Side Hustle Webinar Series – What Do YOU Want?

This past weekend at the Baltimore Association of Black Journalists Professional Review event, a group of us were chatting about our side hustles and how that money comes in handy. We then started talking about folks in journalism and communications who don’t have them — but should.

Skip to March 18, where I posted the following question on my Facebook page: For my journalism/communications friends: do you have a side hustle? What is it? For those who don’t, do you want one? Is it time for a webinar on getting that side hustle?

I got a whopping 47 (and counting) responses, plus public and private pleas to do the webinar. As someone who fell into her side hustle quite by accident, I thought it would be a great idea to do a series of webinars to help those looking to start a side hustle or improve their game in their current side hustle.

So the NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force, in partnership with the Diverse Social Media Editors and Digital Journalists Facebook group and AllDigitrocracy.org, will do a series to help people with their side hustled. But we need your help to know what you want in a webinar series. So we’d appreciate it if you could answer this quick 7-question survey so we know what you want and when.  And watch this space for more details!

Help Fund The Beacon Reader Project “HOW’D YOU GET THAT (MEDIA) JOB?”

Tracie Powell.

Tracie Powell currently serves as the co-chair of the NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force. She is also founder, editor and publisher of the amazing AllDigitocracy.org website, which has quickly become the go-to website for digital diversity media issues.

But things like AllDigitocracy.org don’t run on good will alone. Good journalism needs to be funded, which is why I’m asking you to consider donating to Tracie’s Beacon Reader project, “How’d You Get That (Media) Job?” Under the project, Tracie will do high-quality video interviews with diverse industry movers and shakers on how they ended up with the jobs they’re in.  The first one, below, is with Roland Martin, a past NABJ board member, media entrepreneur and host of TV One’s “Washington Watch with Roland Martin.”

Non-whites make up nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population, but only 12 percent of U.S. newsrooms. That’s according to a report released in 2013 by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE). The organization also found that 90 percent of newsroom supervisors at organizations that participated in the study were white.

Similarly, the Radio Television Digital News Association found that while the minority population of the United States has risen 10.4 percent, the minority workforce in television news is up only 3.7 percent, and the minority workforce in radio is up 0.9 percent. RTDNA’s 2012 diversity study also found that 86 percent of television news directors and 91.3 percent of radio news directors are Caucasian.

While women have made some progress, they still earn only 36 percent of bylines or on-camera appearances, and the number of women industry executives has declined. All Digitocracy seeks to help turn the tide by giving these journalists advice, insight and access to opportunities and by working closely with hiring managers to help make their newsrooms more representative so that they can better serve and engage with their respective audiences.

In a nutshell, All Digitocracy considers media questions and issues that aren’t covered—and your help will allow us to take this coverage even further with this new web series.

If you’re interested in funding good journalism, you can get more information here. Pledges start at only $5, but the deadline to show your support is Christmas Eve, so please consider making a donation today.

Benét J. Wilson is the vice president of education for the NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force.  She also serves on the board of the Online News Association.  She is coeditor of AirwaysNews.com and  a freelance aviation journalist and blogger.

DJTF Partners With Knight Foundation On JournoPreneur Panel In Boston

 

The Digital Journalism Task Force will be out front at the NABJ convention in Boston next month. We are very proud to have a special workshop, “JournoPreneurs: What It Takes To Build A Media Company,” that is being sponsored by the  John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Tracie Powell

DJTF Co-char Tracie Powell, owner of the All Digitocracy blog, said that with all the upheaval in the industry,more and more journalists of color are choosing to produce and distribute their own content instead of begging for jobs. “Whether we are doing it intentionally or not, we’re creating and launching our own media ventures or trying to, but we’re doing so on a prayer and a string,” she said. “We haven’t the faintest clue about business plans, market studies or venture capitalism. We are already entrepreneurial, but do we know how to take that next step and truly become entrepreneurs?”

Powell feels that journalists need to know how to apply their unique skills to being an entrepreneur. “As journalists the skills we have are necessary in the startup world. We are articulate and determined. Our ability to clearly communicate ideas to others, especially those unfamiliar with a given issue, can translate into success explaining and generating excitement from venture capitalists. Finally, we have the tenacity to pursue a challenging story; that same tenacity can be used to aggressively seek funding and gain users.”

“What we need is to better understand the difference between building a personal brand versus building a media company, and we need to know how to take an idea from concept to launch. That’s what this workshop is all about,” she said.

