Idea Lab

After Crystal Cox Verdict, It's Time to Define Who Is a Journalist

by CJ Cornell
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Last month, the Crystal Cox verdict re-energized a debate among journalism's most passionate and articulate thought leaders and professionals by begging the question: Who is a journalist? Just about anyone with a laptop or cell phone can use free technology to create quality media and reach audiences larger than any newspaper or television network. Indeed, we are all publishers now. But are we all journalists now, too? Never has technology unraveled an industry so fast that its professionals no longer agree on what it is that they do. It's not surprising; the sharp line between journalist and non-journalist is so faded that few...

• January 31, 2012
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Blimee Brings Local News, Engagement and Instant Offers to Digital Signage

by CJ Cornell
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

New ideas, new ventures, new visions: They never turn out quite the way the entrepreneur expects, and often the path to success comes from walking backwards into a great idea. That's what happened with an innovative digital media journalism venture that emerged from the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The founder wasn't even a journalism student. He was a film student with an idea for a better way to get people interested in watching movies. In fact, his idea was nearly a product with a customer and investor lined...

• October 30, 2010
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Where Did We Go Right? How to Be a Successful Entrepreneur

by CJ Cornell
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Imagine a well-known Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Wanting to repeat his success, he scrutinizes all his articles and discovers they contain the letters "E" and "R" 10 times more frequently than any other letters. In his next article, he focuses on increasing the use of these letters, and then plans on teaching his new-found secret during his journalism seminar next fall. More than likely, his success as a reporter is due to a combination of talent, hard work, circumstances, personal relationships and some luck. Which means that evangelizing the benefits of proper letter frequency is irrelevant at best and probably harmful...

• July 9, 2010
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