Click on the photo or here to see the full series. Creative Commons photo.

In January, the Agora Journalism Center and MediaShift kicked off the year with a 11-part series on engaged journalism, an emerging approach that conceives of news as a conversation — one in which community members, not politicians or pundits, take center stage.

As Geneva Overholser recently pointed out for Democracy Fund, the idea of engaged journalism is neither brand new (it has roots in the civic journalism movement of the 1990s) nor entirely set in stone (it’s “very much a concept in formation,” she wrote). But as we near the one-year anniversary of January’s series, it’s clear that this budding reform movement is picking up steam and re-shaping journalism in ways we couldn’t have envisioned even a year ago.

To honor that progress, here’s a list of five highlights for engaged journalism in 2016.

1. The post-election buzz centered around the need for listening

When Liz Spayd, the new public editor at the New York Times, argued in July that newspapers should be spending more time listening to their readers, few voices within legacy media were singing the same tune. But it wouldn’t stay that way for long.

Following a turbulent election season for American news media, the subsequent self-reflection led many practitioners to the same conclusion: Indeed, we need to listen better.

“It is our job to hear all people. And to listen closely. And to give the people of America insights into each other,” Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron said during his commencement address at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. “We will have to work harder at that.”

Similarly, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof opined that journalists “spend too much time chatting up senators, and not enough visiting unemployed steel workers,” and Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote that the news media “missed the story” in 2016. “A huge number of American voters wanted something different,” she explained. “And although these voters shouted and screamed it, most journalists just weren’t listening.”

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, among others, agreed: “Just like the politicians,” he wrote, “our job was to listen, and we talked instead.”

It’s too soon to know whether last month’s reflections will lead to sweeping changes in the news business. But at least we learned that journalists realize there’s a problem, and many of them believe engagement is a big part of the answer.

Part of a visual map illustrated by Nitya Wakhlu at the Experience Engagement conference in Portland, Oregon. Photo by Emmalee McDonald.

2. The Seattle Times, KPCC, and others modeled engaged journalism at its best

Of course, the most exciting sign of engaged journalism’s progress is that news organizations are increasingly putting its principles into practice. There are too many great examples to list, but here are a few of the stories and projects that stood out for me in 2016:

Under Our Skin by The Seattle Times: A thoughtful examination of the language we use to discuss race — and the different ways people interpret it. (The nifty comments interface is especially worth checking out.)

I Voted Clinton. You Voted Trump. Let’s Talk by the New York Times: A three-part series by The Run-Up podcast that brought Trump voters and Clinton voters together to discuss their perspectives.

#AirTalkItOut by KPCC: A similar post-election project by KPCC (one of the rock stars in engaged journalism) that featured Trump and Clinton voters from southern California.

Reliving Agent Orange by ProPublica: A crowdsourced investigation into how Agent Orange exposure has impacted veterans and their families. (The project began in 2015, but ProPublica continues to collect data and publish new reports, including this major feature earlier this month.)

Justice in the Embers by KCPT and the Center for Investigative Reporting: A StoryWorks theater performance and community discussion built around Mike McGraw’s reporting about a deadly Kansas City fire and its aftermath. McGraw credited the play with giving his reporting “new legs” and engaging audiences in “bold new ways.”

50 Words by The Boston Globe: A delightful project by the paper’s Ideas section that invites Bostonians to tell a story about their city in exactly 50 words.

A screenshot from the Seattle Times’ Under Our Skin project.

3. The Coral Project and Hearken developed new tools for engagement

Building on the theme of listening, The Coral Project launched a new open-source product in September that will help news organizations do just that. The tool, called Ask, provides a simple interface allowing journalists to pose questions to their audiences and then sort and curate the responses.

The Coral Project also continued to fine tune its tool, Trust, which is designed to help journalists identify trustworthy community voices within their comment sections. (I wrote about the early development of Trust in part eight of January’s series).

Elsewhere on engagement’s tech frontier, Hearken announced the development of a new Interactive Reporter’s Notebook to complement its Engagement Management System, which is being used (to great effect) by KQED, Inside Energy, Michigan Radio, and more than 50 other partners.

The new Reporter’s Notebook tool will allow journalists to share their work with audiences as they go and “capture what happens along the way.”

A screenshot from The Coral Project’s website.

4. Journalism conferences paid (even more) attention to engagement

Engagement has been a hot topic at journalism conferences lately, a trend that continued in 2016, beginning with The Engagement Summit in Macon, Georgia, in January. Participants at the conference even drafted a three-part manifesto for engaged journalism, which offers a good starting place for how to define and articulate the approach.

Other conference highlights this year included the People-Powered Publishing Conference in Chicago and the “unconference” session on relational engagement at ONA16. And as 2017 approaches, there’s no sign of that momentum slowing down: The Agora Journalism Center and Journalism That Matters recently announced that they’ll be hosting another engagement-focused conference in Portland in May — and other events are reportedly in the works.

