Calendar of Multimedia Training and Events

APRIL

• Sageworks Institute hosts a cocktail reception and discussion on the future of business journalism with special guest speaker Tyler Mathisen on April 3, 2014. The event will take place at The Cornell Club of New York City.

• The Society for Environmental Journalists is calling for award entries. SEJ’s awards honor the best environmental journalism in seven categories, bringing recognition to the most important stories on the planet. Journalism broadcast or published in print or online is eligible. The deadline to apply is April 1, 2014.  SEJ’s 2014 Awards will be presented on Sept. 3, 2014, at SEJ’s 24th Annual Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. $500 will be offered for first-place winners in seven categories. Enter environmental stories produced between March 1, 2013 and Feb. 28, 2014. Click here to see past winners and learn how to apply.

• The post-graduate, multimedia fellow manages and maintains the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire’s website. He or she creates multimedia projects for our website, works with undergraduate interns to develop multimedia projects and provides leadership to a team that produces news stories and projects. Qualified applicants must have professional-level expertise in HTML, content management systems and CSS. Applicants must also have high-level skills in reporting and writing, shooting photos and video using a DSLR camera and editing video. This one-year, post-graduate, multimedia fellowship will begin in late summer 2014 and run through mid-August 2015. The fellowship includes a $22,155 stipend, plus free housing in a furnished apartment shared with the program’s undergraduate interns.  The deadline to apply is April 1.

• The National Association of Black Journalists will hold its 6th Annual Media Institute on Health: Health Policy and Health Inequities in Washington, D.C., at the Barbara Jordan Conference Center at The Kaiser Family Foundation April 10-12.  It is the only conference of its kind to focus exclusively on health disparities in communities of color and provide print, broadcast and digital journalists with tools to effectively report on the rollout of the Affordable Care Act of health care reform and health policy on underserved communities. Journalists and media professionals will leave with resources to inform and empower readers and viewers to action.  Registration is $79 for members and $129 for nonmembers.       

MAY

• A new initiative established at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism will offer fellowships of up to $15,000 to experienced business journalists starting this spring. Applications will be accepted periodically through 2014. The upcoming deadline for applications is May 15, 2014. The fellowship is open to those with at least five years professional experience in journalism, including freelance journalists, as well as reporters and editors currently working at a news organization. Fellowship applicants should submit a focused story proposal of no more than three pages through the accompanying online form.

JUNE

• The Global Editors Network  hosts the GEN Summit June 11 – 13 in Barcelona. Discover ‘robot journalism’, and be updated about drone journalism and data journalism. This is the event to meet with the media industry influentials and drive business.

• The best in the business will gather for more than 100 panels, hands-on classes and special presentations about covering business, public safety, government, health care, education, the military, the environment and other key beats at the 2014 IRE conference June 26-29, 2014 in San Francisco. Speakers will share strategies for locating documents and gaining access to public records, finding the best stories and managing investigations. Join the discussion about how to practice investigative journalism in print, broadcast, Web and alternative newsroom models.

JULY

• The National Association of Black Journalists will hold its 39th Annual Convention and Career Fair in Boston July 30-Aug. 3, 2014. 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.

SEPTEMBER

• The Excellence in Journalism 2014 conference in Nashville will host top news professionals from broadcast, print and digital newsrooms around the country September 4-6, 2014.

• The Online News Association 2014 Conference & Awards Banquet is the premier gathering of highly engaged digital journalists shaping media now. Learn about new tools and technologies, network with peers from around the world and celebrate excellence at the Online Journalism Awards. ONA  is looking for your input on sessions for ONA14, Sept. 25-27, in Chicago. Submit your session proposals  from March 20 to April 18. Submit one here

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

Friday Fast Five + Five: The Twitter Edition

Twitter is one of my favorite journalism tools, so I’m always looking for tricks to make it even more useful to use.  Below are 10 hacks that may be helpful to add to your Twitter arsenal.

1. Twitter – Twitter for newsrooms and journalists
2. MediaBistro – Five Habits To Help Yourself Tweet Once Per Day
3. MediaShift – Erica Anderson’s 6 Tips for Journalists on Twitter
4. Intuit – 10 Rules for Crafting the Perfect Tweet
5. Mashable – How to Spend Only 10 Minutes Per Day on Twitter
6. Open Forum – How Many Of Your Twitter Followers Are Fake?
7. Forbes – 31 Twitter Tips: How To Use Twitter Tools And Twitter Best Practices For Business
8. Mashable – The Beginner’s Guide to HootSuite
9. Mashable – The Beginner’s Guide to TweetDeck
10. AllTwitter – 6 Tips For Shorter Tweets [INFOGRAPHIC]

Benét J. Wilson serves on the board of the Online News Association. She is the vice president of education for the NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force and is the social media/eNewsletters editor for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.  She is also a freelance aviation journalist and blogger and is the Air Travel Expert for About.com.

