Calendar of Multimedia Training & Events

By Ameena Rasheed, NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force Intern

Editor’s note: the Digital Journalism Task Force is working on programming that will take us right to the annual convention. To that end, we’d appreciate it if you could take this quick 5-question survey to let us know what you want. Thanks!!

Webbmedia Group has a great mega calendar of events that catches things not covered below. If you want to subscribe to the calendar, click here. You can also subscribe to this calendar so the information appears on your personal Google Calendar. Just go to the Webbmedia Google calendar, click the “+Google Calendar” icon at the bottom right, and then click “Yes, add this calendar” in the dialog box). The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism has its training calendar posted for courses through July 2013.

APRIL

• Learn how award-winning professionals work through the creative process of storytelling on a deadline in these on-demand video replays in the Video Storytelling with the Pros: Creativity on a Deadline training package.
• ASJA is hosting its 42nd Annual Writers Conference, ASJA2013: Fire Up Your Writing Career, which includes two full days open to the public, offering dozens of educational sessions focused on issues and topics pivotal to freelance writers. There will also be several social events designed to encourage professional networking.
• NewsTrain, the signature on-site journalism training program of the Associated Press Media Editors, will make its first stop in its 10th anniversary year in Springfield, Ill. Workshops are being planned for April 29 and 30 at the Prairie Capital Convention Center in Downtown Springfield. Click here for more information.

MAY

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism is holding a free two-part online webinar, “Getting the Goods – Interviews that Work,” on May 8-9 at noon or 4:00 p.m. EST. Pulitzer Prize winner Jacqui Banaszynski will explore the core purposes, techniques and ethics of the interview process. She will reveal different interview approaches that work best in different situations and that apply to any genre of journalism. On Day 2, she will focus on interviews that produce not just information, but true stories, rich with character, scene and detail.
• The collaboration between the Human Resources teams at NPR and Twitter, #NPRTwitterChat, has now been extended to a quarterly series. The one hour chat, covered in the Mashable article, ‘How to Effectively Use Twitter as a Job Search Resource‘, brings together a mix of global subject matter experts at the intersections of human resources, recruiting and social media to share insights and tips with job seekers. The next #NPRTwitterChat will be held on Thursday, May 16 from 4 to 5 p.m. EST.
• The Sunlight Foundation’s 5th annual TransparencyCamp on May 4th and 5th at the George Washington University’s Marvin Center, Washington, DC. For the last five years, they’ve gathered together a variety of journalists, policy creators, technologists, concerned citizens, academics, watchdogs, and others to build community, share best practices, and problem-solve challenges to work in the transparency arena.
• Learn how to pitch articles and reach out to major media outlets to get coverage for your book with the Self-Publishing Finishing School’s Marketing & Publicity Part 2 session at 2-3 p.m. on Wednesday, May 1.
• Expert John Low will show you the similarities and differences between print books and eBooks with the Self-Publishing Finishing School’s Format Your eBook for Publication session at 2-3 p.m. on Wednesday, May 8.
• Reporters who cover education and the difficult issues around teacher evaluation are invited to apply to attend “Grading the Teachers,” a McCormick Specialized Reporting Institute on May 8-10 in Detroit.

JUNE

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism is holding a free two-part online webinar, “The Business of Me,” June 4-6 at noon or 4:00 p.m. In this three-day webinar with Mark Luckie of Twitter, learn how to brand and market yourself and to pitch your ideas, plus understand the basics of financial and time management. Identify five next steps to advance your career as an entrepreneur.
• The Knight Digital Media Center is taking applications for its two-week “Multimedia Storytelling Institute 2013,” June 10-21 at UC-Berkeley. This intensive two-week program provides seminar style and hands-on training in essential skills for digital media production. The institute is ideal for journalists, educators and communication professionals interested in a rapid-paced immersible experience in multimedia content creation through delivery. The cost is $5,400; there’s a 10% discount if you register before May 10.
• The Online News Association is partnering with the Global Editors Network to present several sessions at the Global News Summit 2013: Hack the Newsroom! (#GEN2013) conference on June 19-21 in Paris, France at Hotel de Ville, 5 rue de Lobau, 75004 Paris. The conference will feature industry experts giving you the tools and strategies you need to help seed, encourage and implement experimentation and start-up culture in your digital newsroom. Registration is open to all ONA members and you can save 30 percent on registration if you purchase your tickets by Feb. 18. Early bird tickets are € 839 ($1,119.95) for GEN and ONA members and € 1,199 ($1,600.31).

