I’ve recently read a couple articles on journalism, both in relation to to furthering a independent media or a self-starting newspaper.
They had a few things in common.
Newsonomics: Rebuilding the news media will require doubling-down on its core values had mention creating a new paper is a lot like kindergarten rules: share, don’t hit, clean up your own mess, etc.
I like this analogy. It really helps sum up what a lot of journalism organizations have not been following. We have lost our values and need to be reminded.
Fake news. We all have heard of it; our president talks about it, probably everyday. I can imagine him saying it, it is like burned in my mind forever. I mean, it’s real. We all know, have all seen it. Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Kindergarten really just shows me what media organizations should be doing. Actually, everyone for that matter, but we can’t all be perfect. News organizations should go back to kindergarten and learn the basics of being friendly.
I was a camp counselor over the past years, worked with children from the ages of four to twelve, and honestly kids have some common sense. Like, they know the difference between right and wrong, MOST OF THE TIME. I’m not saying all kids are smarter than adults and they should be CEOs or nothing, but seriously. Sometimes we need to think about how we act, posting and lying about stories to get our papers big, hard hitting stuff that is not true. And even further, spreading the news like it is true. That’s not right.
In addition to the basic values, I thought The New Business Models for News Toolkit had some interesting advice as well. The best would probably their steps in developing a personas. Place, Product, Promotion, and Price. All easy identifiable things, pretty straight forward.
You’re company has to start somewhere and all four things are pretty important. Basic values, and the four P’s. With this, you can be very successful. Know your P’s, and act like a kindergartner sometimes.
The rest I took from the article was a lot on furthering your business. Like how to gain partners six months to a few years down the road.
But, this, this is the good stuff. Basic things that we all need to re-learn as journalists, apparently.
Price. How much does is everything going to cost your start-up? Have a estimate at least. I’ve always heard and I understand it now too, to make money, you have to spend money. Well, how much exactly is that money going to be?
Place. Where is everything going to happen? Where is your office, where is your paper coming from, where will they be sold, etc. Get it? These are all important questions you have to know the answer to when starting a business.
Promotion. What’s next? How are you reaching your audience? How can you continue to reach more audience? Social media is a key. Use it to your advantage.
Product. Product is everything. What you sell, what you say, what your write, your website, your logo, slogan–everything. Without the product, you have no business, without the business, well, you failed your first start-up, and you can go beg for your job yet.
I wouldn’t though. Never lose, always learn. Or, win.
Spartans Innovate 
Good idea about acting like kindergarteners, Anthony. Aside from throwing toy cars at each other, my friends and I were pretty responsible little adults in kindergarten. I’m kidding, but what you are saying is true. Children, for the most part, do have fairly functional moral compasses and an understanding of right and wrong. As we get older, we assign value to certain goals and have different ways of reaching those goals. Morals and ethics can get pushed aside. Clearly, too many news media organizations want the highest amount of clicks per story and are willing to do whatever it takes to get the eyeballs. Why do we think the fair news has gotten a reputation as fake news? Which came first – the chicken or the egg?
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I completely agree that news media or news in general needs to revamp and sit down to really figure out what their job is. The Kindergarten analogy he used really stuck with me as well because at that age you are learning right from wrong and when you do something wrong you are normally reprimanded for it; I think thats what journalism needs to get back to and it starts at the top then should work its way down to the people who actually write and report the stories. Something that stuck out to me in your article was the four P’s, I am in a marketing class and those are the key things for successful marketing and distribution of a product to a consumer. As a news media sight or even as a company selling dolls to little kids product is the most important thing, if you can’t give the customer what they need and want… why are you still in business because thats your job to create for them: the customer.
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I love how you included your own personal experience working as a camp counselor and related it to what we’re talking about in class. I think that really helped the overall story of this blog post. I find it so interesting the parallel connection between going back to the parallel pillars of journalism and going back to how we’re supposed to act as kindergarteners. It points to the importance of having core principles that guide our ethics and how we ought to act, in journalism but also in life.
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