Register for ONA11; ONA Local events heat up

By on April 25, 2011

Haven’t registered yet for ONA11?
Join the nearly 100 quick-thinking folks who have already signed up for the Online News Association Conference & Awards Banquet, Sept. 22-24 in Boston, before the early-early-bird deadline (and price hike) on June 1. Go to the registration page, and check out our new registration fee schedule. Our track captains are hard at work sorting through the Session Selector submissions and programming will be announced in early May. If you’d like to help out during the three days, applications are now open for volunteers.

Check out ONA Issues Live video
Missed the ONA Issues Live conversation on journalism and net neutrality? Check out the video of the hour-long discussion, featuring Kat Aaron, Project Editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop, J.G. Harrington, an attorney at Dow Lohnes, and Maggie Reardon, Senior Writer at CNET.com, moderated by Robert Hernandez, professor at USC Annenberg and ONA Board member. Watch the video at the ONA Issues Tumblr.

Don’t wait for the last minute to apply for ONA’s MJ Bear Fellowship
Applications are open for the 2011 MJ Bear Fellowships for early-career digital journalists, in honor of founding member MJ Bear. Three promising, up-and-coming digital journalists — two in the United States or Canada and one internationally, in partnership with MSN International — will be paired with a digital news leader as a mentor; receive an expense-paid trip to ONA11, where they’ll have a chance to share their fresh perspectives; and a free, one-year ONA membership. Applicants must be working journalists between the ages of 23 and 30 and fluent in English. Deadline is May 30. Review the criteria and apply here.

ONA Local wrap

We’re looking to strengthen ONA Local events in some communities and expand into others. If you’re interested in being a meetup leader in your region — or, just as important, would like to host a meetup — please contact Jeanne Brooks at jbrooks@journalists.org. Areas we are particularly interested in include Boston, greater San Francisco, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago.

#ONASEA is partnering with the Society of Professional Journalists to host a revived meetup on April 27 at 7 p.m. to discuss “What can news organizations learn from start-ups?” Hear from Monica Guzman of Intersect and Mark Briggs of KING 5 and network with other digital journalism professionals from the Seattle area. For more details and to RSVP, head to meetup.com

@ONANYC plans a lively discussion Wednesday, April 27, at 6 p.m. on “Hyperlocal in Your ’Hood” at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, where attendees will try to answer the big questions, like: What makes a successful hyperlocal site? Can large newspapers produce successful hyperlocal sites? What is the role of professional journalists, unpaid bloggers and photographers in this new newsroom? Registration is $7. For more details and to RSVP, head to meetup.com.

#ONADC‘s April’s event, which celebrated the launch of Al Jazeera’s social community program “The Stream,” had over 200 attendees. May’s meetup is scheduled May 18 at 7 p.m. and will be hosted at Bloomberg’s Washington offices. Details will be posted soon, but feel free to RSVP at meetup.com before the free event fills up.

ONA at #IJF11: The International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy, saw a robust ONA presence in April. Thanks to our @ONAItalia leader, Mario Tedeschini, and our presenters, ONA was well-represented with a meetup dinner, a law panel including ONA counsel Jon Hart and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore, and a workshop on introduction to mobile reporting and social media as a reporting tool, both run by @ONAUK leader Kathryn Corrick. You can find her slides here. Kwan Booth of Oakland Local ran a workshop on mostly free digital tools; find his slides here. And Matt Ericson of the New York Times presented on interactive graphics and data visualization: here.

@ONAMizzou: Editors and start-ups looking for promising, innovative digital journos should check out what’s happening at ONA Mizzou. Next week the newest ONA Student Club will hold elections for 2012 officers. On the ONA Mizzou blog you’ll find reporting on the latest trends in the field, in addition to great round-ups on all things ONA. This impressive group recently hosted a breaking news event in response to a local reporter’s Twitter misstep regarding the hiring of Mizzou’s new basketball coach. You can check out video of the brown bag discussion here and be sure to follow the group on Twitter and Facebook.