JULY

• The National Association of Black Journalists welcomes you to join us from July 31-August 4, 2013 as we gather in Orlando for the 38th Annual Convention and Career Fair! Thousands of journalists, media executives, public relations professionals, and students are expected to attend to network, participate in professional development sessions and celebrate excellence in journalism.

If you have items you wish to include, please email them to me at benet AT aviationqueen DOT COM. Thanks!!

Editor’s note: the Digital Journalism Task Force is working on programming that will take us right to the annual convention. To that end, we’d appreciate it if you could take this quick 5-question survey to let us know what you want. Thanks!!

Friday Fast Five – Your Guide To New Media

By Ameena Rasheed, NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force intern

1. Knight Digital Media Center – How-to podcast: video tutorial series

2. Mashable – This Time-Saving Plugin Distills Webpages Ito Concise Summaries

3. Mashable – Learn To Code For Free With These 10 Online Resources

4. Mashable - 59 Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

5. Mashable – 9 TweetDeck Alternatives for Mobile

Friday Fast Five – Your Guide To New Media

By Benét J. Wilson, chair, NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force & social media/newsletters editor, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association

1. Social Media.biz — Own your online reputation with help from your friends. It is a plug for Reputation.com, but there are some great tips on how you can use different resources to control your online reputation on sites including Google.
2. Mashable — 9 Gmail Plugins to Revive Your Productivity. I’m one of those people who is always wrangling my two Gmail accounts. The Boomerang plugin has been a lifesaver for me.
3. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press – “First Aid” mobile app. This is a very handy tool if you’re reporting on legal issues in the field and need a quick answer or explanation.  The app covers the following topics, by state: Newsgathering; Court access; Public meetings; Public records; Confidential sources; and Libel.
4. ReadWriteWeb — 3 Easy Tools for Crafting a Great-Looking Personal Web Page. We are getting close to the time where all journalists will need to have a web page to serve as a calling card for potential employers. This post reviews Flavors, Google+ and Vizify.
5. Social Brite — What time of day should you post to your Facebook page?  I have my own Facebook page, and I admit — it’s been a struggle to run it, which is why I appreciated the tips in this post.

5 Reasons Why You Should Submit Something To The Knight News Challenge On Mobile

By Benét J. Wilson, chair, NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force & social media/newsletters editor, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association

The Knight News Challenge has release its third and final round, focusing on mobile.  For those new to the challenge, it was created “to accelerate media innovation by funding breakthrough ideas in news and information. Winners receive a share of $5 million in funding and support from Knight’s network of influential peers and advisors to help advance their ideas,” according to its website.

I first heard about the challenge in June 2010, when NABJ member and ASU professor Retha Hill won a grant for her CitySeed application.  My blog post on that is here; Hill also explains CitySeed in this YouTube video.

This Knight Challenge has $5 million to give away.  All you have to do is answer eight questions by Sept. 10 about “using mobile to improve news, information, democracy and communities, and your ability to execute on it.”  So here are my five reasons why you should apply.

1. It’s important that journalists of color get known in these communities that are helping to drive the future of news distribution.
2. Duh – it’s your share of $5 million, which can help fund your dream idea.
3. An explosive growth in smartphones has also fueled growth in news-related apps so why shouldn’t you get a piece of the pie with your idea?
4. How cool would it be to develop the next killer news app?
5. What do you have to lose — and how much could you gain if you win?

Time To Start Thinking About #NABJ13 Workshop Proposals!

                                                                                                                                        By Benét J. Wilson, DJTF chair & freelance aviation/travel journalist and blogger

I am thrilled to be named NABJ convention program chair for a second year. I’m even more thrilled that our president, Greg Lee, has named Carol Ash as convention chair.  We are already working hard to make Orlando — only 337 days away — even better than New Orleans.

My job is to ensure that the workshops and Learning Labs bring our members the latest in journalism tools, tricks and techniques.  But I can’t do that without your help.  We depend on our members to offer their wisdom and knowledge on our programming.

I was gratified that so many of you came up and complimented me and the program committee on the workshops in New Orleans.  But I also heard complaints about what programming was not there,

To those critics, I say to you — if you don’t propose workshops, they won’t be there.  You can’t assume that they’ll just be there because they were there in the past.  You can’t assume that someone will step up to the plate and do the exact workshop you want.