Calendar of Multimedia Training and Events

MARCH

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism presents the free webinar, “Social Media ROI for Journalists” on March 25, 2014.  The Arizona Republic’s Chad Graham and the Reynolds Center’s digital director Robin J. Phillips provide tips for harnessing social media to reach your brand’s fullest potential online.

• On March 27, 2014, the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism presents the free afternoon workshop, “Detecting Corporate Fraud,” in partnership with the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. Theo Francis, investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal, and Roddy Boyd, founder of the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation, offer techniques for analyzing SEC filings and other disclosures.

• Make your plans now to attend the annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, March 27-29, 2014, in Phoenix, Ariz. Michael Lewis, author of “Moneyball” and “The Blind Side,” will be among the keynote speakers as he accepts SABEW’s Distinguished Achievement Award. The conference will conclude with a banquet honoring winners of the 19th annual Best in Business awards competition. The conference, to be hosted by The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, is expected to attract several hundred business editors, reporters and producers as well as a wide range of exhibitors.

• The Society of Professional Journalists is holding its Region 2 conference March 28 and 29 at Georgetown University, 640 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. The conference will start on March 28 with a screening of “A Fragile Trust,” a new documentary about the plagiarism and fabrication of Jayson Blair. There will be a full day of programs and a Mark of Excellence awards luncheon on March 29. 

APRIL

• The Society for Environmental Journalists is calling for award entries. SEJ’s awards honor the best environmental journalism in seven categories, bringing recognition to the most important stories on the planet. Journalism broadcast or published in print or online is eligible. The deadline to apply is April 1, 2014.  SEJ’s 2014 Awards will be presented on Sept. 3, 2014, at SEJ’s 24th Annual Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. $500 will be offered for first-place winners in seven categories. Enter environmental stories produced between March 1, 2013 and Feb. 28, 2014. Click here to see past winners and learn how to apply.

• The post-graduate, multimedia fellow manages and maintains the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire’s website. He or she creates multimedia projects for our website, works with undergraduate interns to develop multimedia projects and provides leadership to a team that produces news stories and projects. Qualified applicants must have professional-level expertise in HTML, content management systems and CSS. Applicants must also have high-level skills in reporting and writing, shooting photos and video using a DSLR camera and editing video. This one-year, post-graduate, multimedia fellowship will begin in late summer 2014 and run through mid-August 2015. The fellowship includes a $22,155 stipend, plus free housing in a furnished apartment shared with the program’s undergraduate interns.  The deadline to apply is April 1.

• The National Association of Black Journalists will hold its 6th Annual Media Institute on Health: Health Policy and Health Inequities in Washington, D.C., at the Barbara Jordan Conference Center at The Kaiser Family Foundation April 10-12.  It is the only conference of its kind to focus exclusively on health disparities in communities of color and provide print, broadcast and digital journalists with tools to effectively report on the rollout of the Affordable Care Act of health care reform and health policy on underserved communities. Journalists and media professionals will leave with resources to inform and empower readers and viewers to action.  Registration is $79 for members and $129 for nonmembers.

JUNE

• The Global Editors Network  hosts the GEN Summit June 11 – 13 in Barcelona. Discover ‘robot journalism’, and be updated about drone journalism and data journalism. This is the event to meet with the media industry influentials and drive business.

• The best in the business will gather for more than 100 panels, hands-on classes and special presentations about covering business, public safety, government, health care, education, the military, the environment and other key beats at the 2014 IRE conference June 26-29, 2014 in San Francisco. Speakers will share strategies for locating documents and gaining access to public records, finding the best stories and managing investigations. Join the discussion about how to practice investigative journalism in print, broadcast, Web and alternative newsroom models.

JULY

• The National Association of Black Journalists will hold its 39th Annual Convention and Career Fair in Boston July 30-Aug. 3, 2014. 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.

SEPTEMBER

• The Excellence in Journalism 2014 conference in Nashville will host top news professionals from broadcast, print and digital newsrooms around the country September 4-6, 2014.

