If you participated in or read the Storify of the NABJ Students’ recent TweetChat about preparing for the upcoming Annual Convention and Career Fair, you know you don’t want to miss it.
Time is running out for you to pre-register for our convention Aug. 8-13, 2017, in New Orleans. After June 30, rates jump from $380 to $550. You know you want to be there. You know there’s a strong chance of having FOMO (fear of missing out). You also know you’ll be MAD if you wait and have to pay an extra $170 for registration, so what are you waiting for?
I know, I know – you think you still have plenty of time to register, book a flight and get that hotel reservation at the Hilton Riverside. But you really don’t have that much time. The truth is, the convention will be before you know it!! So run — do not walk — to the NABJ website and get yourself registered TODAY!!
I’m not going to lie-I’m a girl who likes a good meal. And in New Orleans, you always eat well, even if you’re broke. My mother’s family is from Lousiana, so I grew up eating food like crawfish etouffee (see above), red beans and rice, muffuletta and po boy sandwiches.
Below are five places I try not to miss when I visit the Crescent City.
1. Compere Lapin. The brainchild of former “Top Chef” contestant (one of my show favorites) Nina Compton, this restaurant blends Caribbean and New Orleans cuisine that’s delicious.
2. Clover Grill. This is down home diner cooking at its best. They cook the burgers under a hubcab, and they are among the best I’ve ever had. And the amusing attitudinal waitstaff is a bonus!
3. Deanie’s Seafood. I took Dr. Syb Brown during the last NABJ convention here in 2012. The seafood is fresh and the portions are massive. A large catfish/shrimp platter is more than enough for two!
4. HiVolt Coffee and Bakery. I’m a big fan of this eatery, which has great coffee and is famous for its breakfast sandwiches and breakfast bowls.
5. Daisy Dukes. Just on the edge of the French Quarter, it’s open 24/7 and has great breakfast options. But it’s also known for its $8 bottomless Cajun Bloody Marys.
Pre-registration for the convention ends on June 1, so register here. I’ll see you in New Orleans!!
The NABJ conference is around the corner and it’s time to get the reels ready!
This online webinar will help producers and on-camera people to prepare their reels for the 2014 NABJ conference. Jummy Olabanji is the noon anchor for WLJA-TV in Washington, D.C. and Caleb Wilkerson is a supervising producer for the Discovery Network. Together they have more than 15 years of experience in the television and online video industries. They will go over reels that worked and reels that didn’t work so you can be ready to sell yourself at the conference.
Title: How To Prepare Your Reel for the NABJ Conference
Jummy Olabanji currently anchors Good Morning Washington and ABC7 News at Noon. Helping the Washington area wake up is a dream come true for this hometown girl. Jummy was raised in Fairfax County and graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly. Go Bulldogs!
The Emmy award-winning reporter and anchor joined ABC7/WJLA-TV and NewsChannel 8 in 2011. Since joining Washington’s most-trusted news team she has covered several including the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard.
Prior to returning to the D.C. metro area, Jummy spent several years of working as a reporter and anchor at WTKR-TV in Norfolk and WCAV-TV in Charlottesville. She started her career as a news assistant at CNN’s Washington D.C. bureau.
Caleb Wilkerson
Caleb Wilkerson is an multi Emmy and Webby Award winning creative professional who is a Supervising Producer for Discovery. As a skilled video director, producer, editor, and digital media strategist whose video credits also include, ESPN, USA TODAY, NBC Sports, HBO, and NFL Films.
As a dedicated creative leader with a deep passion for technology and storytelling, Caleb has produced and directed videos across multiple platforms for more than 10 years covering many major events. In the digital media space he has led the online video strategies for household names such as USA TODAY, NBC Sports, and Forbes Magazine helping to shape their multimedia vision.
While in the television space, Caleb has worked as a director and producer at NFL Films and ESPN covering more than 10 Super Bowls and helping to capture pivotal moments in sports history while crafting compelling features for programs such as Showtime’s Inside the NFL, ESPN’s NFL Films Presents and most recently the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
Caleb is a proud father of a 18-month son named Cameron James and is currently in the process of working on a documentary for HBO Films.
We know that it is impossible to make it to every panel discussion and every event. But it is possible to stay informed and engaged with #NABJ13 on the go.