The workshop will start by helping attendees figure out if they really want to start their own businesses, said Powell. “If the answer is yes, then we will have the opportunity to talk face-to-face with media entrepreneurs who are already doing this,” she said. “Those of us who are really ready to make the leap will not only learn from the panelists’ expertise at the convention, we will leave with the workings of a business plan in hand and a possible mentor.”

So many journalists of color have been laid off and downsized, people with real talent, knowledge and skills that are of benefit to the industry and to their communities, said Powell. “That should not and cannot go to waste. We have journalism skills that we can apply to being entrepreneurs, heck, many of us are already doing it and don’t even know it. So why not?” she asked. “What else are you doing besides begging for a limited number of newsroom jobs, working for somebody else when you really want to work for yourself?”

There are whole communities that are consistently ignored by mainstream newsrooms, Powell observed. “Launching our own media companies — whether it be developing mobile news apps, websites or innovative tools that connect communities with the information they need to strengthen our democracy — is one way we get to do the important work that we crave and that our communities need,” she said. “This is especially true as many of us find ourselves displaced and unemployed.”

Powell called the speakers for JournoPreneurs her personal dream panel. The panel consists of entrepreneurs at varying stages in the launch process, which will make this even more interesting and beneficial to those in attendance. “I thought of everybody that I would want to meet and learn from, then I invited them to Boston,” she said. “Of course, the Knight Foundation stepped in and offered to help make connections with some of the panelists and they also gave the task force some money to help turn the dream panel into a reality. That was a real plus.”

“We wouldn’t be here without them. I wouldn’t be here without them. I’m really looking forward to this being the start of something truly special in terms of nurturing our members and equipping them with the tools to become digital media entrepreneurs,” Powell said about the Knight Foundation. “I’m serious about this being a long-term project and a long-term relationship, not just some one-off chance encounter at the convention, and I believe Knight is too.”

Powell hopes that attendees will walk away from the workshop with a business plan and a mentor. “We’re looking to identify promising ventures by a handful of journalists and hope to bring those media entrepreneurs back together in the next couple of months at a entrepreneurial media institute, or at the very least, enable them to meet personally with their mentors,” she said. “That part is still a work in progress, but it will all start at the convention in Boston.”

The workshop is on Thursday, July 31 from 2:15 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.

JournoPreneurs: What It Takes To Build A Media Company

When it comes to digital media innovation, journalists of color are largely missing from the landscape. Earlier this year, the American Society of News Editors surveyed 68 online news organizations about the percentage of journalists of color inside their newsrooms and found that 43 sites didn’t have any person of color on staff. Meanwhile, more journalists, including journalists of color, are creating their own media companies or hyperlocal sites. JournoPreneurs: How To Build Your Own Media Company will provide hands-on experience with drafting business plans, filing articles of incorporation, advice on how to access funding and build teams as well as concrete steps on how to launch a media company and what happens after the launch. #nabj

Panelists:

Michael Bolden, Knight Foundation

Ezra Klein, Co-Founder, Vox Media

Carlos Watson, Founder, Ozy.com

Kelly Virella, Founder, Dominion of New York and The Urban Thinker

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

How Digital Journalism Relaunched Rene Syler’s Career

By Crystal Garner, DJTF Intern

The desire to build something that no one could ever take away from her is what fueled Rene Syler, former anchor of “The Early Show” on CBS, after her termination in 2006. What Syler wanted to create was a brand, and using the tools of digital media, she did just that and more.

She is now the author of “Good Enough Mother,” a book and supporting blog targeted at “imperfectly perfect” mothers, host of “Sweet Retreats,” a family travel show on the Live Well Network, and co-host of “Exhale”, a provocative talk show in its second season on Magic Johnson’s cable network, Aspire.

Rene Syler, Courtesy Photo

What am I going to do now?

A few weeks after losing her job at CBS, Syler underwent a preventative double mastectomy, a journey that was documented on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. “What am I going to do now?” she asked herself. “I had no job and my body was taking on a different shape.”

After telling her agent of 25 years that she did not want to do television anymore, he asked a similar question, “What am I going to do with you?”

Syler knew she would have to save herself.

“I had been relying on them to get me jobs,” she said. “I could either sit here and wait for the phone to ring or I could make it ring.”

