Turns out, we’re going to have a March Meetup. And it’s going to be in April.

Come out to the Starr-ific Frankford Hall in Fishtown for a good old fashioned ONA Philly Meetup.

Tuesday April 3, 2012. We’ll get there at 6pm, the masses will form before 7pm, and we’ll be outta there by 9pm for those of you on deadline.

Because we like planning too much to just call it a Happy Hour, come with your story of how you first got into the news business. It’s spring, time for beginnings, so let’s talk about yours.

Have a beer, introduce yourself to someone new and ask how they got into the trade.

And remember, in lieu of a real April event is the Sat. April 28th BarCamp NewsInnovation, the national un-conference on the future of news.

Please register on Meetup using the link below.

Register    Learn more

SPJ Northern California welcomes the ONA-SF community to learn how normally competitive journalists from different Bay Area news outlets learned to work together to prove how you can’t kill a story by killing the messenger. Thomas Peele, an investigative reporter for the Bay Area News Group, will speak about his new book, “Killing the Messenger – A Story of Radical Faith, Racism’s Backlash, and the Assassination of a Journalist,” with SPJ Northern California Board member Randy Shandobil.

The book tells the story of the murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey, the history of the Black Muslim movement, and the Oakland cult whose members killed him.

Peele will be joined by the two other lead reporters on the Chauncey Bailey Project: Mary Fricker, a former staff writer for the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, and Bob Butler, KCBS Radio, Vice President Broadcast, National Association of Black Journalists, and Vice President, AFTRA. They will talk about how print journalists worked with television and radio journalists, and how this new model of collaboration is becoming increasingly common and necessary to get in-depth stories out to the public.

Please register on Meetup using the link below.

Register    Learn more

Doing Data Journalism: It’s Not Just Numbers

Data journalism is quickly becoming one of the hottest topics in the industry – but what exactly is it, and what tools, teams and techniques are necessary for doing it well?

On March 28th, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism will host several of data journalism’s most prominent innovators and practitioners for a discussion about the possibilities and pitfalls of this evolving field. We hope you will join us at Columbia Journalism School from 6 – 7:30pm to hear their perspectives and join the discussion.

Panelists
Julia Angwin
Julia Angwin is an award-winning technology editor and columnist at The Wall Street Journal. She is also the author of “Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America” (Random House, March 2009). In 2003, she was on a team of reporters at The Wall Street Journal that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting for coverage of corporate corruption. In 2010, she led a team of reporters that chronicled the decline of online privacy in a series of articles titled “What They Know” that won the Gerald Loeb Award.
Scott Klein
Scott Klein is the Editor of News Applications at ProPublica, where he directs a team of journalist/programmers building large interactive software projects that tell journalistic stories, and that help readers find the relevance of complex national stories to themselves and their communities. His team’s projects have included Dollars for Docs and The Opportunity Gap.

Aron Pilhofer
Aron Pilhofer is editor of Interactive News at The New York Times. His team blends journalism and technology to enhance The Times’s reporting online through social media, community and dynamic, data-driven Web applications. He is also co-founder of two news-related nonprofits: DocumentCloud.org and Hacks and Hackers.

Mo Tamman
Maurice Tamman is data journalist with Reuters, prior to which he was a database editor and reporter with The Wall Street Journal. Recent works include an extensive analysis of Medicare fraud and abuse and work on home lending, banking and the financial crisis. He also teaches a class in investigative reporting methods with the Stabile Center at Columbia Journalism School.

Moderator
Susan E. McGregor
Assistant Professor, Columbia Journalism School
Tow Center for Digital Journalism

Susan joined the Tow Center following four years as the Senior Programmer of the Online News Graphics team at the Wall Street Journal, where she developed hundreds of interactive graphics and data applications. In 2010, she was named as a winner in the Gerald Loeb Awards’ “Online Enterprise” category for her work on the Journal’s “What They Know” series, and was also a finalist for the 2007 Scripps Howard award in Web Reporting. Her work with the Tow Center focuses on data journalism and visualization, as well as data standards and cross-platform development.

Organizers
Susan E. McGregor
Lam Thuy Vo
Lam is a multi-platform reporter, producing graphics, photographs, videos and blogposts for NPR’s Planet Money. Before joining NPR she was a multimedia editor at The Wall Street Journal, where she headed video operations for the newspaper across Asia. Her reporting has earned her a number of accolades including a Webby Award, a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award and a Society of Publishers in Asia Award.

Register    Learn more

Welcome to ONA MIA! We’ve created a space where South Florida online news folks can gather to share ideas – in person. Come show off your latest online project / strategy. Or just come for fun. We’ll spend time at this first meetup getting to know each other and brainstorming some topics we can discuss in upcoming meetups.

Let’s get together March 21 at 7 p.m. at Tobacco Road in Miami.

Register    Learn more

Come one, come all to the first Online News Association Twin Cities meetup–and bring a friend!

