should jschools teach business survival skills?

A little while ago I posted a link on twitter to a Yahoo News story  [see below] on Claire Enders, founder of independent consultancy group Enders Analysis, who  told Reuters she expected about half of all UK media jobs to go by 2013 under current economic conditions.
This led to an interesting comment by journalism student Michael Broomhead.

So, should J-schools be teaching modules on how to survive as a freelancer? On creatively exploring revenue streams and business models?
I believe they should and in fact think it is becoming vastly more important for both individual students and the industry as a whole.
It is of course being discussed: See here and here amongst others

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Mark Journo? Feeling upbeat? Let me kill that :-) http://bit.ly/rAC8.via Twitter - 4:47pm

 - 2 Comments

 Michael Broomhead at 5:05pm December 1

Marvellous - I really can't wait to graduate now!

Isn't it about time that UCLan and other journalism schools around the country let potential students know that they've not got a hope in hell's chance of getting a job in journalism when they're three years older and nine grand in debt?

 Mark Comerford at 5:13pm December 1

I would rather say that its time to introduce a few courses on how to think about business and to help students see how your journalism skills could be made to make both a difference and money. There is a huge and bright future for journalists and story tellers. Just not in the collapsing monolith media perhaps.

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*[interestingly the Yahoo News service neither links to its sources nor to subjects mentioned in the text which gets me thinking of these tweets:

http://twitter.com/craigmcginty/status/1036402458

http://twitter.com/kevglobal/status/1036389279

Comments

[andy]

Great Points mark.

I think there has to be a distinction between understand business in the sense of going freelance and understanding the business in terms of the MSM industry. There is room for both but I think the latter is an increasingly academic/historic effort and anything above that is the responsibility of the organisations to orientate their employees properly. The former is much more valueable as we see the media landscape shifting from big orgs to individual journos.

To Lauren I would say, I think you are getting some of the key skills. Learning digital skills and core journalism stuff is a valuable freelance skill as they are core to the job whether you are doing it for yourself or someone else. But of course I would say that wouldn't I :)

[Michael Broomhead]

I think UCLan places far oo much emphasis on the regional and national newspaper industry. The benefits of freelancing have been mentioned just once over the past three years. So I agree with the argument that new modules be created to teach students how to enter freelance journalism and how to hone their skills to make money!

Also, I can't help but think that some of the course's academic modules be replaced so there is more time to teach students how to produce high quality digital journalism. After all, editors are desperate for graduates who can use digital techniques to enhance storytelling. Quite frankly, writing endless essays saying that the industry's in a mess is a waste of time. After all, everyone knows it's struggling.

[Lauren Oldland]

I totally agree.
I'm in my 2nd year at UClan doing Journlaism and I know that when I graduate it's going to be trying to look for a needle in a haystack for a job.
I would love to go freelancing but am a little scared as I haven't been taught any key skills.