Going digital to build a ‘bonafide brand’

Syler wrote “Good Enough Mother: The Perfectly Imperfect Book of Parenting” and secured the website’s domain in 2005 while still employed at CBS. The following year, she was fired. In 2007, her book was officially published.

“The only skills I had was the ability to write and TV,” she said. “It started with a book.”

Harnessing the power of digital media, Syler began to build what she now calls a “bonafide brand.”

“Your brand needs to be in sync with yourself,” she said. “Good Enough Mother,” the blog, was born.

“I started on Facebook, then moved to Twitter. The more I did it the more I understood its power,” Syler said in regards to her overwhelming introduction to social media.

“After almost 10 years, I have built a bonafide brand,” she said. “People need to think of blogs as living breathing business cards.”

“Good Enough Mother” has partnered with both General Motors and Disney and Syler attributes her recent television success to her digital presence.

Looking back, she said “Good Enough Mother” became much more than a book. It became a movement based on what a lot of women are experiencing.

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Not for the faint of heart

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She’s The Boss: Female Media Entrepreneurs of Color Share Their Stories

 

 

 

 

The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education recently hosted a Twitter Chat with a group of female journalists of color who took their entrepreneurial dreams and turned them into reality. This panel of journalistic businesswomen included: Bobbi Bowman, (left) a former editor for The Washington Post and USA Today, who made the leap into entrepreneurship when she launched the hyperlocal news site, The McLean Ear, which later became McLean Patch; Kelly Virella, a former investigative reporter and editor who is about to start a long form digital magazine called The Urban Thinker, (right); Tomoko Hosaka, Chief Operating Officer at Plympton  (parent company of Rooster, a reading app that picks books for users and delivers them in installments to mobile devices; Karen Lincoln Michel, who blogs at A Digital Native American and is former president of Unity Journalists; and Marisa Trevino, creator of LatinaLista, a news portal for the Latino community. Here are their insights via storify.– Staff Reports

 

 

Jamila Bey, Media Mogul — With Your Help

When I think of NABJ and DJTF treasurer Jamila Bey, I think two things — renaissance woman and career chameleon.  She does it all — correspondent; broadcast host; spokesperson; producer; writer; editor; trainer communications director; and consultant.

Bey was very open when she lost her jobs at NPR, and, most recently, at Voice of Russia. While at VOR, she was the creator and host of the weekly radio show “Sex, Politics And Religion Hour: SPAR With Jamila.”  Her show, which regularly featured journalists of color, covered topics including gender policy and politics, race, religion and issues of separation of church and state.

But you can’t keep a good woman down. Bey is now trying to become her own media outlet by launching an Indegogo funding campaign to create a journalism forum online and as an iTunes podcast where news about the issues that are important to us can find a home. She wants to bring her show, “The Sex, Politics and Religion Hour,” or SPAR, will focus on the beating that the First Amendment seems to be taking at this point.

Bey will produce 30 half-hour long shows taking on issues including separation of state and church, First Amendment freedom, politics, and science policy. It will be a forum for discussion and insight, along with actual reporting and investigation.

The goal is to offer independent polling and on-the-ground reporting from Washington, D.C.,  and around the country with a team of correspondents and contributors.  From Congress, the Supreme Court and the White House, to local school boards and state legislatures, Bey’s site will look at news from the point of view that religion shouldn’t get a free pass from scrutiny and fair criticism when looking at its involvement in larger American life.

With the help of campaign contributors, Bey says she will produce stories that will deeply examine the news and news makers to help Americans better understand that the First Amendment can only survive if it’s allowed to stand in the sunshine. Regular readers of this blog know I’m a big supporter of funding good journalism, because if we don’t do it, who will?

There’s an App for That: Mobile Technology is Growing in Newsrooms and Classrooms

As news continues to be delivered at an ever-increasing pace, it’s only natural for multimedia journalists to put down those heavy, complicated DSLRs and pick up their mobile phones to shoot, edit and deliver breaking news.

“I’ve seen people use their phones more and more for parts of a report and to relay news quickly to a station for publication  to a website.” said Sharon Stevens, a freelance journalist who has noticed the trend in her reporting travels. “While the resolution is not a good as using a video camera, I don’t see it stopping anytime in the near future. The news directors and general managers who choose to [use mobile footage] will just have to look for those phones that will give you that better resolution and supply them to their [employees].”

