff Stephens.

Summary: Wildermaps is an interactive, rich-media online guidebook for non-

motorized outdoor recreation. Wildermaps draws heavily upon user generated
content and emerging communication formats such a wikis and participatory
geographical information systems.

The student teams gave their final presentations on April 26, 2007. Two of the teams,
parafamilia.com and Wildermaps, presented very well before the judges but failed to
place among the top three finishers. Simply Healthy Food won the acclaim of the judges
and placed third in the graduate division competition, as was awarded a $5,000.00 cash
prize. Wildermaps and parafamila.com each were awarded $1,000 as finalists.

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