Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks
By Jan Schaffer This was first published Oct. 13, 2016 in Teaching Media Entrepreneurship. The plea for advice came from a new faculty member, anguished that her department’s journalism offerings were outdated: There were limits on social media involvement; no… Read More...
Making a Case for New Taxonomies in Journalism
By Jan Schaffer This article was first published Sept. 13, 2016 in Teaching Media Entrepreneurship. In March, former New York Times editor Jill Abramson addressed the pervasive narrative that Hillary Clinton is dishonest and untrustworthy in her column in The… Read More...
Teaching Media Entrepreneurship. What Does that Mean?
By Jan Schaffer This article was first published June 15, 2016 in Mediashift. As more and more journalism programs add courses on media entrepreneurship, just what are students being taught? As it turns out, many different things. There is not… Read More...
Tow Report Details Promise of Crowdsourcing
This article first appeared on November 23, 2015 in MediaShift. Jan Schaffer co-authored this report with Mimi Onuoha, a Fulbright-National Geographic fellow and data specialist, and Jeanne Pinder, founder of ClearHealthCosts.com, which crowdsources medical costs. … Read More...
When Engagement Really Worked
This article first appeared June 22, 2015 in Nieman Labs. Nowadays, we often seek to measure media engagement by social media activity, web metrics or attention minutes. But there was a time in the not-so-distant past – before the Internet… Read More...
Navigating Law for Media Startups
This was first published on March 10, 2015 in Mediashift. When I launched J-Lab in 2002, the best piece of advice I received was to have a lawyer draft a Memorandum of Understanding outlining the relationship between my center and… Read More...
Reimagining Journalism School as a ‘Gateway Degree’ to Anything
(This article first appeared on 11/19/14 in MediaShift.) J-Lab director Jan Schaffer is wrapping up 20 years of raising money to give it away to fund news startups, innovations and pilot projects. She is pivoting J-Lab to do discrete projects… Read More...
The Story Behind the Geezer Grants
Masters Mediapreneurs and the J-Lab were featured in three MediaShift articles: J-Lab’s Jan Schaffer Reflects Back on 20 Years of Journalism Innovation; J-Lab Launches Journalism Grant Program for Baby Boomers; and Reimagining Journalism School as a ‘Gateway Degree’ to Anything… Read More...