ONA13 Suggestion Box

What do you want to see at ONA13? Feel free to weigh in on which sessions you like best with a “like” or a reblog. While we’ll be watching which ones get the most attention, we won’t take an official vote count this year.

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Quick Hits and Curl Ups: A Fast-forward Through the Rebirth of Video News

Session Type Panel

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Drake Martinet Andy Pergam Rebecca Howard

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? Those on stage would represent a diversity of backgrounds and approaches to the next chapter in video journalism. 

Submitted by Drake Martinet

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Fast Track Video Workshop

Description What are the best techniques for quick, effective video storytelling for the web? From the BBC five-shot method, to shooting sequences, to fast-production techniques and uploading, hear about the multimedia tools and tips used by journalists working as foreign correspondents and one-man bands in adverse reporting fields with little or no time or budget.You’ll walk away from this workshop with work flows, checklists and tools so that anyone with an iPhone 4S, XDCAM or a RED camera can improve their video content.

Session Type Workshop

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Andrew Lih Lam Vo

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? Many conference sessions are usually fast paced discussions of new trends in the field. Our sessions is aimed at giving reporters real, hands-on experience as well as information they can take home and use.

The workshop involves role-play to show people how to shoot in the field. We also hand out a number of checklists that reporters can take home: http://lamivo.com/tips.html

Submitted by Lam Vo

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Massive Open Online Journalism

Session Type Panel

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Brian McDermott

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? With all the educators at the conference, this panel could be a timely discussion about potential digital disruption in higher education from the point of view of journalists and journalism educators who have already watched the digital work shake up their field.

Also, I really like that these platforms potentially offer large and diverse groups of people access to high quality instruction, whether they're students, professionals or educators. It's part of why this summer I'll teach our University's first MOOC, "Building a Basic Website," and I'd love to talk with other educators about these kinds of experiments.

Submitted by Brian McDermott

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Build Interactivity Into Your Stories — No Coding Required!

Description Want to build interactive maps, polls, social media reaction, timelines and multimedia-rich images into your online storytelling, but don't know how to code? It's easier than you think. Using free apps and tools such as Meograph, Scribblelive, Storify, TimelineJS and Thinglink, you can quickly and easily add an extra layer of value to your articles. These interactive elements pay off — your audience will be more engaged AND more likely to share your stories. Depending on allotted time, this could either be a demo with examples or (ideally) more of a hands-on training session in which participants set up the apps and tools beforehand and create interactive elements during the session. 

Session Type Training

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Shauna Rempel

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? This session is catered to reporters, editors and producers who want to add extra value to their online news coverage, but may lack the skills and time to create something from scratch. These tools are also a "gateway" to more complicated data visualization tools that may require code. I've noticed while doing training in my newsroom as well as with journalism students that these tools are relatively simple and effective. 

Submitted by Shauna Rempel

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Engaging Through Data: Lessons from Inside and Outside the Newsroom

Description It's no secret that the right data set can be a goldmine of stories for journalists. But it can also create opportunities to collect and convey deeper insights from those most affected by the numbers in ways that can power reporting and results. From interactive maps to video games to postcards, striking the right balance among visualization, reporting and public engagement is where the challenge comes in. 

What are the key internal questions to ask when developing a data visualization in a way that can facilitate collaboration with both the public and other media outlets? How can the information be effectively distributed to those who need to know, from local citizens to Washington's decision-makers? These conversations are crucial to determining how to showcase and deliver insights from your data both online and off; through your own organization and with others.

Let's review some lessons learned from teams who have attempted such data-fueled initiatives, talking through what worked well, what failed miserably and what could've been done to make the projects more effective. You'll walk away with some key tips and suggestions for your own data, as well as how to track your impact. We'll also make sure there's ample time to talk through ideas and experiences from the audience.

Session Type Panel

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Cole Goins TBD

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? Session participants will include individuals representing a variety of backgrounds and expertise within the newsroom. At the very least, we'll invite a reporter, developer and public engagement specialist to discuss best practices for internal and external collaboration on creating an effective, engaging data visualization. By incorporating a diverse mix of panelists, we hope to offer insights across disciplines that highlight lessons and ideas for journalists to reach new audiences and facilitate deeper interactions with their data.

Submitted by Cole Goins

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Concept to Prototype Before Lunch

In this workshop, together we will come up with an idea and launch it. In real-time, as a group. No technical experience necessary.

After a decade of round-the-clock launching of products, we’ll show you what is necessary (and what isn’t) when creating your interactive experience. You’ll walk away with step-by-step processes to execute immediately.

Interactive technology veteran Sean Higby will walk you through the hyper-focused pipeline that has been used behind the scenes to create some of your favorite interactive experiences. Sean has produced countless websites, apps, and games for everyone Mickey Mouse to Microsoft for over 13 years.  Webbys, W3 Awards, Pixel Awards, and more. He is now fully-focused on the future of news, and wants your new stories to be seen by as many people as possible.

