Join ONA South Florida for a free, day-long workshop highlighting the people, topics and tools that are driving journalism innovation in South Florida. Come meet other local storytellers and innovators and build your network and reporting toolkit. We’ll cover data visualization, the latest apps you need to download, creating mobile video, product management, and more. This digital journalism training is open to all members of the journalism community who RSVP on Eventbrite. Light breakfast and lunch will be provided, and we’ll gather for happy hour after the event to give you extra time to discuss the themes of the day with speakers and attendees.
Expect to walk away with plenty of plenty of new connections doing great digital work in South Florida, inspirational examples, strategies and best practices on emerging platforms like Snapchat, VR/360 and Facebook Live, as well as hands-on skills you can take back to your newsroom.
Below, you’ll find the agenda for the day. Please note, the agenda may change in advance of the event. We will be adding more presenters to the program.
9 – 9:30 a.m.
Welcome and Opening Remarks
9:30 – 10:15 a.m.
Visualization for Reporters and Editors: Stripping the Dread from the Graphics
Alberto Cairo, University of Miami
The use of data charts, maps, and diagrams in the news is booming but, unfortunately, it’s still seen by many reporters and editors as a skill only designers and developers have. This session will show that, regardless of your role or professional background, you too can create beautiful data graphics with little effort. We’ll review where to find the tools and go over some elementary design principles.
10:30 – 11:15 a.m.
Snapchat: How to Take the App Seriously
Samantha Ragland, Palm Beach Post
Snapchat isn’t just for you to wax poetic about your final exams or your love affair with Starbucks. It’s a storytelling platform that, whether for news, marketing or public relations organizations, is pivotal in communicating directly with new audiences: audiences that talk back, engage, and, yes, pay for digital products and experiences that best serve them (think Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime, theSkimm Ahead). We’ll talk about how you can turn your Snaps into genuinely creative, seriously strategic storytelling.
11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Your Mobile Office: Apps for Journalists who Work and Publish in the Field
Val Hoeppner, Val Hoeppner Media and Consulting
This session will focus on helping reporters work and publish in the field with smartphones and tablets. We’ll explore some of the best apps on the market to write, edit and share stories, photos, audio interviews and documents. We will also look at equipment that will help make the most of your mobile technology.
12:15 – 1:15 p.m.
Lunch
Lunch will be provided, and this will be an opportunity to meet other people working on the topics and questions you’re most interested in.
1:15 – 2 p.m.
Breakout Session 1
Virtual Reality for Innovating Newsrooms: McClatchy’s Sandbox Team Shares its VR approach, Experience and Advice
Ben Connors, Meghan Sims and Lindsay Claiborne, McClatchy
This session will cover a broad overview of virtual reality and augmented reality as an emerging set of mediums and how you can start to think about applying these mediums to your journalism. We’ll look at 360° storytelling from an editorial standpoint, do an overview of the mechanics of putting together 360° images, and talk about selecting the right gear and workflow for your budget. Finally, we’ll take a peek beyond 360° to discuss how we’re preparing for new volumetric mediums.
1:15 – 2 p.m.
Breakout Session 2
Eyes on the Rise: Lessons on Crowdsourcing for Cross-Platform Journalism
Susan Jacobson, Kate MacMillin and Abel Fernandez, Florida International University
Hear from the students and professors behind Eyes on the Rise on lessons learned from working with Miami residents to document sea level rise and tidal flooding in their communities. We’ll do a hands-on demo where you can try the free tools we use, and we’ll talk through considerations you should keep in mind if you want to embark on a crowdsourcing project. We’ll also showcase some of the storytelling applications of our project to help you think about how you might apply similar strategies in your reporting.
2:15 – 3 p.m.
Breakout Session 3
If You’re Using Facebook Live As You Would A Television Newscast, You’re Doing It Wrong.
Jermell Dantè Prigeon, WTVJ/NBC6, and Corvaya Jeffries, Palm Beach Post
As a storyteller, you should consider incorporating live video into your coverage plan often — but don’t let a three-minute stand-up be all you can come up with. Let us help you explore the best practices for Facebook Live that grab your audience and keep them.
2:15 – 4 p.m.
Breakout Session 4
Short and Smart: Mobile Video Storytelling
Val Hoeppner, Val Hoeppner Media and Consulting
Demand for short, timely video is high on all news web sites, and video storytelling helps our audience understand people and issues in a deeper, more lasting way. In this hands-on session, you’ll learn how to shoot and edit three of the most common types of short videos with a smartphone or tablet. The focus is on 30-60 second video that requires no or very minimal editing and can be posted quickly. You’ll learn about sequences of shots, getting high quality audio from your device, shooting the best five shots, grabbing audience attention with effective editing, and more. All you need for this session is your smartphone — please make sure it’s charged up and has iMovie or Android Videoshop pre-downloaded.
** Please note: This session will cover a lot of ground, so it will run continuously through two breakout slots in the afternoon, but you will need to have attended the first part of the session in order for the second part to make sense. You can choose to either attend this session from 2:15 to 4 p.m. or attend the two breakout sessions that will be going on at the same time.
3:15 – 4 p.m.
Breakout Session 5
Managing Journalists on New Platforms
Rachel Schallom, Fusion
Back in the good ole days, great writers became editors to help others become great writers. Now, journalism is in every technology space and platform, making it impossible for managers to have experience doing everything their producers, developers and journalists must do. Let’s talk about how to manage those doing jobs we don’t know how to do. (Spoiler alert: It’s mostly about trust.)
4 p.m.
Closing Remarks
4:30 p.m.
Networking Happy Hour
Rok:Bgr, 5800 SW 73rd St, South Miami, FL 33143
All attendees are invited to join us for happy hour at Rok:Bgr after the workshop to continue the conversation about the ideas and topics we’ll discuss during the day. Come meet the speakers and attendees making digital journalism in South Florida.
ONA Local is a global network of volunteer organizers hosting networking and training events for local journalism and technology communities. These collaborative and resource-sharing communities are essential to achieving ONA’s mission, connecting journalism, technology and innovation. Find or start a group near you.
Thanks to Knight Foundation for its support of ONA Local programs, and to the University of Miami for being our host sponsor for this event.