Victor Hernandez: 50 things we learned at RJI-Distribution

Victor Hernandez, Banjo A recent profile piece on Victor Hernandez began with the following statement, “With what he’s wearing, Victor Hernandez seems to be part human and part robot.” And while all human cyborg rumors can neither be confirmed or denied, Hernandez has developed a reputation for infusing traditional journalism leadership with new media applications. Hernandez is … Continued

InkaBinka: The news startup that’s actually a technology company

Dutch graduate students visited four U.S. journalism startups between December 2015 and February 2016 to observe how these entrepreneurs “make it work” and, in the process, redefine what it means to be a journalist. Their work is part of Beyond Journalism, a study of entrepreneurial journalism by 2015-2016 RJI Fellows Tamara Witschge and Mark Deuze, both journalism professors in the Netherlands.

RJI Fellow’s ongoing e-newsletter personalization experiment yields surprising results

Tracy Clark, a 2015-2016 RJI Fellow, believes newspapers with editor-selected email newsletters would have better engagement rates if the content were personalized to each user’s interest. She is in the midst of a pilot study with a large U.S. newspaper, which is simultaneously publishing two email newsletters: one includes editor-selected news content, the other features reader-selected stories. The personalized newsletters are based on Clark’s Reportory platform. This is a progress report.

The student-innovator: Thinking beyond classes to creating supports for student entrepreneurs

I taught my first “media entrepreneurship” class in 2001, nearly 15 years ago. It was the first time I’d introduced these concepts into my college’s journalism education program. My goal was to not only introduce new content management technologies (FrontPage and Dreamweaver at the time), but to help students utilize the deep skills in writing, audio, … Continued

5 lessons from Corey Ford for every entrepreneur

The following are highlights from Corey Ford’s presentation at the Collaboration Culture Symposium March 21 at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Ford is the co-founder and managing partner of Matter, a startup accelerator that focuses on supporting media-based companies. Its accelerators are located in San Francisco and New York City 1. Storytelling is the … Continued

Corey Ford: Using a Collaborative Experimental Culture to Drive Innovation

Corey Ford, Matter Corey Ford is the co-founder and managing partner of Matter, a startup accelerator for entrepreneurs building scalable media ventures that create a more informed, connected and empowered society. Matter invests seed capital and provides intensive support through a human-centered, prototype-driven startup accelerator in San Francisco. Prior to Matter, Ford built Runway, a pre-team, … Continued

Khari Johnson: Crowdfunding Beyond the Money

Khari Johnson, Through the Cracks Khari Johnson is a staunch believer in journalism, community, entrepreneurship and bringing underreported stories to light. He’s founder and editor of Through the Cracks: Crowdfunding in Journalism, a news website that monitors crowdfunding platforms to share stories that enable reporters and storytellers. Through the Cracks is a social enterprise whose coverage … Continued