The program runs in the fall and spring. The next 100-day program runs from March 23, 2021 to June 30, 2021. The application is open from Jan 5 through Jan 24, 2021. The following iteration of the program will take place in fall 2021.

The program is fully online so students may live anywhere in the world. Students should expect to spend about three hours each week on live classes; three to four hours on learning materials, including readings and videos; and a few hours each week on self-paced work on their own ventures. 

Most material is asynchronous to allow maximum flexibility and independence. Two sessions each week are live, but are recorded for later viewing. This is rooted in our understanding that students live in various time zones and are bound by a variety of personal and professional commitments. We believe that you learn best by doing — action plus reflection — so the primary focus of students’ work is developing their own niche journalism ventures.

We are looking for self-motivated, high-potential individuals who have shown a capacity for ingenuity. We accept candidates who already have a niche journalism project or those who have identified a community to serve or a problem to solve with a  media-related product or service. We welcome applicants from all over the world, all professional fields, ages, and diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds. Applicants might be employed at media companies or self employed. 

Minimum requirements include English fluency, a willingness and capacity to work independently on a niche media project, experience in journalism or media, and a tolerance for risk, uncertainty, and occasional failure. We value diversity— as demonstrated not by our words but by the actual diversity of students and faculty in all of the J-School’s programs— and we consider all applicants on the basis of their individual strengths.

What kind of candidates may not be a good fit? 

Our program serves independent journalists, so we are not an ideal program for someone developing a public relations project or a community service organization. We focus on the development of niche journalism ventures rather than helping people develop large traditional organizations. 

Participants in our program participate in two 90-minute live sessions each week, in addition to devoting a few hours each week to program materials. So those who expect to have difficulty carving out that time on a weekly basis may not be a good fit. 

The tuition for the certificate is $4,000.

Multiple scholarships are available:

Facebook Journalism Project Scholarship: 

• Preference will be given to journalists working to amplify the voices and stories of their diverse communities

LION Publishers Aspiring Entrepreneur Scholarship:

• Applicant is interested in launching a local news site or a single-subject publication
• Applicant can be working in any medium and on any platform
• Preference will be given to applicants who want to serve a news desert and/or underrepresented communities that don’t typically see themselves in their local news media
• Applicant must be based in the U.S. or Canada

Substack Scholarship:

• Applicant should already have or plan to start a Substack

Media Lab Bayern Entrepreneurial Scholarship:

• Applicant must be based in Bavaria, Germany
• Applicant should bring at least 5 years of experience working in journalism

Participants receive a personalized certificate issued by the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY — validating that they met the requirements and successfully completed the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program, the first such certificate in the world.

Classes are taught by leading practitioners, professors, and industry experts. These include founders who have developed their own innovative and sustainable niche journalism ventures. The faculty is guided by Jeremy Caplan, Newmark J-School’s director of Teaching and Learning. We also bring in many guest speakers and instructors ranging from startup founders and CEOs to industry veterans from across the journalism spectrum.

2020 marked the debut of this online-only program. Our first cohort of the online Journalism Creators Program includes a Marine Corps veteran, a former NPR executive producer, an LA Times arts reporter, a former NYC Media Lab director, a restorative justice pioneer, two TEDx speakers, an anthropologist and others developing niche independent projects. Many are focused on market gaps ignored by larger media organizations. Read more about the 20 participants in the first cohort.

Previous in-person entrepreneurial journalism programs at the Newmark J-School have welcomed more than 130 people from 37 countries since 2010. Many alums have developed successful startup ventures including Narrative.ly, Skillcrush, Coda Story, Emerging Market Views, How India Lives, NKNews, and many more. Others have gone on to work at leading media and tech organizations around the world, including the New York Times, Apple, Vice, Facebook, NBC, Buzzfeed, and Quartz.

By the end of the program you will have designed your own niche venture or niche product, detailing both the audience and making the case for its  business success. This is not an incubator, and we are not focused on connecting participants with venture capital or philanthropic funding.