The Business of Journalism was the focus of the 82nd episode of the popular, national #wjchat Twitter chat Wednesday night, and I’m happy to say I hosted the affair.
Check the archived chat here.
Below check out the Storify, I put together highlighting some of the more interesting responses to the series of questions put out by the facilitator. As host, I was meant to drive conversation, outreach and use any expertise I had on the subject.
Below the Storify, I put the answers to the Lightning Round questions for me below in HTML. The lightning round kicked off the night, which ran from 8pm to about 9:30pm, and introduced me to the dozens of participants, who were from around the country.
My answers to the Lightning Round that kicked off the night:
- In a tweet, describe your organization, companies: @wjchat Co-founder of content strategy shop @technicallyM and our flagship, a popular local technology news site @technicallyPHL #wjchat
- What is the first step to go from reporter to journalism entrepreneur? @wjchat Desperation? 😉 A community in need of help coming together, lotsa time and desire to steal and implement every good idea you find #wjchat
- What tip would you give someone starting up his/her own news org? @wjchat Pick a niche you care about, spend no money on tech to start and plan for funding that doesn’t rhyme with “schmadvertising” #wjchat
- What have you learned now, that you wish you knew when you first launched? @wjchat Business 101 like profit per staff hour and admin basics like payroll, invoicing #wjchat
- What is success for you? How do you know you’ve reached it? @wjchat Sustainability. When we bring on a full-time editor with something of a freelance budget and cover tech in Philly, then @technicallyPHL has won #wjchat
- Are you profitable? @wjchat Yup. No outside investment and three full-time staffers, we pay ourselves $40k, a meaningful salary for young journalist. Revenue (1) events, (2) foundation projects (3) consulting #wjchat
- Divide up your time: Reporter vs. businessman vs. Web developer vs. designer. Well, across the three of us @technicallyPHL 30 percent reporter, 40 percent business, 20 percent web dev, 10 percent deisgn #wjchat
- What’s been the lowest point in this venture? What’s been the highest? Low=selling ads out of mice-ridden apt in 09, High=hosting big @PhillyTechWeek last April w/ impact, community & revenue #wjchat
