Fear and Loathing in Entrepreneurial Journalism: The First Steps
By: Diogo A. Rodriguez
Tags: Media, Entrepreneurship, Journalism, Brazil

My project has been around since 2013, but the mission of transforming it into an actual business brings me a great amount of fear. Thinking like an entrepreneur is a practical, down-to-earth mode of seeing the world. You have to build something that is both likable and profitable.

We are so used to hearing stories about geniuses that magically invent a smashing product — that changes the world—but we rarely (if ever) hear about the actual effort put into it. This is the scary part.

When I created Me Explica, an explanatory news website/platform, I managed to attract some attention. People thought it was interesting that there was someone trying to simplify what was on newspapers, news sites, social media, everywhere. Mind you that Vox did not exist at that time: it was founded in 2014. My site was really something new.

I had an idea—a pretty good one, although not revolutionary— that was it. With no business training whatsoever, I got stuck and could not figure out how to capitalize on what I had created. Vox came along and got noticed in Brazil, and traditional media outlets started to do the same thing I was doing — with far greater reach, resources, and profit. Well, maybe not profit, but with a business model (or something like that). One outlet even tried to steal the name "Me Explica," but I have a copyright lawyer.

The excitement about what I was doing eventually wore off and I had to face reality: I had not and could not create a business with the resources that were available to me. In Brazil, we have entrepreneurial journalists, but there is nowhere you can turn to if you need the training to become one.

So here I am, in New York City, taking part in a program that will teach me the skills I sorely need to transform that old idea into a sustainable business. I should be happy, right? Well, I am, but I am also very afraid.

Being an entrepreneurial journalist means that you have joined a group of very bright and dedicated people in the world that are working their asses off to create ways for journalism to survive.

It is a challenge that entails learning about what people want and need, how money flows, what a good business looks like, and how promising ideas failed. It means giving up the notion that all it takes to succeed is having your heart in the right place and a song in your head. Not a song, an idea.

This is scary because, in general, journalists have not been challenged to think about what they are doing. We assume that our articles and investigations are serving the general interest, democracy, and freedom of expression. But are these pieces actually reaching people? Or have we relied on an outdated model for news delivery (and news making)?

My first answer is yes, we have. To try to build something new and relevant, it will be necessary for us to reach out to our consumers and ask: what do you want from us? How can we better serve you? For me, this is particularly scary because journalists are not taught to think like that. Giving the audience what it wants means resorting to sensationalism, puff pieces, and pandering. It means being populistic. Maybe there's a gray area.

Being an entrepreneurial journalist means tossing all assumptions aside and listening.

And, with a better sense of what it looks like in the real world, acting strategically to bring news to the people. The program has just started and I hope this fear of the unknown will soon reveal itself as an executable plan of action. That's what we are here for.