ONA Issues

Inspired by Spotlight and Attacking the Devil, Peter Preston reflects on how investigative journalism fits into the digital media landscape. “The internet hasn’t stopped investigations: it has added Vice, Vox and an array of dirt-digging sites to the roster. The watchdogs have never been so numerous, or so technically trained for the fight,” he writes.

Read more: They say the age of investigative journalism has passed. It hasn’t | The Guardian

Want to learn more about how the journalists involved in Spotlight handled the story? Check out the ONA15 keynote featuring the award-winning team behind the Boston Globe’s intensive investigation into Catholic church abuses.

(Source: theguardian.com)

Introducing ONA’s first Student Board Representative

We’re delighted to introduce Michelle Baruchman, ONA’s first Student Representative to the Board of Directors. Michelle will advise the Board and staff on how ONA can better serve student journalists.

(Source: journalists.org)

ONA is hiring a Community Manager!

If you’re a natural connector and digital thinker who is passionate about journalists, media and tech, who thrives on creating, adapting and building ways for communities to network and learn, APPLY. This position will help build and expand our ONA Local program, which empowers local journalists to do great things in their communities. 

(Source: journalists.org)

WNYC to Open New Podcast Division - The New York Times

WNYC, the public radio powerhouse in New York, is about to grow even bigger through a new division that will develop programs for the expanding podcast market.

The division, WNYC Studios, is to open this week with a plan to raise $15 million for new programming. Among the shows being developed at the studio will be “The New Yorker Radio Hour,” a partnership with the magazine; a spinoff of WNYC’s popular “Radiolab” program coming next year that will focus on the Supreme Court; and “Only Human,” a health program.

This year, WNYC also hosted its first Podcast Accelerator. You can see the pitches from the finalists in this video from ONA15. Congrats to Gaydio and The City!

(Source: The New York Times)

Five steps to making your first podcast | IJNet

Tips from “A Beginner’s Guide to Podcasting,” featuring Tiffany Campbell and Michael O’Connell, producer of the It’s All Journalism podcast, a session at the Online News Association Conference.

How One Association Tackled a Conference Diversity Problem: Associations Now

Tech conferences have taken their share of hard knocks for failing to reflect and promote industry diversity. Among them is the annual meeting hosted by the Online News Association, which focuses on the convergence of technology and journalism.

But ONA’s 2015 conference… looks different. It has a more diverse lineup of presenters than in past years: 52 percent are women, and 36 percent are people of color. But the diversity push goes beyond racial and gender lines—25 percent of the speakers hail from local news organizations, and 8 percent come from other countries.

ONA Executive Director Jane McDonnell and Deputy Director Irving Washington, CAE, acknowledge that the association took some heat over a lack of diversity at past conferences.

“As ONA struggled to help journalists deal with cataclysmic changes over the past 10 years, diversity slipped out of focus,” McDonnell and Washington wrote in a blog post. “That loss is difficult to make up, but it’s nowhere near as daunting as annual discouraging data suggests. The really hard part? Starting.”

(Source: associationsnow.com)

Key Takeaways from the Online News Association Conference

ONA Board Member Benét J. Wilson shared her top takeaways from ONA15. Lots of great things to check out but we were especially happy to see her highlighting the work of the next generation of journalists who joined us this year. 

I am always in awe of the student and young journalists who are preparing us for the next iteration of the business. ONA has great programs that support this. I’m proud to moderate the MJ Bear Fellows panel, where they demonstrate their unique ways of covering the news. We have a Student Newsroom staffed by 20 young journalists who are destined to become industry stars. And thanks to the Knight Foundation, we brought five students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities to work alongside those in the Student Newsroom under the HBCU Digital Media Fellowship. And we launched the CNN Media Diversity Fellows, which brought in five talented early career journalists from around the country.

(Source: businessjournalism.org)

Syrian Blogger Offers An Intimate, Haunting View Of Life In A War Zone

Amid the dozens of stories about the refugee crisis in Europe, it can be easy to forget its tragic cause: the war in Syria, which began more than four years ago.

But one blogger’s work is serving as a powerful reminder of the conflict fueling the international migrant crisis. At its annual conference last weekend, the Online News Association recognized Syrian blogger and Christian activist Marcell Shehwaro with an award in the category of Online Commentary for her 12-part series, “Dispatches From Syria.” The judges praised Shehwaro for writing about the conflict with depth and nuance, examining “the gray areas in a war usually told from polar extremes.”

(Source: The Huffington Post)