Teaching innovation and entrepreneurship: Journalism students as change agents?

Digitalization has been a strong driver of change in the journalism industry over the past 25 years. News organizations producing newspapers, broadcasts, magazines or digital products have faced a steep learning curve, trying to anticipate technological challenges and opportunities, as well as to adapt to the changes in news use resulting from the digital turn. The combination of journalistic work with commercial tasks is seen as jeopardizing the quality of reporting and the public interest imperatives of journalism. A common sentiment among our respondents, captured by another interviewee, is that journalism does not “really need to change”. While student survey respondents were quite open to the importance of business principles in journalism, agreeing that they should be knowledgeable about these and also could be involved in matters related to generating revenues, they did not consider themselves future entrepreneurs.