• The Online News Association 2014 Conference & Awards Banquet is the premier gathering of highly engaged digital journalists shaping media now. Learn about new tools and technologies, network with peers from around the world and celebrate excellence at the Online Journalism Awards. ONA  is looking for your input on sessions for ONA14, Sept. 25-27, in Chicago. Submit your session proposals  from March 20 to April 18. Submit one here

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

Success in journalism, according to my mother

By Crystal Garner, DJTF Intern

No one knows the ups and downs of my journalism journey quite like my mother, Mary.

Granted, she isn’t a news veteran or a tech mogul, but the things she’s told me as I’ve walked this path have helped me achieve a lot as a young journalist.

Like many of you, I had people in my life who tried to discourage me from becoming a journalist. For example, one high school official made years of confidence in my decision to study journalism vanished like magic with a short conversation.

I was young and fragile, and my aspirations were met with laughter.

It was Mom To The Rescue with the encouragement I needed. She said I would excel as a journalist. Not to sound like The Waterboy’s Bobby Boucher, but “mama’s right.”

Because I think that Mom’s wisdom can help you too, I’d like to share some of it. Here is some of her best advice:

1.  Be assertive or aggressive or aggressively assertive.

Contrary to what people  say, I don’t believe that journalistic opportunities  knock. You have to do the knocking and open the door. Sometimes you even have to pick the lock or kick the door down. Or slide someone on the other side a fiver.

I say all that to say this: You have to be persistently assertive. When I was a freshman in college, I was offered an internship opportunity at Voice of America in Washington, but my academic advisor told me to turn it down.

I took it anyway. I believed that if the employer who selected you believed I was capable of doing this, then I was. It was unpaid, but I learned a lot and made life-long contacts. I even turned the experience into an article for USA TODAY College, highlighting the struggles of not being paid.

During my sophomore year, I was offered a generously paid summer internship with NASA in their communication office. My advisor told me to turn it down and wait until my junior year. Once again, I took the opportunity and it opened many doors for me.

Now I’m not saying that you should ignore your advisers, and neither is Mom, but if you’re going to make it in journalism, you have to be assertive…and the internship market is where it starts.

(And on another note, I don’t understand why advisers discourage freshmen and sophomores from taking internships anyway. Have they seen the business lately? Don’t they know that you need as much experience as possible in this market?!)

2.  Say “yes,” man!

If you are familiar with the film Yes Man, you know where I’m going with this. Up until now, I’ve said yes to every opportunity that could positively affect my journalism career, no matter how big or small. As a result, my resume does not come close to covering all of  the experiences I’ve had.

I would never encourage anyone to overload themselves, but having a substantial amount of experience and experiences at an early stage in your career catches the attention of recruiters’ and employers’ and shows your determination.

The tricky part is getting yourself plugged into early opportunities. It is like the catch 22 of establishing credit:  You can’t get credit without a credit history, but you need credit to establish one.

From starting a blog or a magazine to pitching stories to  student media outlets, If no opportunity presents itself, create one  and say “yes” to yourself,

Patience is also important.

In high school, I interned at the local newspaper in my hometown. Most days, I was asked to take on the tasks of writing obits and lunch menus. It wasn’t the most exciting thing, but I seized the opportunity and patiently waited for other assignments, which did come.

3. Use “No” to grow.

Whenever I apply for a development opportunity and I’m not selected, I like to find out why and make the necessary adjustments. I then re-apply.

For example, I applied for The Society for Professionals Journalists’ “Will Write for Food” program, and I was rejected. I was accepted the following year. I applied for the Online News Association’s Student Newsroom and got rejected, but I was welcomed into the program the next year.  I submitted an application to be involved with NABJ’s Multimedia Student Project…you get what I mean.

Many opportunities are offered annually or bi-annually, so you have ample  time to prepare. I like to say resumes, cover letters and personal statements are like wine. They get better with time.

You know NPR, The Washington Post and NBC open their internship applications during the same time period each year, so take your time and do your research early on. Perfect your application materials ahead of time. There is no greater satisfaction than turning in an impressive application. Recruiters and employers do notice.

It’s not so much about hearing a “no,” it’s how you use that “no” to your advantage.

There is no perfect path, and there is always room to grow as a journalist. You just have to put your best foot forward. Or as Mom says, “You just have to believe that you can do it!”

Never Say ‘We Can’t Find Talented Journalists of Color’ Again

By Tracie Powell, Co-Chair and Benet J. Wilson, Vice President, Education of the National Association of Black Journalists’ Digital Journalism Task Force

Now that the lack of diversity at journalism startups has been sufficiently underscored by others, this is the perfect opportunity to provide a set of principles to follow for those interested in  creating diverse newsrooms.

