The Cox Institute was chosen by Matter to host an immersive bootcamp training session in coordination with the Google News Lab and News Media Alliance, which took place this June.
Corey Ford, managing director at Matter, a startup accelerator and media venture capital firm, said the bootcamp training sessions taught local news organizations how to build profitable media ventures through an audience-centered, prototype-driven process called design thinking.
“In order to think bigger about how to change media for good, we need to think smaller: community by community, publication by publication, station to station,” Ford said in a blog post. “This is at the heart of this new collaboration.”
The Cox Institute acted as one of four hosts during the bootcamp series. Other hosts included the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism, the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism and UC Berkeley’s Advanced Media Institute.
“Solving the business model issues confronting journalism requires entrepreneurial thinking and processes,” said Keith Herndon, director of the Cox Institute. “Programs such as this are needed as catalysts if we are to accelerate change.”
The program started in New York the week of April 23, then moved to Missouri the week of May 7 before hitting its final stops at Berkeley and Georgia the week of June 25.
