Taking lemons, making lemonade

In this column, John Temple of RedBlueAmerica.com, Rocky Mountain News and Scripps, gives some excellent advice in general and for folks in journalism in his commencement speech to the University of Colorado’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Here are a few pieces worth noting:

My central point was that we’ve moved from an era of great companies and corporations dominating the media landscape to an era where power is shifting to the creative and talented individual, just as power is shifting to the individual consumer.

“You yourself are the most important brand,” I told the students.

As a blogger who has made it to other venues, I find that to be 100% true.

Why RBA had to fold its first incarnation:

It’s an idea I believed in, and continue to believe in. But just as the students are measured with grades, businesses must constantly measure themselves. Redblueamerica.com was supported by a venture fund established by the newspaper division of the company I work for, E.W. Scripps. The fund’s board faced many competing proposals and couldn’t continue to support them all. So as you might expect, it came down to which it believed promised the best return on investment.

I guess I should be happy to know that Wide Open closed for different reasons and The Point appears to be doing well.

Perhaps the best part of the column:

The headline on a recent column in The Wall Street Journal said it all: “If at first you don’t succeed, you’re in excellent company.” The piece went on to describe rejection experienced by many greats, from J.K. Rowling to Walt Disney. You don’t need to worry. I’m not putting myself or my colleagues on this project anywhere near their company.

But I do believe we share a quality that I was trying to inspire in the students. That is what’s known as self-efficacy. Melinda Beck described it in her column as “the unshakable belief some people have that they have what it takes to succeed.”

That doesn’t mean such people don’t experience doubt. But it does mean they keep trying, they keep challenging themselves.

Because of just knowing about the RBA moderator job and not getting an offer to do it, over the last several months, I’ve challenged myself over and over and over again. And those challenges brought me to getting credentialied to cover the Cleveland debate, and be on CNN and the BBC and speak at five conferences in the next three months and cover WAM!2008 and many, many other experiences I can’t begin to recall.

On the journalism front, Wendy Hoke and I have applied for a fellowship to do an unique journalism project that we’ve developed and about which I know the people who’ve seen the beta and heard about it are extremely excited. And Wendy and I are determined to move forward on it. Because we have that “unshakable belief” that we can make it succeed.

Temple closes with this, but I would swap two words around. He wrote, “Our experience has made me feel even more strongly that one of the great benefits of this era in media history is that there has never been more opportunity - and risk.”

But I would say that there’s never been more risk - and opportunity.

Sphere: Related Content

By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:37 am May 10th, 2008 in Wide Open, Writing, Media, Tech, Blogging

Comments

2 Responses to “Taking lemons, making lemonade”

1 Wendy Hoke on May 12th, 2008 12:10 pm

But I would say that there’s never been more risk - and opportunity.

Well put, Jill.

On another note: How do you find the time to blog thoughtfully on the weekends?????
2 Jill Miller Zimon on May 12th, 2008 5:50 pm

Thanks, friend.

You know how it is with me - I compose in my head, a lot. And then it all comes out.

Or not.