Diversity is not just about checking a box. In light of demographic changes that show the white, male audience is dwindling, diversity in newsrooms is good business. It just makes sense.

For some these guidelines will be a reminder, but for others they can serve as a new source of information that we hope you’ll make a permanent part of your company’s recruiting process and employee retention efforts. At the very least, these guidelines should go a long way in helping digital media funders and founders to never again say: “We can’t find talented journalists of color.”

1. We’re not here to bash or criticize, we’re here to help

The NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force has a strong record of providing free training for anyone who wants to participate and serving as a resource, mainly through the @NABJDigital Twitter account using the #mediadiversity and #journojob hashtags, for those looking for diverse candidates to fill jobs. Companies like NPR, American Public Media, CNN, TBS and NBC, to name a few, have reached out to us directly to promote their jobs and pass along qualified candidates.

In addition to @NABJ Digital, digital startups also get the resources and strong network of the Online News Association, with ONA board member Benet Wilson, who chairs the Diversity Committee, and DJTF Co-Chair Tracie Powell, who serves as a committee member. We are more than willing to meet with anyone for a friendly conversation and information on how we can help. We can meet with folks in person or via Google Hangout.

2. Build a more inclusive network

• Talk with and partner with organizations and individuals with community connections that reflect the demographics that you serve or want to serve, including organizations like NABJ.

• Go to diversity conventions yourself. Do not depend on recruiters. “My old boss at the Boston Globe came to a National Association of Black Journalists convention to actually meet people he never heard of, and they were talented. He hired two people and still had many on his list,” said Greg Lee, immediate past president of NABJ. “You have to get out and expand your personal pool.”

• Lisa Williams, Program Chair of the Online News Association’s 2013 conference and Director of Digital Engagement at the Investigative News Network, wrote in her Life and Code blog, “Any call for diversity in hiring in the information industry (and in that I include the tech industry and the news industry) is usually met with a lament at how HARD it is to find female candidates, or candidates who are people of color.  Except for one thing.  It’s not.  All we had to do was….ask. That’s it.”

3. Say “YES”

Accept invitations to participate in panel discussions or workshops before diverse audiences where you can talk up your organization and the benefits of working at your company. In the past three years, the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University has done presentations with DJTF at NABJ conventions and held an online Q&A for potential applicants with DJTF, in conjunction with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Asian American Journalism Association. As a result of that and other outreach efforts, Knight has reported seeing more diverse applicant pools for its fellowship, according to the program’s director, Jim Bettinger.

4. Step outside of your comfort zone

We naturally tend to gravitate toward those we’re most comfortable with. For white men, that means mingling with other white men; the same holds true for people of color. That paradigm must be broken, especially in today’s newsrooms.

The most powerful line in a piece recently written by Shani O. Hilton, deputy editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, for Medium was this one: “The journos of color and women aren’t networking with white dudes doing the hiring because it isn’t in their DNA,” she wrote. “Call it the Twice as Hard Half as Good Paradox: Many of us are so busy working twice as hard and hoping to get noticed that we don’t do the networking that seems like bullshit but is actually a key part of career advancement.”

It is true that more journalists of color must pull back from their daily grind to network in order to ensure career advancement. But startups and venture capitalists must do the same thing. This effort can not, and should not, be one-sided. Go to mixers and seek out journalists of color. Go up to them, shake their hands, ask about what they are doing now, what they’d rather be doing instead or what they want to be doing in five years. You might meet your next game-changer.

5. Read publications and writers outside of those you normally read

Just as aspiring writers are taught to read those more established in order to improve their craft, editors need to do the same thing. Not only because it helps you identify new talent, but because it also clues you in about issues and ways of telling stories that you may be missing. You never know what gems you will come across. Some publications we recommend are ColorLines, Richard Prince’s Journal-isms and Racialicious.

6. Ask employees for referrals

Talk with managers, but more important, talk with your rank-and-file employees, who likely know others who are in the job market. Offer rewards for successful referrals, but don’t rely solely on employee networks, which may also be white and male.

7. Retaining is just as important as recruiting

Once you recruit diverse job candidates, keep them by offering benefits such as on-site daycares, non-gendered bathrooms, and quiet rooms employees can use to meditate or recite daily prayers. Offering these services also lets potential employees know that your company accommodates gender, family and religious diversity.