Journalism graduate Raven Ambers has used footage shot on her iPhone for web reports. “The iPhone was quick and easy,” she states, “For a tease, which we did with one continuous 10-15 second shot, it was easier and much simpler to upload to web.”

Reporter LaDyrian Cole of KTAB in Abiliene, TX, agrees, “I’ve used my phone for a tease that [was] uploaded to the web.” She continues, “It’s simple to shoot and easier to upload to the web and on air systems.”

Journalist Rajneesh Bhandari feels the same. In an article for IJNet, “Top apps for journalists shooting video on mobile”, he states, “[Mobile phones] are handy and you don’t have to carry a lot  of things…just a mobile, a light tripod and maybe a pin [lavalier] mic.” The article goes on to list some popular mobile apps for the journalist “on the go”.

Among the things leading this charge is the advent of the mobile app. From CNN to your local newspaper, more and more people are getting the information they need by accessing their favorite apps.

If you’re a young journalist who believes that you have an idea for the next generation of mobile apps, Dr. Michelle Ferrier of the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University is looking for you.

Dr. Ferrier is part of a group that is beta-testing a two-week mobile innovation module. The module will teach students about mobile app development in course curricula. Through a broad overview of the mobile market, students will learn mobile app development, audience research, user interface design, and using prototyping among other topics.

The module will also benefit professors by coaching them on how to teach mobile development to their students.

“My philosophy is that if schools are going to offer the “just in time” learning that students need, we need some flexibility in our curriculum in order to be able to do that,” Dr. Ferrier says.

The module will demonstrate some of the things that students need to know about mobile development in two weeks in hopes of becoming a fixture in full semester courses later on. The module also supports the Scripps College of Communication Innovation Challenge, a student pitch competition around media industry issues. Students will have the basic knowledge to develop a mobile app as a potential solution to the challenges with the chance to win prize money or a grade in a class.

Dr. Ferrier finds the appeal in mobile apps in their inclusiveness of all communities. “They basically have bridged the digital divide. For underserved and underrepresented communities [and] people who have limited income, their phones most likely are their devices of choice not just for making phone calls but also for reaching the internet and getting information off of the internet. They can still get and participate in things that are necessary without having to have a laptop for the most part.”

Currently, Scripps College of Communication is looking for external reviewers for the module to get more feedback and eventually offer the module in multiple schools.

Source: http://ijnet.org/stories/top-apps-journalists-shooting-video-mobile Photo Source:http://www.successfulworkplace.org/2012/11/07/theres-an-app-for-that-is-not-a-mobile-strategy/

Sadiyyah Rice is the digital intern for the NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force, recording secretary for the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists and producer and editor for Higher Education Channel Television (HEC-TV).

Calendar of Multimedia Training and Events

NOVEMBER

• The Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California-Berkeley is hosting the New Media Storytelling, Innovation & Technology Fall 2013 workshop “Writing for Infographics”. Infographics have become an ubiquitous tool for those communicating complex information in an easy to understand visual format. The best infographics are often the product of collaborations between teams of creative professionals. In this two-day Writing for Infographics workshop kdmcBerkeley is teaming with Visually to train a new generation of professionals in the art of research and writing for the infographic. Date: November 19-20, 2013. Tuition: $545. Click here to apply.

• Learn how to more effectively counter false information and misperceptions in news stories in Poynter’s webinar How to Keep Misinformation from Spreading. Webinar begins at 2 p.m. Eastern time, Nov. 21. Enroll now.

• The Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism at Ohio State University is looking for innovative journalists who want to use social media to build a stronger following, develop new sources and better cover their beats. The program also aims to sharpen your digital media public-affairs reporting skills, thus helping you hold government and institutions accountable. We’ll talk Twitter, Deep Web searches, crowdsourcing, public records, spreadsheets and online data visualization. The fellowship runs from Sunday, April 6, through Friday, April 11, 2014 in Columbus, Ohio. Applications are due by Nov. 30, 2013. Apply here.

DECEMBER

•  Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford offers 20 journalists the opportunity to spend 10 months experimenting, testing and developing innovative ideas for the future of journalism. Open to full-time journalists, journalism entrepreneurs and innovators (which can include independent journalists or developers) and journalism business and management executives. Deadline: Dec. 1. Apply now.

