Sree Sreenivasan, my dean of student affairs and professor of digital media at the Columbia School of Journalism,  organized some great guests for a webcast today on how journalists can use Facebook. In fact, the Journalism School is teaching how to use Facebook as a tool for journalists, among other social media. The panel included:

• Arik Hesseldahl, senior technology writer at Businessweek.
• Brandee Barker, director of communications at Facebook (Product/Platform)
• Barry Schnitt, director of communications at Facebook (Privacy/Policy)
• Ben Parr, the now co-editor at Mashable.com

Below is the webcast via Blogtalkradio. And also here is a short post from Ben Parr briefly mentioning what the conversation was about (why journalists should use Facebook, the new features, etc.):

This is an excerpt from an article for Poynter Online. Read the full post and the 5 points here.

As more news organizations are laying off full-time reporters, many of them are being replaced by freelancers. On top of that, with the ubiquitous tools that allow anyone to publish, journalists now have to set themselves apart and establish their credibility more than ever. Journalists have to communicate directly with the audience and in many cases become a part of it. They no longer have just a byline, but a face and a personal brand. There is an increasing shift from the organization that you represent to you as an individual.

Alfred Hermida, a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at University of British Columbia, notes that it is a good idea to start building your personal brand as a student. However, it is just as important for a veteran journalist to build your brand as well.

A veteran reporter may be familiar in his or her local town, but unknown to the outside world. And if that hometown paper closes, the local credentials become almost irrelevant. Journalists need to have an online presence and a personal brand.

One of the key ways to start developing your brand is providing a place where all your online personalities and platforms meet –- a central Web site where potential employers and the public can learn all they need about your professional credentials, as well as learn how to contact and connect with you. Here are a few ways journalists can build their personal brands. We’d love to hear others in the comments below.

Read the full post here. The points include: showcasing your blogging skills, expertise, showing off your portfolio, build an audience, and present your new media skills.

The title says it all. Today, I start classes at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. And after reading Patrick Thornton’s post on being honest about journalism school and its worth, I started thinking about what I think is missing at many journalism schools today: partnerships with the universities’ business schools.

Thornton talks about how to best acquire necessary journalism skills and why folks shouldn’t go to journalism schools, as well as some mentions of journalism school curricula that are working (Extended Note: Thornton seems to have something against Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, which is where I am currently studying and cites its curriculum as outdated – though it isn’t quite clear why because the opposing examples he provides – one being NYU’s Studio 20 – aren’t much different than the options available at Columbia’s j-school, such as the workshop Nightly News. I think graduate programs in journalism are still valuable in gaining skills, and personally for me, helpful in having M.S. credentials to hopefully teach journalism one day). Anyway, the point is something is missing at many journalism schools that should be available at all. Thornton gets this right:

Here is the rub: If you’re going to attend a journalism program — especially a graduate program — you want to be in a program that will teach you how to start your own projects and be entrepreneurial. You want a program that realizes that the (social) Web is the present and future of journalism.

One thing that schools like CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism have it right is a curriculum that includes an entrepreneurial program as well as The Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Comm at ASU and Medill’s Graduate Journalism Innovations Projects. These are just a few example. But a partnership for journalism students to work together with business school students on websites that provide engaging and quality content but at the same time experiment in creating online revenue models that work should be available at all journalism schools.

In fact, I think it should be available as a specialization track at journalism schools. Though journalism schools have been implementing entrepreneurial and innovations elements into their curricula, one class or projects on the subject is not enough to fully experience what it would take to create a successful startup. Most journalism schools have figured out the need for teaching students essential web skills, and in many cases learning how to start a website and produce content for it in various ways. However, learning how to make that website profitable is just as important.