2: Earning audience trust
Wednesday, January 24
Friday, January 26
Guiding Questions
What are the major challenges in creating media today, and how can startups address them? What are the ethical decisions confronting influencers and bloggers in our age? How do you prove yourself trustworthy to audiences? What size audience do you want to build?
Class Topics
W, 1/24: Guest presenter: Leslie Stephens, Instagram influencer, novelist, and creator of the Substack morning person. See below for her personal website and sample content from her Substack.
F, 1/26: The state of news media
In-class activity links: Issues in news media featuring Institute for Nonprofit News’s network directory, Tomorrow’s news: Startups to watch, and 70 local newsrooms that started during the pandemic
Read This:
Readings with annotations are due before class on Wednesday of each week. All readings, videos, and webpages are available on Perusall. You can access Perusall through the course’s Canvas page. Please refer to the Readings on Perusall assignment prompt for instructions on what to do and how you’ll be graded. Do not just click the links below, which are for public audiences. As an enrolled student, you must read on Perusall to get credit for your reading.
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Browse: morning person, the Substack of our first guest speaker, and Leslie Stephens, her personal website. (Click on the ‘let me read it first’ button to see sample content.) NOTE: This is not on Perusall. You have to just visit the websites by clicking on the links above.
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Read: “Grow: How Leslie Stephens’s honesty paid off” (Substack)
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Read: “Trust and Social Media” (Pew Research Center)
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Read: Chapter 1, “An Introduction to Journalism Startups” from the Google News Initiative Startup Playbook. Click through at least some of the case studies and examples.
- Read: “Mainstream media has a diversity problem. That’s why I run my own newsroom.” (Snigdha Sur, Poynter)