Our social media plan this year is simple: Engage. Inform. Execute. Message.
We want to actively engage with you at the convention and those who are not able to go.
We will inform you. What you need to know, where you need to go and what people are talking about.
The NABJ convention is more than a celebration. It is the opportunity for journalists to come together, have an open forum to discuss issues in our newsrooms and in our communities. We will execute this plan to keep those conversations on a national platform.
Last but not least, we want to visually tell the story of NABJ through multiple platforms— through our message.
The Digital Journalist Task Force is back at it again. Due to the overwhelming success of the first #NABJ13prep twitter chat three weeks ago, we’re doing another twitter chat THIS Thursday, July 25. This time we’ve invited all the people who have put together a wonderful CONVENTION!
THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO ASK VETERANS ABOUT THE NABJ CONVENTION & FIND OUT ABOUT THE UPCOMING ACTIVITIES.
NABJ DJTF Twitter Chat – Thursday, July 25, 8pm EST–9pm EST #NABJ13PREP
For the first 20 minutes, we’ll be asking our panelists some of your most pressing questions. Then, it will be an open forum in which you will be able to tweet ANY question that you have about the NABJ conference.
BELOW ARE THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BE ON OUR TWITTER CHAT ON Thursday –
Benet Wilson (@benetwilson) – Benet is the chair of the Digital Journalism Task Force and is this year’s programming chair of the NABJ Conference.
Kathy Chaney (@kathychaney) – Kathy Chaney is a producer for WVON has attended the NABJ conference for eight years straight.
Carol Ash (@carol_ash) – Carol Ash is the NABJ Convention Chair.
Cindy George (@cindylgeorge) – Cindy is the current parliamentarian of the NABJ.
Sarah Glover (@skyphoto) – Sarah Glover is on the NABJ Conference programming committee.
Wesley Lowery (@wesleylowery) – Wesley Lowery is the NABJ Student Representative.
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.
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).
The Journalism & Women Symposium invites early-career, female journalists to apply for the 2013 CAMP Fellowship. Fellowships will cover registration for the 2013 JAWS Conference and Mentoring Project (CAMP) in Essex, Vermont, from Oct. 25 – 27. Fellows will also receive a one-year JAWS membership and a stipend for travel and lodging. JAWS CAMP is for female journalists of all ages and focuses on strengthening core journalism skills, building personal brands and careers, developing strategies for success in today’s rapidly evolving media landscape, and improving the status of women in journalism. Participants at this year’s CAMP will enjoy a dynamic experience filled with inspiring speakers (including NYT Executive Editor Jill Abramson), motivating career development sessions, and rewarding networking and mentoring opportunities.
Fellowship applicants are asked to submit a one-page résumé, two published clips, a personal statement (300 words or less) on why she wants to attend CAMP and what she hopes to contribute, and one letter of recommendation. Please send all application materials via Email to jawsfellows@gmail.com. For more information on fellowships, please visit the JAWS website (http://www.jaws.org/jaws-events/fellowships/) or contact Fellowship Chair Jessica Rettig at jessicarettig87@gmail.com. For CAMP updates, visit www.jaws.org or follow JAWS on Twitter at www.twitter.com/womenjournos. The deadline is June 1.
Top industry leaders will generate headline news as they address scores of real estate journalists from across the nation in Atlanta June 5-8 at the National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE) 47th Annual Real Estate Journalism Conference. NAREE University sessions at the conference will offer journalism workshops focusing on topics ranging from digital and social media to radio broadcasting. Economists, architects, builders, developers and mortgage experts will come together under NAREE’s roof. More than 20 company presidents, chief executive officers and partners from leading real estate-related firms will appear. Three chief economists lead the NAREE forecast panel: Lawrence Yun, National Association of Realtors; Jed Kolko, Trulia and Mark Fleming, Core Logic. The Boom in Luxury Housing panel presents: Kofi Nartey, Agency of Beverly Hills; Martha Turner, Martha Turner Properties and Jack Cotton, Sotheby’s International. Mark Woodworth, PKF Hospitality Research, will deliver a hotel market forecast and author and architect Marianne Cusato, designer of the famed Katrina Cottages, will speak on “The Best Places to Live.”NAREE’s 17th Annual Meet the Press will match journalists with publicists and freelancers during three-minute interviews. Winners of the 63rd Annual NAREE Real Estate Journalism Competition and the Bruss Book Awards will be unveiled. The NAREE Conference, headquartered at the Hilton Atlanta Downtown, begins Wednesday morning, June 5 and ends Saturday afternoon. Registration: www.NAREE.org
Morningstar, Inc., a leading provider of independent investment research, is hosting its 25th annual investment conference for financial advisors.More information about the Morningstar Investment Conference, including the full agenda, hotel accommodations, attendee registration, and continuing-education credits, is available athttp://global.morningstar.com/MIC2013. Conference updates are also available on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MStarAdvisoror through the conference hashtag: #MIC25. Press Registration Information: Full-time members of the news media may receive complimentary registration to the Morningstar Investment Conference. If you are a member of the media and want to register for the conference, visit:http://global.morningstar.com/mediaregistration or call Shawn Malayter at 312-696-6050.
