NYU's Rosen's advice on jumping into the journalism business

Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU, writes at his PressThink blog yesterday that when people entirely new to it ask him the best way to get going in journalism he offers them this advice: "Start a niche news service on a subject some people care a lot about."

His reasoning is that "Most everything you learn in trying to serve a narrow but interested news niche is elementary instruction in online journalism."

Now, if he limits that to starting a blog, writing thoughtful or newsy (or both) regular posts and trying to build an audience, I would agree. But he says he is referring to people with no credentials or experience. Expecting to make that into a real business could be a long slough. Rosen does admit this would be hard work. And it would. I think where we differ is that I wouldn't advise them to dive into the business at all without first getting some experience elsewhere.

Where would you come out on Rosen's advise?