The only way to get the workshops you want is to propose them — or reach out to someone and ask them to propose one.

The proposal submission process will begin soon.  So start thinking now about what type of programming you want to see in Orlando. Reach out to people now to start getting your proposals together.  And watch this space for guidance on how to submit a proposal.  Here’s to a great convention in Orlando!!

The Digital Journalist: ‘It’s Like My Paintbrush’

By Serbino Sandifer-Walker, Multimedia Journalism Professor, DJTF Contributor

Sandra Gonzalez, Serbino Sandifer-Walker, Mara Schiavocampo, Blayne Alexander at NABJ One Man Banning Workshop. Blayne Alexander organized the workshop. Serbino Sandifer-Walker served as the moderator.

Sandra Gonzalez of WGNO-TV in New Orleans, La. knows how to tell a story. The veteran journalist has been at it for two decades and can’t imagine doing anything else. Except one day, her TV boss came to her, gave her a camera and said go find the stories, alone. She was 43-years-old and she hasn’t looked back since because to Sandra being a digital journalist is not any old job. I moderated an NABJ session in New Orleans where Sandra was a panelist. She explained to me her job is like having a paintbrush in hand everyday. And everyday she’s determined to paint a Picasso.

How Atlantic Media magazines, websites hire for intellect, generosity, digital dexterity

By Tracie Powell

Job seekers: Want tips on how to get your foot in the door at The Atlantic Media Company? Their new online publication, which launches this fall, is hiring! This is a must read for college graduates, especially those just getting their graduate and/or doctoral degrees.

Media executives: While other news organizations struggle to survive in the digital age, The Atlantic Media Company is not only beating the odds, it’s surpassing them. Want to know their secret? 

When it comes to diversity, however…. meh. (Hint: That’s another reason to read this piece.)

Read more here.

Tracie Powell is a contributing writer to Poynter.org and a vice chairperson for the NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force. 

Times-Picayune Sure To Be Main Topic of Conversation at NABJ Convention

By Tracie Powell

COLORLINES

“Advanced Publications, the group that publishes New Orleans’ Times-Picayune newspaper, announced Thursday it would scale back its printed edition to three days a week and shift its emphasis to online coverage. Similar cost cutting measures are happening across the country but New Orleans will become the largest city without a daily newspaper and many residents still don’t have internet at home,” Colorlines reports. 

The cuts come after the paper saw a steep drop in circulation. In 2005, before Hurricane Katrina, the paper had a daily circulation of 261,000; in March of this year, the circulation was 132,000.

New Orleans is 60 percent African American, according to U.S. Census data and based on a 2010 report from the Kaiser Foundation, only about 36 percent of its residents have Internet access at home.

The city will host to the 2012 National Association of Black Journalists Convention next month. The state of the Times-Picayune is certain to be a main topic of conversation. 

Tracie Powell writes regularly about journalism and media policy for the Poynter Institute. She is also a vice chairperson of the NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force. 

Google News Chief: Time to ‘Re-think Everything’

By Tracie Powell

Richard Gingras, head of news products for Google, is optimistic about the future of news, despite his belief that newspapers aren’t innovating enough.

“I do feel these are extraordinary times. I do feel that we in a sense are at the beginnings of a renaissance with regards to journalism,” he said, according to a recent report by the Nieman Lab. “I know that’s hard for many people to hear given the pain of the disruption to the traditional sources.”

But for that renaissance to really take hold, news organizations to rethink everything from their missions to their ethical guidelines in how they engage with their audience. News organizations must flip the ecosystem on its head and rethink every aspect of what they are doing.

“The unfortunate truth is that we’re not seeing the progress particularly in traditional media organizations that I think is truly necessary given the shift in the ecosystem that we’re seeing … I’m not suggesting that everything must change, but that we owe it to ourselves and the the objectives of what we want to do in journalism to reconsider everything as we go forward.”

View full video here.

Related: Google introduces Knowledge Graph to improve search (Google) | Live blog of Gingras talk (MIT) | Google’s head of news: Newspapers are the new Yahoo (GigaOm) | 8 questions that will help define the future of journalism (Nieman Journalism Lab)

Tracie Powell writes regularly about journalism and media policy for the Poynter Institute. She is also vice chairperson for NABJ’s Digital Journalism Task Force.