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!!
By Ameena Rasheed, NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force Intern
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 June 2013.
MARCH
The National Association of Black Journalists will be hosting the 2013 NABJ Region 3 Conference on March 8-10 at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina. The conference program will offer participants an opportunity to sharpen old skills, learn new ones, and engage in valuable networking.
The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism is holding a free online webinar, “Branding for Journalists: You Being You,” March 5, 2013, at noon or 4:00 p.m., EST. In this webinar, Robin J. Phillips, the Reynolds Center’s digital director, will show you some simple tips to take control of your image, and accentuate the value of who you are and what you do best – apart from your news organization.
The Knight Digital Media Center at UC-Berkeley is offering an intensive 9-week graduate level certificateprogram, “Content & Strategy,” which focuses on the strategic implementation and production of digital media content combining seminar style instruction with practical hands-on training. The program is from March 5 through May 2. There will be presentations by world-class trainers, award-winning journalists and industry leaders, including Richard Koci Hernandez, Len De Groot, Jerry Monti. Tuition costs are $5,900. For more information, click here.
The Knight Digital Media Center at UC-Berkeley is hosting a two-day, hands-on certification program, “Create Meaning from Data,” focused on communicating complex information with visually appealing charts, graphs and maps. It will be held March 8-9 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at UC-Berkeley’s North Gate Hall. Tuition costs $645. Participants will learn to create a clearer, more meaningful picture of complex statistics and publicly available data, tell stories with interactive GIS maps, and create beautiful and effective graphs and charts. Click here to register.
The Investigative Reporters and Editors are hosting the “2013 Salt Lake City Watchdog Workshop” in Salt Lake City, Utah on Friday, March 15 through Saturday, March 16. This training will offer several of our core sessions that will improve your ability to find information on the Web quickly, and point you to key documents and data that will help you add depth to your daily work and produce quick-hit enterprise stories. In addition, this workshop will give you tips on bulletproofing stories, digging deeper on the Web with social media, search engines and much more. Workshop fees: $55 Professional, $25 Student and $30 Optional Computer-Assisted Reporting Training. Registration closes on Friday, March 8 at 7 p.m.
The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism is holding a free online webinar, “Power Searching for Business Journalists,” March 19 at noon EST. In this free, hour-long online training, Google senior research scientist Daniel M. Russell will offer his tips, techniques and strategies for using Google to find what might seem to be impossible.
The Future Journalism Project, media initiative which explores disruption, opportunity and innovation across the media landscape, is looking for spring 2013 interns.
The Knight Digital Media Center at UC-Berkeley is hosting a two-day, hands-on certification program, “Create Meaning from Data,” focused on communicating complex information with visually appealing charts, graphs and maps. It will be held March 8-9 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at UC-Berkeley’s North Gate Hall. Tuition costs $645. Participants will learn to create a clearer, more meaningful picture of complex statistics and publicly available data, tell stories with interactive GIS maps, and create beautiful and effective graphs and charts. Click here to register.
The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism is holding a free online webinar, “Power Searching for Business Journalists,” March 19 at noon EST. In this free, hour-long, online training, Google senior research scientist Daniel M. Russell will offer his tips, techniques and strategies for using Google to find what might seem to be impossible.
