ONLINE JOURNALISM BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

                                        

WRITTEN BY: ODKMEDIABLOG

PUBLISHED ON: 24TH MARCH 2015

         A viable business idea I will like to share with you today is online journalism. You don’t necessary need to bag a degree in mass communication to start this business, all you need is the basic skills and experience to embark on this business. With the high penetration of the internet by the internet users, the trend, the yearning for news, entertainment and information have shifted from the traditional media to new media. In case you don’t know new media is an innovative companies that has its base on the internet. In the last decades there is a high increase in the new media companies and this saw the emergence of do it yourself journalism.

        Example of prominent new media companies includes saharareporters, bellanaiaja and even Linda Ikeji’s blog. As a start up you can either decide to establish your own online or new media company and work for yourself just like the way I did when I first started. You can equally go into what I call freelance journalism and content production for the traditional and new media companies. The traditional media houses now look upon the freelance journalist to get a good content with lots of varieties.

        To start out whether as a freelance or establishing your own media house, there are some certain things you must know and have, some of them includes;

 THE NEEDED SKILLS: Irrespective of the fact that you don’t need a degree in mass communication to start this business, but definitely you needed a good training in journalism and new media content production to do well in this business. You need the skill in areas such as news gathering, interview techniques, audio recording and editing, video coverage and editing, article and creative writing technique, knowledge on how the website works, public relation and social marketing skills, graphic design and some level of administrative skills and experience. We are making an arrangement to bring to you different tutorials on how you can acquire skills in the above mentioned areas.

THE TEAM TO WORK WITH: Bear it in mind that journalism business is not a one man business, you cannot be covering an event in Anambra and you will also be covering in Enugu at the same time. You will need a lot of helping hands to grow your business, and getting a formidable team will be a good step towards a brighter future in online journalism business. If you are planning of establishing a new media company I want to remind you that you have to have a team through which different contents emanate from.

 ENTREPRENEURSHIP SKILLS: You are not just an online journalist but also an entrepreneur who is now into a full time business. To succeed as an entrepreneur you need entrepreneurship skills which includes; panning, decision making, business leadership, management skills and experience, market analysis and survey, customer relation management and other necessary skills that will guarantee your successful endeavor in this business.

ENTREPRENRUSHIP TRIATS: apart from the entrepreneurship, you also need an entrepreneurship trait which includes; passion, handwork, persistence, creativity and innovation to succeed. Once you have set up your new media company bear it in mind that you are already running a big business, so you need the above mentioned entrepreneurship traits to survive the competitive business environment.

GOOD COMMAND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND INQUISITIVENESS: Journalism job is not a child’s play and equipping yourself with good command of English or even local languages will save you from a lot of embarrassment. As a journalist there is no limitation to whom you can have a chat with interview, in fact it is a job that exposes you to people and your command of English language will either promote or mar your journalism business.

BE EXPOSED TO A LOT OF INFORMATION: As a journalist you must have basic knowledge of what other field of human endeavor is and that will take you down to reading and research finding. As a journalist you should be inquisitive and always ready to know more so that you can be in the position to educate the illiterate masses.

TIPS

• Produce documentaries on your own and approach the traditional media stations like the radio and television houses and sell the documentary to them.
• Be the first in any breaking news gather news using the news gathering techniques you will be learning later and publish and sell to the traditional media houses.
• Write good creative articles and sell to the newspaper, magazine and online media.