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Jeff Jarvis: 'The future is entrepreneurial not institutional'

Posted: 29/10/09 By: Judith Townend

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"We have to support the means for entrepreneurial journalism," Professor Jeff Jarvis argued at the 'Is World Journalism in Crisis?' event at Coventry University on Wednesday.

He was very glad, he said, that the title of the conference was posed as a question: "Stop and ask is there a crisis? I say there is not."

Rather than supporting old models and risking 'hurting new sprouts that grow,' he suggested, characteristically, that now was a time for opportunity.

But for new rather than old models, and the Google-thinking theorist dismissed state intervention as an option: "The notion of government support for journalism is dangerous," he said.

There is a danger of confining journalism to the elite, by keeping the trade in mainstream environments, said Jarvis, associate professor at City University New York. Citing research conducted by the CUNY 'New business models for news' project he said new organisations will do beat reporting; investigative reporting as well.'

One of the new roles of journalists is as educators, he argued, explaining how students participating in local news projects were helping citizens learn journalism skills.

There was a misconception, he said, that investigative journalism would die with newspapers: "I don't know that I buy that. I think that investigative journalism has a market."

Jarvis, who has carved himself a business-advisory niche in the journalism education field, is not opposed to foundation-funded endeavours, but emphasised their charity status, a point he has previously made in his Guardian column and on his blog.

While acknowledging that the UK context was rather different from the US' - he knows how the UK 'adores Auntie' while beating her up at the same time - Jarvis was optimistic for the growth of hyperlocalised models in the UK.

Furthermore, he added, the BBC should share all its content - not just with media producers but to all: "I think the BBC should give it to anyone who wants it. BBC should be linking to journalism at source and it doesn't do enough of that."

A sign that he practices what he preaches ['product v. process' journalism at this link], he told the audience that he was testing out this entrepreneur versus institution idea today in preparation for his column in Monday's Media Guardian.

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