The Digital Media Summit will be returning to Toronto on March 19-20 at the Toronto Marriott Eaton Center Hotel. You can use the promo code DMSMASH13 to receive a discount on the delegate badge.
Beginning in 2013, UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism will each year offer five $10,000 postgraduate Food and Farming Journalism Fellowships. The fellowship, a project of the Knight Center in Science and Environmental Journalism, is supported by a grant from The 11th Hour Project, a program of The Schmidt Family Foundation. Online applications are due April 1. The program will announce this year’s fellows by May 1.
The Data Visualization Summit will be taking place on April 10-13 in San Francisco. The summit brings together leaders in Data Viz to explain and clarifiy the numerous benefits of using data visualization. If you would like to attend please contact Victoria Elton at velton@theiegroup.com.
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.
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!!
Multimedia journalist John W. Davis tell us how the 2011 NABJ conference helped him to land his reporting job in Orlando. Don’t forget that the deadline for early registration to the NABJ conference ends midnight EST on May 15.
When I arrived at the Philadelphia International Airport for the NABJ Convention & Career Fair in August 2011, I quickly boarded a SEPTA train headed for Downtown Philadelphia.
John W. Davis succeeded in finding another job after the NABJ 2011 conference.
As I took my seat, I ran into a friend who was also headed downtown to pick up his registration for the conference.
During our 30 minute ride to the Convention Center, we discussed our current work situations, and I joked with him, “I’m going to walk away from the career fair with a new job.”
He laughed at me, and I laughed at myself because I knew I still had three months left on my employment contract.
Realistically, I knew I would not leave Philadelphia with my next job lined up.
However, I was certain I would meet my employer at the career fair.
I had spent the days before the conference printing out extra resumes, and burning and labeling dozens of video resume reel DVD’s.
It was my first NABJ conference and I was ready to go.
My contract as a News Reporter/Multimedia Journalist in Fort Wayne, Indiana would be up in the three months and I was ready to ‘wow’ someone at the career fair and begin the process of landing my next job.
Over the next two days, I spent most of my time at the career fair, sat through about a dozen resume reel critiques and at the end of the conference I did not have a solid lead on my next job.
John came dressed for success at the NABJ Career Fair
At the time, I wish I had spent more time attending more of the seminars that I had circled in my conference schedule booklet.
When I went back to work, I took about a week to reflect and as I was looking over my notes, I realized all the managers who critiqued my work practically told me the same thing… “your standups should be more active, and your stories should be centered around people.”
Those were two tips I already knew from Journalism school.
However, those ideals did not translate onto my video resume reel because I had gotten away from that style in the grind and hustle of daily reporting.
So I went back to work with a renewed focus, centered on the tips and advice I learned specifically at the NABJ Career Fair.
I did my best to implement what I learned into my daily reporting.
In mid-September 2011, I was ready to make another job push.
I made sure my resume was concise and I re-edited my video resume reel with a focus on active stand ups in my standup montage and stories centered around people that displayed my reporting style and skills.
In early October 2011, I was already hearing back from potential employers and by mid-October, I accepted a new job as a Reporter/Video Journalist at Central Florida News 13 in Orlando, Florida.
In my short time in Orlando, I have had the opportunity to cover several national stories including the FAMU hazing investigation regarding the death of Drum Major Robert Champion and the Trayvon Martin Death Investigation / George Zimmerman legal case.
Now, the way I found my current job did not come from any direct connections to the NABJ Career Fair.
I saw an online job posting and I applied for my current position.
However, I believe I was qualified and able to get this job because I translated the tips and advice from NABJ Conference & Career Fair.
I also networked during the conference and before I began sending out my updated video resume reel, I asked several experienced NABJ members to give my video resume reel a second look.
Those final suggestions of what order my stories should appear on my video resume reel were exactly the final touches I needed to land my current job.
So here’s my final advice about the NABJ Career Fair, have an open mind, take notes, meet as many people as you can and don’t be discouraged if you do not land your next job during the conference.
In my opinion, the advice you can learn from discussing your work with a plethora of hiring managers is worth the price of NABJ registration, your hotel stay and your airfare, twice over.
I’m also a proponent of attending the annual conference when you’re not looking for a job, so I’ll see you in June in New Orleans for 2012 NABJ Convention and Career Fair.
NABJDigital Blog 