Commercial art director John Richards will walk you through the ideation process, providing real-time ideas, showing the far reaches of ideas you can pull from for creation of the next innovation. John has created commercial campaigns for Apple, Nike, Mercedes, American Express, Comedy Central, and many more.

Session Type Workshop

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Sean Higby John Richards

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? While there are great sessions about granular parts of the development process (Agile or programming or design, etc.), we've heard a lot of desire to see a concept-to-execution format the covers every aspect (programming, design, project management). This way, people walk away understanding, through practice, how all these specific parts best fit and interact together from beginning to end.

Submitted by Sean Higby

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Using Social Media in Sports Event Coverage

Session Type Discussion

Suggested Speakers/Presenters (none)

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? Although the session will be sports-centric, the ideas discussed would be applicable to many types of coverage, especially breaking news and big events.

Submitted by Vicki Michaelis

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Problem-Solving Through Journalism: A Conversation on Solution-Based Reporting

Description What would journalism look like if it was geared around a "problem-solving" approach? How can journalists identify potential solutions and report on them rigorously? How can we create reciprocal relationships with the public that work to both identify and address key issues facing local, national or global communities? What are the tools we can use to help build those relationships and design a more responsive, or constructive, form of journalism? How does this approach challenge beliefs about the historic role of journalism in our society?

Let\'s have a conversation about reconfiguring our focus, letting the community help define "newsworthy" topics in ways that articulate different needs/problems and using the tools of reporting to highlight routes to approach them. Careful not to tread into the realm of direct advocacy, how can we build a more active, inclusive and solution-oriented framework for our reporting?

Session Type Discussion

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Joaquin Alvarado David Bornstein Courtney Martin

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? Along with a diverse group of moderators, this session will be more of a crowd-fueled conversation around the opportunities and pitfalls that accompany solution-based reporting and will draw largely on comments, questions and experiences from attendees. We don't want this to be your ordinary panel discussion, but want to open up the topic for debate. We hope that this type of session will surface new insights on how to apply a problem-solving approach to journalism. We\'ll be taking notes and will round-up the discussion in a post following the session.

Submitted by Cole Goins

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Webscraping 101

Description Web scrapers are useful tools that can help reporters capture data online while saving time, and Webscraping 101 will send folks home with their very own scraper (bike).

This hands-on workshop will use the website ScraperWiki to write a program that scrapes a website. We'll work with HTML, CSS and Python, but anyone with a laptop and an internet connection can follow along our step-by-step presentation.

Session Type Workshop

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Dan Hill Frank Bi

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? Scraping the web encompasses various disciplines, from web design to programming languages.

Webscraping 101 is a hands-on introduction to these topics, and attendees with no coding experience can leave the session with spreadsheets of data scraped to their laptops.

And Frank and Dan will be college graduates as of this summer, student journalists FTW!

Submitted by Dan Hill

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Using Photos in Social Media for Compelling Storytelling

Session Type Workshop

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Sean Higby John Richards

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? This workshop serves as a point of entry for storytellers using non-traditional journalistic tools and shines a light onto a new way of reporting, accessible to photo journalist, curators, bloggers and writers who want to share their stories.

Submitted by John Richards

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Bytes and Rights: When FOIA Goes Meta

Session Type Panel

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Nabiha Syed Frank LoMonte

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? We're lawyers who work on the front lines of the freedom-of-information wars, helping media clients get access to the data they need and advocating for more open access to government databases. We can respond not just to FOIA questions but all sorts of access, copyright and liability issues. We are diverse from each other, sharing only 99.9 percent of our DNA in common.

Submitted by Nabiha Syed

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Solutions Journalism

Description We've been developing training materials on solutions journalism, a practice we define as "rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems." The curriculum is built around answering the following questions:

- What distinguishes solutions journalism from good news?

- What are the essential ingredients of a solutions journalism story?

- What are some potential structures for a solutions journalism story?

- How do you accurately evaluate the effectiveness of a solution?

- How do you engage other journalists or editors in solutions-oriented content?

Starting with a focus on what solutions journalism is not allows us to immediately emphasize the rigorous nature of this critical practice. We follow this with a brief explanation of the elements of a ‘knock-out’ solutions journalism story: e.g., It emphasizes the “how” in addition to the five W’s of traditional journalism; it assesses a new approach in the context of what has come before; it focuses on the value of an idea more than the charisma or talent of the people behind it.

From there, we move into hands-on activities. Participants deconstruct and then restructure existing solutions journalism stories — from New York Times “Fixes” columns to PBS Newshour special reports to This American Life features — to give a sense for how the most veteran reporters examine responses to some of the world’s

pressing problems. This analysis is complemented by reflections from these reporters about their process.