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will hold a free online workshop, “The Fracking Revolution: Finding Energy Stories Everywhere,” Dec. 4 at  4:00 p.m. ET (noon PT).  In this one-hour, free webinar, Marilyn Geewax, a senior business editor with NPR, will help you understand how this unleashing of massive supplies of fossil fuels is changing all of our lives. In addition to having a broad impact on the environment, tax revenues and politics, this energy revolution is making U.S. manufacturing competitive again and could soon be generating millions of jobs from Maine to California.

• Learn how to write better headlines for digital media, including smartphones with Poynter’s webinar “Writing Headlines for Digital and Mobile Media“. Readers looking at an app for a news site are often deciding what to click on based on the headline alone. Headlines are just as important in the digital era as they were in traditional media, if not more so. Webinar begins at 2 p.m. Eastern time, Dec. 5. Enroll now.

• The Society of American Business Editors and Writers will host “A Celebration of SABEW at 50”on Dec. 5 from 5:45 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Baruch College, 55 Lexington Ave., New York. The program will  feature New York real estate developer Bruce Ratner and is open to all SABEW members. For more information visit: http://sabew.org/2013/10/new-yorks-baruch-college-to-host-a-celebration-of-sabew-at-50-dec-5/

• Learn how to create specialized apps for a certain type of news for a specific target audience with little risk in Poynter’s webinar “How to Experiment with Specialized Mobile News Apps” , on Wednesday, December 11 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. While mobile device users prefer apps that focus on doing one thing well, news publishers can have more success by creating specialized apps for a certain type of news or a target audience. The webinar breaks down how these apps are made. Enroll now.

• Prepare your newsroom to best serve the growing mobile audience in Poynter’s webinar “Changing Workflow to Create a Mobile First Newsroom” on Thursday, Dec. 12 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. With mobile traffic approaching or surpassing desktop traffic at many news organizations, it is time for newsrooms to make sure their cultures and workflows are set up to serve this growing audience. Just like the shift from print to Web or broadcast to Web, the shift to mobile requires thinking about the audience in a different way and making fundamental changes in how we cover the news.  Enroll now.

• The CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship Program is an intensive hands-on workshop led by professionals at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C. and the University of North Carolina journalism faculty in Chapel Hill, N.C. The program, scheduled for March 12-16, 2014,  is geared toward college seniors pursuing broadcast careers as producers, reporters, photojournalists and web editors. The deadline to apply is Dec. 15.

2014

• If you have the skills, passion and determination to be a journalist of the future – a trained professional who knows a good story when they see it and who has the confidence to tell it in a way that best imparts its relevance and importance to news consumers – an 18-month Hearst Fellowship may be right for you. Applications are open through January.

• Reporters who want to learn more about federal data and the business of government are invited to be part of a special immersion training being conducted by SABEW in January in Washington D.C. The SABEW Business Immersion Workshop on Business Data will focus on data and accounting skills. Journalists will be able to work with experts at the Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics to explore the large cache of data each agency produces, as well as understand its importance to readers. This event is possible based on donation from the Walter and Carla Goldschmidt Family Foundation. For more information & to apply visit: http://sabew.org/2013/10/sabew-business-immersion-workshop-to-be-funded-by-goldschmidt-donation/

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will hold a free workshop, “Investigating the Business of Government,” Jan. 23, 2014, preceding the Winter Convention of the Kentucky Press Association Jan. 23-24. If you dread analyzing the annual municipal budget for news and wonder how to tie government contracts to campaign-donor lists, come hone your skills at this workshop taught by investigative reporter John Cheves. The workshop will be held at the Hyatt Regency, 401 W. High St., Lexington, Ky.

• The Reynolds Fellowship in Community Journalism is accepting applications. This fellowship is be awarded to “a journalist of accomplishment and promise who is committed to the role of the community press.” Open to journalists working at a U.S. daily and weekly newspapers with a circulation less than 50,000, journalists doing online work for community newspapers, or journalists who have established independent local news websites in communities where the circulation of the local newspaper is less than 50,000. Must be a U.S. citizen. Deadline: Jan. 31, 2014. Apply now.

• The Nieman-Berkman Fellowships in Journalism Innovation are a collaboration between two parts of Harvard (the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society). This fellowship involves spending a year in residence in Cambridge, and full participation in both the Nieman and Berkman fellowship communities. Applicants must propose a specific course of study or project relating to journalism innovation. Open to working journalists or others who work for a news organization in a business, technology, or leadership capacity. Independent journalists are also welcome. Deadline: Jan. 31, 2014.Apply now.

