Week of 4/18 Reflection

My favorite line from this week’s readings read: “Be insatiably curious instead of loudly intellectual; produce actual work instead of billable hours.”

While obviously this applies to the creation and maintained success of Morning Brew, this mindset can be applied both within and outside of the entrepreneurial realm.

I think journalism as a whole is at a constant crossroads between business and creation, and while most journalists’ main goal is to create pieces that share the news and resonate with their readers, at the end of the day they do in fact need to make money. We’ve seen this constant balancing act at play in newsrooms across the country as many major national and local papers have struggled to stay afloat even pre-COVID-19. Obviously these papers don’t have the ability to be as flexible as the college-kid-driven start-up, however, this is important for me to remember as I enter my career.

As I approach graduation with a strong idea of what I want to do professionally, I hope that I can continue to work in ways that allow me to grow and focus on what is important to me over the fact that I’m turning a profit. While obviously this is something I care about, I care more about producing content I feel good about and can contribute to the good of others.

Additionally, the deep dive on Morning Brew made me realize that service journalism truly is at the core of successful publications. By creating content that the producers and managers themselves needed more information on, formatted in a way to best suit their needs they created a wildly successful publication. This made me go back to some of the other readings from the past semester and re-think what problems I may have or questions I need answers to. Just some food for thought.