Using thought experiments, large and small group discussion, and other participatory pedagogical techniques, SJN trainers — all of them working journalists — help participants strengthen their independent capacity to report, pitch, write/produce, and publish solutions journalism stories. They explain how to find relevant data sets and expert sources that will help substantiate the effectiveness and impact of innovations.

Ultimately, we hope to create community among the journalists we train, transforming them into allies for one another as they collectively and individually strengthen their capacity for this critical practice. Through our online network, blogging, and social media

outreach, we will continue to provide supplementary material for the participants long after the in-person training has concluded.

Session Type Workshop

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Courtney Martin David Bornstein Tina Rosenberg Sarika Bansal

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? Many conversations about the changing news landscape have focused on the medium of storytelling for the digital age. The Solutions Journalism Network examines how journalists can adapt their storytelling techniques to fit large societal shifts. The world is hungry for compelling and rigorous stories about what's working — and thanks to the rise of social enterprise, there are more of these stories to tell. We hope a conversation about solutions journalism can spark the interest of journalists at ONA to advance their practices.

Submitted by Sarika Bansal

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How to Make Copyright User-Friendly Across Platforms

Session Type Workshop

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Peter Jaszi Ellyn Angelotti David Cohn Kevin Smith

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? This workshop is introducing a brand-new tool, by journalists and for journalists. The speakers represent men and women who are leaders in their fields, copyright experts and practitioners, coming together help journalists understand and exercise their rights.

Submitted by Patricia Aufderheide

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Technology: Mobile Journalism, Tools and Security

Session Type Workshop

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Timothy Pool

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? This session will help journalists become more efficient when reporting by better understanding cellular data networks, apps, hardware, and security.

Submitted by Timothy Pool

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Opportunities for Optimists — New Media in the Public Sector

Description I'm open to presenting as a lone speaker or as a part of a panel about media innovation in the public sector: nonprofits, government and campaigns.

With extensive new media experience in  all three, I plan to offer insights about best practices and business opportunities for digital content creators and journalists across the public sector.

Session Type Speaker

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Howard Franklin

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? The public sector includes some of the most fertile (and overlooked) terrain for digital media strategists. I've experienced success in that arena, and I would like to alert other professionals about the opportunities within the space.

I worked as director of public affairs & e.Communications for the Edison Group, providing offering to Save Darfur, The Center for Disease Control Foundation, and the Federal Communications Commission, among others.

I also established the first online campaign for Clean Water Atlanta’s $4 billion water and sewer overhaul. During the 2011 Georgia General Assembly, I led a four-month social media and messaging campaign for the Georgia House Democratic Caucus, generating more than 300 earned media hits across television, radio, print and online.

I've also served as Political writer for Rolling Out, the nation’s largest chain of African-American newspapers, publishing 1.2 million copies in 19 of the top 25 markets weekly.

Submitted by Howard Franklin

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WordPress as a CMS — Will it Work for Your Newsroom?

Session Type Small Group

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Kelli Papendick

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? Using WordPress allows our newsrooms to get news and digital content to our audiences faster than before. Training a reporter on how to post content in WordPress takes minutes, not hours or days. And now that our sites are responsive, we don't need to focus on adding content to multiple platforms for mobile sites or apps. Post once, consume everywhere. 

Submitted by Kelli Papendick

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The Internet Ate My Book

Camille Sweeney, a journalist, and Josh Gosfield, an artist, are coauthors of "The Art of Doing: How Superachievers Do What They Do and How They Do It So Well" published by Plume/Penguin. Knowing that their prestigious publishers couldonly do so much, the coauthors asked themselves: “How do we reach people who don't hang out in bookstores or spend afternoons scrolling through the pages of Amazon books?”

Sweeney and Gosfield, who started out not really knowing a Bleep from a Tweet, will talk about how they created a DIY campaign to get the word out. They undertook atrial and error adventure to tell, retell and excerpt the ideas of their book in as many formats as possible. They built a blog, a Facebook Fan Page and Twitter fan base and got their work and stories about their research into the New York Times, Forbes, Huffington Post, Daily Beast/Newsweek, Fast Company, Yahoo.com, MSNBC, Business Insider, Psychology Today, regional radio and other venues. Sweeney and Gosfield will describe how they have recrafted the powerful anecdotes, observations and research of their book into news, advice, book trailers, interactive word clouds, artist interpretations as well as presentations at venues ranging from SXSW to Harvard U.

Like Willy Sutton, the criminal mastermind, who famously said he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is,” Sweeney and Gosfield have taken their stories to the web because that’s where the readers are.

Session Type Speaker

Suggested Speakers/Presenters Josh Gosfield Camille Sweeney

How does your submission contribute to the diversity of conference programming? Being non-techie authors Sweeney and Gosfield will give people a real-world, behind-the-scenes look at how they are telling our story on the web — not in theory but the way they actually do it.

Submitted by Sean Higby