• The Knight-Wallace Fellowships at Michigan is now accepting applications. Spend an academic year at the Univ. of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Fellows devise a personalized study plan with access to UM courses and resources, and are encouraged to nurture their creative and artistic tendencies. Includes twice-weekly seminars as well as domestic and international travel. Deadline: Feb. 1, 2014. Apply now: U.S. and international.

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will hold a free workshop, “Perfecting Personality Profiles,” Feb. 5-6 at 4:00 p.m. ET (noon PT). To make your beat coverage more accessible and engaging, you need to focus on people – those in positions of power or influence, and those who consume goods and services, work for wages and pay taxes. In the first hour of this lively two-part webinar, Pulitzer winner Jacqui Banaszynski will explore the characteristics of memorable and accurate profiles, as well as offer a range of profile approaches that can suit your purpose, publication and audience. In the second hour, on Feb. 6, she’ll dive more deeply into the reporting and writing techniques that can help any beat reporter pursue sparkling profiles.

• Investigative Reporters and Editors and National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR) will hold their 2014 Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference in Baltimore, Md., Feb. 27, 2014 – March 2, 2014. Join IRE and NICAR for their annual conference devoted to computer-assisted reporting. Come and learn about tools you need to dig deeper into stories and give readers and viewers the information they want.

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will hold a free workshop, “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? This free, one-hour webinar will help you answer those questions on March 4.

• 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.

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

2013 NewU Startup Competition

Unity Journalists for Diversity has selected 11 owners of media startups for its 2013 NewU Startup Competition. The finalists posted video pitches for their companies on unityjournalists.org for the chance to win one of two $20,000 seed grants. The four finalists who are members of NABJ talk about their companies and how the grant will help take them to the next level:

Kathy Times is the co-founder of the website Wheretogo411.com, a site that is basically the Yellowpages.com for the African American community. Times, a former NABJ president, says her site is designed to provide African American businesses and consumers with a way to connect.  “It really is a strategy for improving the lives of African American business owners as well as urban communities and African American communities around the country,” Times says. “We wanted to design a site that would make it easy for major buyers as well as consumers to do business with African American businesses. The NewU funding is so important because we need to build our awareness of what we’re doing. We anticipate launching a national campaign to make sure business owners are aware of the site and they know they can put their business on the site.”

Marissa Evans founded the online health magazine InHue, a magazine that focuses on the health needs of women of color. Evans was inspired to create InHue as a means of giving women of color a voice when it comes to health issues.  “I started InHue because other general women health magazines were not adequately covering racial health disparity issues” she said. “Too often, I felt that women of color were put in women’s health articles as an afterthought. I started InHue to give women [of color] a “go to” health magazine that they could relate to and that was really made for them through and through.” If she wins, Evans plans to use the grant money to improve InHue’s website and sponsor women’s health events.

Ariana Proehl founded the online media network Know This! TV in 2011 because she was fed up with seeing the negative stereotypes of Black women on reality television. Proehl took the network’s signature program, Know This! with Ariana, out on a 14-city tour, Proehl found that there is an audience for positive media. “I started my online talk show because I knew that we could do better as people of color; in particular, women of color.”Her show features people in politics, entertainment, business, fashion music and other fields. “The common thread of folks that I feature on my show is that they live their purpose and not so much money or fame.”Proehl envisions her website becoming similar to Oprah.com in that it will feature her talk show as well as original programming.  “[With the grant], I’m looking to continue my talk show and develop and fund the production of other original show ideas that would be moving along in that same thread of just diving deeper into inspiration resources.”

Eunice Cofie founded EthnicDermMedia, a multimedia company that provides skin health information to people of color. “EthnicDermMedia develops campaigns for departments of health and create mobile platforms for consumers” Cofie says. “It’s a technology-based multimedia company that educates the consumer and also trains dermatologists and other skin professionals about ethnic skin because there’s not a lot of information out there about ethnic skin.” Cofie plans to use the grant money to continue developing her platform as a space for science and medical journalists to get information about ethnic skin out to the public.  “We want to bridge the gap between dermatologists and consumers and provide the consumer with information about ethnic skin diseases, treatment and empower them to know about the skin they’re in.”

Voting for the 2013 NewU Startup Competition ends on Friday, November 29^th at midnight. So vote here now!

