Designing Journalism for a Digital Conversation

From the rise of chat apps to the successful re-invigoration of newsletters with personality, it’s obvious audiences are hungry for new ways to connect with news and information. Learn how to build a unique conversation around the news and deal with the technological, ethical and editorial issues these new experiments raise. We’ll also look at audience research and personal stories that illustrate the methodology and impact of these new models.

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Articles

• From Chat Apps to Town Halls: Why More Newsrooms are Designing Journalism for Conversation – Josh Stearns
• Escaping Silos and Talking to Strangers – Josh Stearns
• Make the News a Conversation – Monica Guzman 
• 5 Things We Learned Collecting 3,352 Stories About Agent Orange Exposure – Terry Parris
• How the press can help rebuild the American conversation – CJR
• Journalists as moderators of public discussion – Jonathan Stray
• On convening a community: An excerpt from Jake Batsell’s new book on engaged journalism – Jake Batsell
• GroundSource is trying to help news sites build community through text-message conversations – Joseph Lichterman
• Conversation is the New Attention – Timothy Meaney
• Goodbye, comments. Hello, “conversations” –  Pedro Burgos
• Listen to People Who Care – Fiona Morgan
• Reflecting on our community conversations – Iowa Gazette
• TED Talk: 10 ways to have a better conversation – Celeste Headlee

Guides

• How to become a newsroom that consistently engages audiences – Monica Guzman
• Fostering Dialogue Across Divides: A Nuts & Bolts Guide from the Public Conversations Project – NCDD
• Organizing Community-Wide Dialogue for Action & Change – Everyday Democracy
• Cafe to Go! A Quick Reference Guide for Putting Conversations to Work – World Cafe

Books

• Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together – William Isaacs (hat tip to @akristiancarter)

• Talking to Strangers – Danielle S. Allen
• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High –  Kerry Patterson (hat tip to ‏@trianglesides)

Featuring

Monica Guzmán

2016 Fellow

Terry Parris Jr.

Community Editor

Josh Stearns

Associate Director of the Public Square Program