Skills You Need to Run A Media Start-up PLUS Local News Models that Work

September 15, 2021

Journalism.co.uk speaks with Katie Vanneck-Smith, the CEO of slow news start-up Tortoise, on the skills that have served her well. One thing that stood out to me: the importance of hiring decisions. When you're small, every hire helps to support (or detract) from the culture you want to build, and when a hire is less than stellar, it is felt more accutely.

There is some interesting research out of the US on what is working for local news operations. Local ownership is important, particularly having a visible local presence.

But it's a lot of work, and my friends at Media Voices have an excellent interview with Terri White how she tried to balance parenting and editing Empire magazine. As I wrote on Twitter, as operations have become smaller that has only amplified the workaholic culture in too many media shops. And it leaves little room for important relationships including with your family. I've definitely had to become better at drawing boundaries with work.

Speaking of culture, there is a good piece about how Vox is redefining roles to change its culture. And part of their focus is putting employee well-being at the centre of their culture.

In industry news, we, of course, have some coverage of MailChimp's acquisition by Intuit, and the Winklevoss twins of Facebook fame have invested in a publication covering the business of space.

What does it take to be the leader of a new media business? We speak to one of the founders of a slow journalism publisher that went from 0 to 130,000 paying members in two years

From person-to-person coaching and intensive hands-on seminars to interactive online courses and media reporting, Poynter helps journalists sharpen skills and elevate storytelling throughout their careers.

“The reality is, if I hadn’t have had my baby, I would still be editing EMPIRE now,” Terri White tells us in the latest episode of Media Voices. “And that’s a hard pill for me to swallow, because you don’t imagine that you would have to make that choice in this day and age.”

, . "“Journalism can only be as good as our newsroom culture”: Vox Media’s new editors-in-chief are redefining the roles." Nieman Journalism Lab. Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, 14 Sep. 2021. Web. 14 Sep. 2021.

Fear of cannibalization delayed the digital transformation of many media, who failed to grasp the benefits of the internet Print was still king when the first news websites emerged a few decades ago. The internet was just an afterthought. The priorities were clear to everyone – first, put together tomorrow’s edition and then let interns …

We Are Social has launched an Instagram-based cultural insights publication titled ‘The Feed’.The announcement:Global socially-led creative agency We Are Social has launched The Feed, an editorial Instagram publication tracking digital culture and trends on a global scale. Powered by We Are Social’s network of 900+ social specialists, The Feed features daily artefacts of digital culture […]

If the proposed legislation becomes law, it would offer substantial help to many local newsrooms at a critical time.

For this project, I helped the Current analyze and visualize data from a survey it conducted of 1,900 public media employees. The survey results included salary data, demographic information and other work-related fields such as years of experience and organization information.

From person-to-person coaching and intensive hands-on seminars to interactive online courses and media reporting, Poynter helps journalists sharpen skills and elevate storytelling throughout their careers.

Intuit is purchasing popular automated email and marketing platform Mailchimp for $12 billion.

For years, space coverage has focused on the consumer-facing spectacle of space travel.