Calendar of Multimedia Training and Events

NOVEMBER

• States across the U.S. are quickly adopting new teacher evaluation systems that are radically different than the way teachers were judged in the past. Learn how to provide your audience with an insider’s view of this complex issue in Poynter’s webinar Grading the Teachers: Writing about Teacher Evaluation. This webinar begins on Nov. 12 at 2 p.m. Eastern time. Enroll now.

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will hold a free online workshop, “Sourcing with Social Media: Tips from a Corporate Sleuth,” Nov. 13 at  4:00 p.m. ET (noon PT).  Trying to find new sources? In this one-hour webinar Nov. 13, you’ll  learn the tools and techniques that competitive-intelligence experts use every day to find people who know their stuff. During this free, hour-long webinar, the principal in a competitive-intelligence firm will teach you how to harness social media to identify  regional and national “influencers”  in industries you cover and how to contact them successfully.

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will hold an “SEC Filings Master Class,” Nov. 13-15 at  4:00 p.m. ET (noon PT). Have you ever wondered if you’re missing good stories because you don’t know where or what to look for? This free webinar with Michelle Leder, who makes her living unearthing news in SEC filings, is designed to help you feel more confident in your SEC-document sleuthing.

• Poynter’s News U will hold a free webinar, “Location-Based Social Media with Geofeedia: A Digital Tools Tutorial,” on Thursday, Nov. 14 at 2:00 p.m. ET. User-generated content from social media networks is a rich data source for today’s newsrooms. By leveraging new, advanced tools, media organizations have the opportunity to rapidly identify primary sources at the scene by tapping into rich sets of images, tweets and videos coming from the scene. Geofeedia enables hyperlocal search and discovery of social media across social networks such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr and Picasa. By searching first by location, Geofeedia helps journalists to rapidly identify new data sources that other prominent social media services miss.

• The Graduate School of Journalism UC is hosting the New Media Storytelling, Innovation & Technology Fall 2013 workshop “Smile: You’re On Camera“. When someone portrays a great on-camera presence we assume they are a “natural.” The reality is a natural on-camera presence requires training and practice. During this one-day workshop we’ll give you the confidence to become a “natural” through skill building exercises with live on-camera practice. Date: November 16, 2013. Tuition: $365.

• The Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California-Berkeley is hosting the New Media Storytelling, Innovation & Technology Fall 2013 workshop “Writing for Infographics”. Infographics have become an ubiquitous tool for those communicating complex information in an easy to understand visual format. The best infographics are often the product of collaborations between teams of creative professionals. In this two-day Writing for Infographics workshop kdmcBerkeley is teaming with Visually to train a new generation of professionals in the art of research and writing for the infographic. Date: November 19-20, 2013. Tuition: $545. Click here to apply.
• Learn how to more effectively counter false information and misperceptions in news stories in Poynter’s webinar How to Keep Misinformation from Spreading. Webinar begins at 2 p.m. Eastern time, Nov. 21. Enroll now.

• The Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism at Ohio State University is looking for innovative journalists who want to use social media to build a stronger following, develop new sources and better cover their beats. The program also aims to sharpen your digital media public-affairs reporting skills, thus helping you hold government and institutions accountable. We’ll talk Twitter, Deep Web searches, crowdsourcing, public records, spreadsheets and online data visualization. The fellowship runs from Sunday, April 6, through Friday, April 11, 2014 in Columbus, Ohio. Applications are due by Nov. 30, 2013. Apply here.

DECEMBER

•  Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford offers 20 journalists the opportunity to spend 10 months experimenting, testing and developing innovative ideas for the future of journalism. Open to full-time journalists, journalism entrepreneurs and innovators (which can include independent journalists or developers) and journalism business and management executives. Deadline: Dec. 1. Apply now.

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will hold a free online workshop, “The Fracking Revolution: Finding Energy Stories Everywhere,” Dec. 4 at  4:00 p.m. ET (noon PT).  In this one-hour, free webinar, Marilyn Geewax, a senior business editor with NPR, will help you understand how this unleashing of massive supplies of fossil fuels is changing all of our lives. In addition to having a broad impact on the environment, tax revenues and politics, this energy revolution is making U.S. manufacturing competitive again and could soon be generating millions of jobs from Maine to California.

