Larry Kramer ’72, founder, chairman and CEO of Marketwatch.com, is a visiting professor this semester at ϲ’s , teaching “Case Studies in Media Management.”
“The Newhouse School has always been fortunate to have such a talented, successful group of alumni who make their knowledge and expertise available to students,” says Newhouse Dean Lorraine Branham. “Larry is taking it a step further, bringing his knowledge and expertise right into the classroom. It’s an incredible educational experience for our students.”
The graduate-level course uses the case study method to examine the managerial, financial and business processes involved in current media management. Students examine real-world media companies at various levels and solve actual business problems. They will also work with several companies to create new cases that will be studied by students in subsequent semesters.
“Things are moving so quickly in the world of media right now, we decided we would get closer to several small and large media companies and work with them as they try to deal with the tsunami of change they are experiencing,” says Kramer. “We want to build a group of cases that are as current as the issues the companies have to face.”
Kramer has a long and distinguished career in communications. After a 20-year career in newspapers, he became an entrepreneur in 1991 and founded DataSport Inc., which created SporTrax, a hand-held sports information monitor in partnership with The Sporting News. After selling DataSport, Kramer developed the original concept for Marketwatch.com—which he founded as a joint venture with Data Broadcasting Corp. and CBS—and led the company through its 1997 launch and its 1999 IPO until its sale to Dow Jones for $528 million in 2005. Following that, he was the founding president of CBS Digital Media from 2005-07.
He started his career in 1974 as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. In 1977, he became a financial reporter for the Washington Post. In 1980, he became executive editor of the Trenton (N.J.) Times. In 1982, he returned to the Post to serve first as assistant to executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee and later as assistant managing editor and metro editor. In 1986, he returned to the San Francisco Examiner as executive editor, where he remained until he founded DataSport.
Kramer is the recipient of a National Press Club Award, a Gerald E. Loeb Award and Associated Press Awards for reporting. His staffs have won the Pulitzer Prize, Overseas Press Club Award, Seldon Ring Investigative Reporting Award and National Headliners Award.
He is a member of the Newhouse Advisory Board; was a founding board member of the Online Publishers Association; served as committee chairman of the American Society of Newspaper Editors; and sat on the Pulitzer Prize Jury. In 2000, he was named to the list of the 100 most influential business journalists of the 20th century.
He serves on the boards of directors for Discovery Communications Inc., American Media Inc., Answers.com and Harvard Business School Publishing Inc.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism and political science from ϲ and an M.B.A. from Harvard University.