8. Make a seat at the table

Don’t just send employees of color to conventions as recruiters just to show that you have employees of color; if you send them, make sure they have hiring authority.  If your company does not have diverse candidates in key positions, then engaging diverse high-level employees in the recruiting process — even if they do not have hiring authority — can be helpful. Having someone at the table is important.

Even if you do not connect with NABJ Digital, you should be, at the very least, posting and connecting with other job boards that specialize in reaching diverse job candidates, including NABJ and JournalismNext. If you are not doing this, then you’re not really looking.

You can reach Tracie Powell at tracie.powell@gmail.com and Benet Wilson at benet@aviationqueen.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

GOOGLE HANGOUTS – How To Make It As A Freelancer – Saturday March 22 10:00am EST – 2:45pm EST

To RSVP for the Google Hangouts, go to the following Hangouts:

All Times in EASTERN

10:00am – 11:00am Story Pitches Every Editor Wants To See   http://bit.ly/1lIBPT0

11:15am-12:15pm Creating the Perfect Pitch – http://bit.ly/1h1afeb

12:30pm to 1:30pm Freelance 101 – http://bit.ly/1hVFsS3

1:45 to 2:45 How to Get Started As a Freelancer – http://bit.ly/1fNcyoA

Calendar of Multimedia Training and Events

MARCH

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will hold a free webinar, “Social Media ROI for Journalists,” March 4 at  4:00 p.m ET (noon PT). In 2013, more and more newsrooms will revisit their social media strategy and ask, “What’s our return on investment?” How do we know if our newsroom is doing social “correctly”? What does this mean for our organization’s bottom line?

• The National Association of Black Journalists’ Region III will hold a conference, “Diversity, Inclusion and YOU: The New DIY,” March 7-9 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Charleston, in Charleston, S.C. The conference program will offer participants an opportunity to sharpen old skills, learn new ones, and engage in valuable networking. A college scholarship and the Region III Achievers Award will be presented.

• The Wharton Seminars for Business Journalists will hold a one-day free program in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, March 11, 2014 featuring Wharton Professors Mark Pauly and Robert Inman on “The Affordable Care Act” and “Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth,” respectively. Breakfast, lunch and course materials are provided at no cost.  A limited number of Southwest Airlines travel scholarships are also available for full time West Coast reporters. Registration is required and available online.

• Make your plans now to attend the annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, March 27-29, 2014, in Phoenix, Ariz. Michael Lewis, author of “Moneyball” and “The Blind Side,” will be among the keynote speakers as he accepts SABEW’s Distinguished Achievement Award. The conference will conclude with a banquet honoring winners of the 19th annual Best in Business awards competition. The conference, to be hosted by The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, is expected to attract several hundred business editors, reporters and producers as well as a wide range of exhibitors.

APRIL

• The post-graduate, multimedia fellow manages and maintains the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire’s website. He or she creates multimedia projects for our website, works with undergraduate interns to develop multimedia projects and provides leadership to a team that produces news stories and projects. Qualified applicants must have professional-level expertise in HTML, content management systems and CSS. Applicants must also have high-level skills in reporting and writing, shooting photos and video using a DSLR camera and editing video. This one-year, post-graduate, multimedia fellowship will begin in late summer 2014 and run through mid-August 2015. The fellowship includes a $22,155 stipend, plus free housing in a furnished apartment shared with the program’s undergraduate interns.  The deadline to apply is April 1.

• The National Association of Black Journalists will hold its 6th Annual Media Institute on Health: Health Policy and Health Inequities in Washington, D.C., at the Barbara Jordan Conference Center at The Kaiser Family Foundation April 10-12.  It is the only conference of its kind to focus exclusively on health disparities in communities of color and provide print, broadcast and digital journalists with tools to effectively report on the rollout of the Affordable Care Act of health care reform and health policy on underserved communities. Journalists and media professionals will leave with resources to inform and empower readers and viewers to action.  Registration is $79 for members and $129 for nonmembers.

JUNE

• The best in the business will gather for more than 100 panels, hands-on classes and special presentations about covering business, public safety, government, health care, education, the military, the environment and other key beats at the 2014 IRE conference June 26-29, 2014 in San Francisco. Speakers will share strategies for locating documents and gaining access to public records, finding the best stories and managing investigations. Join the discussion about how to practice investigative journalism in print, broadcast, Web and alternative newsroom models.

JULY

• The National Association of Black Journalists will hold its 39th Annual Convention and Career Fair in Boston July 30-Aug. 3, 2014. 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!!