• Learn how to write better headlines for digital media, including smartphones with Poynter’s webinar Writing Headlines for Digital and Mobile Media. Readers looking at an app for a news site are often deciding what to click on based on the headline alone. Headlines are just as important in the digital era as they were in traditional media, if not more so. Webinar begins at 2 p.m. Eastern time, Dec. 5. Enroll now.
• Learn how to create specialized apps for a certain type of news for a specific target audience with little risk in Poynter’s webinar How to Experiment with Specialized Mobile News Apps. Mobile device users prefer apps that focus on doing one thing well. News publishers can have more mobile success by creating specialized apps for a certain type of news for a specific target audience. The webinar begins on  Wednesday, December 11, 2013 at 2:00pm Eastern Time. Enroll now.

• Prepare your newsroom to best serve the growing mobile audience in Poynter’s webinar Changing Workflow to Create a Mobile First Newsroom. With mobile traffic approaching or surpassing desktop traffic at many news organizations, it is time for newsrooms to make sure their cultures and workflows are set up to serve this growing audience. Just like the shift from print to Web or broadcast to Web, the shift to mobile requires thinking about the audience in a different way and making fundamental changes in how we cover the news. The webinar begins on Thursday, December 12, 2013 at 2:00pm Eastern Time. Enroll now.

• The CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship Program is an intensive hands-on workshop led by professionals at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C. and the University of North Carolina journalism faculty in Chapel Hill, N.C. The program, scheduled for March 12-16, 2014,  is geared toward college seniors pursuing broadcast careers as producers, reporters, photojournalists and web editors. The deadline to apply is Dec. 15.

2014

• If you have the skills, passion and determination to be a journalist of the future – a trained professional who knows a good story when they see it and who has the confidence to tell it in a way that best imparts its relevance and importance to news consumers – an 18-month Hearst Fellowship may be right for you. Applications are open through January.

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will hold a free workshop, “Investigating the Business of Government,” Jan. 23, 2014, preceding the Winter Convention of the Kentucky Press Association Jan. 23-24. If you dread analyzing the annual municipal budget for news and wonder how to tie government contracts to campaign-donor lists, come hone your skills at this workshop taught by investigative reporter John Cheves. The workshop will be held at the Hyatt Regency, 401 W. High St., Lexington, Ky.

• The Reynolds Fellowship in Community Journalism is accepting applications. This fellowship is be awarded to “a journalist of accomplishment and promise who is committed to the role of the community press.” Open to journalists working at a U.S. daily and weekly newspapers with a circulation less than 50,000, journalists doing online work for community newspapers, or journalists who have established independent local news websites in communities where the circulation of the local newspaper is less than 50,000. Must be a U.S. citizen. Deadline: Jan. 31, 2014. Apply now.

• The Nieman-Berkman Fellowships in Journalism Innovation are a collaboration between two parts of Harvard (the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society). This fellowship involves spending a year in residence in Cambridge, and full participation in both the Nieman and Berkman fellowship communities. Applicants must propose a specific course of study or project relating to journalism innovation. Open to working journalists or others who work for a news organization in a business, technology, or leadership capacity. Independent journalists are also welcome. Deadline: Jan. 31, 2014.Apply now.

• The Knight-Wallace Fellowships at Michigan is now accepting applications. Spend an academic year at the Univ. of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Fellows devise a personalized study plan with access to UM courses and resources, and are encouraged to nurture their creative and artistic tendencies. Includes twice-weekly seminars as well as domestic and international travel. Deadline: Feb. 1, 2014. Apply now: U.S. and international.

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will hold a free workshop, “Perfecting Personality Profiles,” Feb. 5-6 at 4:00 p.m. ET (noon PT). To make your beat coverage more accessible and engaging, you need to focus on people – those in positions of power or influence, and those who consume goods and services, work for wages and pay taxes. In the first hour of this lively two-part webinar, Pulitzer winner Jacqui Banaszynski will explore the characteristics of memorable and accurate profiles, as well as offer a range of profile approaches that can suit your purpose, publication and audience. In the second hour, on Feb. 6, she’ll dive more deeply into the reporting and writing techniques that can help any beat reporter pursue sparkling profiles.

• Investigative Reporters and Editors and National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR) will hold their 2014 Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference in Baltimore, Md., Feb. 27, 2014 – March 2, 2014. Join IRE and NICAR for their annual conference devoted to computer-assisted reporting. Come and learn about tools you need to dig deeper into stories and give readers and viewers the information they want.

• The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will hold a free workshop, “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? This free, one-hour webinar will help you answer those questions on March 4.

• 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.

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