The first meetup will be a casual meetup and geekout. Have some lifehack or workflow thing that’s really made you nerd-out recently? Bring it along and be prepared to share it! Otherwise, we’ll spend the evening mingling and hopefully plotting our next meetup.

Want to help organize the next (or any future) meetups? Let us know! Looking for co-organizers to help keep the ball rolling.

Register    Learn more

In Seattle, two inches of snow can cause serious havoc with our tall trees, steep hills and freeways, causing major disruptions and dangers along with priceless opportunities for sledding. Seattle’s media outlets are usually out in the middle of it, developing (often on the fly) innovative ways to bring better information to their audiences.

Join us for the next ONA & SPJ Seattle meetup Tuesday, March 6, 7 p.m. at Jillian’s, where representatives from KING, The Seattle Times, KOMO and KIRO-TV will demo (5 –minute Ignite style) the innovative ways they are covering weather for their audiences, and we’ll host a roundtable discussion on successes and lessons.

Participants include:

KIRO-TV Meteorologist Morgan Palmer serves as meteorologist for KIRO 7 Eyewitness News. Morgan began “chasing” storms as a Skywarn severe storm spotter as a teenager and continues to pursue severe storms when time permits. He also served several years as a moderator of Stormtrack, the world’s largest online forum for storm chasers. A self-described “Twitter addict,” Morgan tweets very frequently at @morganpalmer.

Sona Patel is a Producer for Social Media for The Seattle Times, where she has been helping create a social media strategy for print and online. Prior to that she was a reporter and Web producer for The Tribune, in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Her beats included the city of Morro Bay, Cuesta College, and the towns of Los Osos and Cayucos. She was also a homepage producer for The Tribune’s Web site, SanLuisObispo.com and is a recipient of the 2011 Kiplinger Fellowship in Social Media at Ohio State University.

Evonne Benedict of KING 5 started her career as a broadcast journalist, working in television for several years. Now she has incorporated that background with digital journalism, with a particular focus on social media. As social media manager, she oversees KING 5 accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and others. She also trains and supports KING 5 staff in their social media and community efforts. Evonne is passionate about the KING 5 community, and the increasing two-way conversation between KING 5 and its viewers/readers.

Scott Sistek of KOMO is not only the staff meteorologist for KOMONews.com, but is also a content producer for the entire KOMOnews.com site, which is how he got himself listed on the Web site’s “people” section. (Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone!) Scott also writes the Partly to Mostly Bloggin’ weather blog both here at KOMO and their sister station in Portland, KATU.com.

This is our seventh in a series of #Newsnext meetups, where we’re talking to interesting locals working in the digital space. We bring together writers, editors, photographers, producers, developers, designers, engineers and anyone else with an interest in the production of news. We’ll meet at Jillian’s on Westlake, which offers a cash bar and some great space for discussion and networking. Here’s a look at our last meetup, on news startups.

Register    Learn more

ONA Boston launches into Spring with a social event at the Cambridge Brewing Company (by popular request).

We’ll have a casual meetup at 7pm, with a few hours to talk and share ideas and set the world to rights. Hopefully you’ll find time to talk about what’s been working for you, what hasn’t, new tools, and how the NE Red Cross has shot to the top of every journalist’s source list! Watch this space for event details.

The Cambridge Brewing Comany is also well situated for anyone who wants to move on for a game of pool or dinner.

— And in the meantime: Check out the Hacks and Hackers Meetup group which has two interesting looking events at the end of Feb.

Register    Learn more

Bring your questions about data and your … lip chap?

We’ll be ‘kissing and mapping’ at this pub night. Our guest will be Chris Kay Fraser of Firefly Creative Writing who created the Canada Kiss Map.

After a brief talk, we’ll open the floor up for a Q&A. The Q&A will be followed by a pub night where you can mingle with your peers to see who’s up to what and where.

We hope to see you there!

Register    Learn more

Do you read news on your iPhone more often than on your computer? Are you interested in learning how to think with a mobile-first mindset? If so, join ONA Mizzou at noon Feb. 17 in Walter Williams Hall Room 35 (a conference room off the red-carpeted hallway). They’ll have Amanda Bromwich and Matt Schmertz, 2011 convergence graduates, on hand to talk about their jobs at The Marketing Arm. Both work at this Dallas-based marketing agency as project managers. Topics will include mobile advertising, mobile-first publishing strategies and job hunting.

Do you have questions you’d like answered at the event? Tweet them now to @ONAMizzou or write on our Facebook Wall.

Register    Learn more

Amy Webb is the head of Webbmedia Group and an ONA board member. Amy is a leader in emerging tech and digital strategy. Her sessions at the ONA conferences are considered “can’t miss.”

Join @ONAPSUPC on Feb. 15 at 7:30 pm to pick Amy’s brain on all things digital, including social media strategy, hot new digital tools, and advanced Twitter strategy.

For details and to RSVP head to meetup.com.

Register    Learn more