More news and notes

Public broadcasting leaders air discussion on funding landscape
Industry leaders and journalists will take a hard look at the federal funding challenges facing public broadcasting at the 2011 Curtis B. Hurley Symposium — The Future of Public Broadcasting: Innovating to Connect Communities, April 26, 9 a.m. to noon ET, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Leading the dialogue will be Patrick Butler, president and CEO, Association of Public Television Stations; Paula Kerger, president and CEO, PBS; Bill Kling, CEO, American Public Media; and Joyce Slocum, interim president and CEO, NPR. Jim Lehrer, executive editor and anchor of “PBS NewsHour,” will make opening remarks. The event is sponsored by the Missouri School of Journalism and the Eric Friedheim National Journalism Library. For more information and to register, contact Jackie Lewandowski at HurleySymposium@missouri.edu or (202) 662-7155.

Join global journos for World Press Freedom Day
As journalists around the world use social media to report breaking news and grapple with government-imposed Internet restrictions, World Press Freedom Day aims to highlight the challenges and opportunities new technology brings. Organized by UNESCO with the theme “21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers,” the event will be held May 1-3 in Washington, D.C. Partner events will also be held in UNESCO offices in Almaty, Kazakhstan; South America (Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile); Windhoek, Namibia; the Sub-Mekong region and Amman. Check out the WPFD blog, and follow WPFD on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.

Speed network your way through HR with the Deadline Club
The SPJ’s Deadline Club will host its first-ever speed networking program on April 27 at the Newspaper Guild of New York, 1501 Broadway. Meet one-on-one with hiring editors and HR professionals from some of the city’s top publications, including Archaeology Magazine, Men’s Journal, Wired.com, Audubon Magazine, The Economist, Psychology Today, Scripps, Smart Planet, Kirkus Reviews, and Mashable. Reservations, available on a first-come, first-served basis, are $30 for non-members. RSVPs for the mixer portion of the evening are free. RSVP to rsvp@deadlineclub.org and indicate which part of the evening you will be participating in.

Index on Censorship hosts free WikiLeaks debate at Columbia
Index on Censorship is organizing a series of free events in the U.S. in 2011, kicking off at 6:30 p.m., May 4, at Columbia University in New York with “Life After WikiLeaks: Who Won the Information War?” featuring lawyer Mark Stephens, who has represented WikiLeaks, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, and Russian investigative journalist and security expert Andrei Soldatov. To attend, email eve@indexoncensorship.org.

Knight Religion Grants open
Applications are open for the Knight Grants for Reporting on Religion and American Public Life. The competition, sponsored by the Knight Program in Media and Religion, provides funding for projects that explore how religion — morals, values, spirituality and the search for meaning — shapes responses to social issues, including housing, health care, poverty, sexuality, immigration, economic equity, and civil rights in the U.S. Applications are due July 1. Check here for more information and to apply.

Deadline looming for NLGJA Awards
The deadline is around the corner for NLGJA’s Excellence in Journalism Awards, which feature a major change this year: Separating the online journalism and multimedia categories to encourage greater recognition and participation of bloggers and citizen journalists. All entries must be submitted before 11 p.m. ET, Friday, April 29. Initial publication/broadcast must have occurred in 2010 for consideration. Apply here.

Apply for a Maynard Institute multimedia fellowship
If you are a journalist who works for a U.S.-based newspaper with a circulation of 50,000 or below, you are eligible to apply for one of 12 Maynard Institute’s Multimedia Fellowships, funded by a grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The immersion program teaches video, audio, blogging, slideshows, tagging, databases, maps, HTML, producing stories using mobile, Web strategy, social networking and content management systems, and how they all connect. The program runs from June 1 to 30, 2011 at the Reynolds School of Journalism – University of Nevada, Reno. Tuition is $6,000 and includes all sessions, housing and some meals. Deadline is April 30. More info here.

Jane McDonnell

Jane McDonnell

As executive director, Jane oversees and manages the day-to-day operations of the world’s largest membership organization of digital journalists, working closely with the Board of Directors. Her purview includes membership, partnerships, global community outreach, budgeting and revenue generation, fundraising and development, the Online Journalism Awards, and providing vision for ONA’s state-of-the-art annual conference.