5. Engaged journalism’s ‘community of practice’ took a big step forward

In January, I wrote about the Agora Journalism Center’s plans to develop a first-of-its-kind digital platform to support engagement practitioners across the country. Those plans took a big step forward in September when Agora received a $221,000 grant from the Knight Foundation “to support the platform and spread best practices in engagement among journalists across the nation.” (Disclosure: I’ll be working on the platform as Agora’s project and product manager.)

The platform is currently in its development stage and is expected to be launched publicly in March or April. If you’re interested in helping Agora co-design the platform, fill out this survey or drop project director Andrew Devigal a note here. (We’d love to have you on board!)

Ben DeJarnette is the project and product manager for the Agora Journalism Center’s Community of Practice Platform for Engaged Journalism and a contributing editor at MediaShift. He is also a contributor to InvestigateWest, Pacific Standard, Oregon Quarterly, and others.

The post 5 Ways ‘Engaged Journalism’ Made Progress in 2016 appeared first on MediaShift.

Well, it’s time for an update! Last month, as a final act before departing MediaShift to focus on a book project (stay tuned for more!), I checked in with several of the digital media startups and experiments that I covered this year and asked the folks at each one to share the biggest lesson they’ve learned this year, how they’ve succeeded (and failed), and what advice they’d give to prospective digital media entrepreneurs.

Here’s what I found out. 

Hearken

In March, I wrote about a startup called Hearken and its plan to spread the public-powered journalism model that co-founder Jennifer Brandel helped pioneer at WBEZ.

Inspired by WBEZ’s Curious City, Hearken helps newsrooms involve their audiences in the process of story selection and reporting. Using Hearken’s platform, journalists can solicit story ideas in the form of questions and put their favorites up for an audience vote. The winning questions are then assigned to a reporter, and, in some cases, the question-asker gets a chance to assist in the investigation.

Hearken is now being used in nearly 60 newsrooms worldwide, and the company is starting to explore other markets, including museum experiences and conferences (last month’s ONA conference, for example, used Hearken to gather questions and feedback on sessions). Here are Brandel’s responses to my questions:

A screenshot from Hearken’s website.

Lesson learned: “In order to be effective, you need to keep saying the same things over and over and over and over again. Someone may hear your message once and be intrigued, but they’re busy, and they don’t necessarily have time to act on new information. So showing up everywhere we can and really focusing on a coherent message on all channels, as often as we can, is the foundation for ushering change. It’s not sexy.”

Biggest success and failure: “Our biggest success is taking our model from three newsrooms to nearly 60 — and doing that across countries and languages. Our partners have been producing some of their top stories of the year with our model and technology, and we’re seeing all kinds of cool uses for it (like election coverage Q+A). Our biggest failure overall has been spreading ourselves very thin. We’re trying to to find the balance of leaning in hard without burning out.”

Advice for digital media entrepreneurs: “Change to the industry is inevitable. We can either design it thoughtfully and intentionally, or let it happen. The opportunities right now are huge and crucial. No matter what you try, and no matter whether it works or not, you’re contributing to a kind of scientific body that we need to strengthen and continue in order to survive. Now is the time for lots of experiments, and hopefully you make some happen and share what you learn.”

Ripple News

The hyper-local news app Ripple News has now launched in 21 cities around the world, established 100 media partnerships, and finalized a pair of high-profile distribution partnerships that will be announced later this month (the details are currently under embargo). Here’s what I wrote about Ripple News in May:

“The source of enthusiasm for Ripple is two-fold: First, by combining geo-mapping technology with a voting system that allows stories to “ripple out” to a wider audience, Ripple creates an opportunity to produce hyper-local news at scale — a big step toward business viability.

Second, unlike the algorithmic and aggregation-based hyper-local sites that have been largely unsuccessful, Ripple accounts for the importance of on-the-ground community engagement. Most notably, Ripple is powered by human contributors who live in the cities they’re covering, and those contributors do actual reporting rather than web aggregation — an approach that West Seattle Blog and other hyper-local news outlets have shown is crucial.”

I also noted Ripple News’s prospects as a distribution partner for existing media outlets:

“In addition to cultivating a network of original contributors, Ripple has partnered with local news outlets to distribute their content through the app. The ability to tag this content by location and to push it out to specific groups of readers could be a huge boon for civic journalism — as well as an attractive feature for local advertisers.

Eventually, Hovaghimian and his team may have to decide whether Ripple can survive as a stand-alone news platform, or whether it should be primarily a distribution and engagement tool for established outlets. But for now, Ripple is straddling both roles…”

So how are things going? So far, it’s a mixed bag. Founder and CEO Razmig Hovaghimian says the company has created over a thousand original stories and signed up over 100 media partners, including its newest partners Al Jazeera, The Atlantic’s CityLab, TimeOut and Voice Media Group.

But in cities like Boston, only a handful of stories have been published on the city feed — and only two in the last three weeks. Meanwhile, even in Ripple News’s more active cities, like San Francisco, most of the content is from professional partners like KQED and SFGate, not from community correspondents. In fact, several of the “featured correspondents” listed on its website haven’t published stories since the summer.

That would appear to be a sign that Ripple News’s long-term prospects are more as a content distribution partner than as a content creator — and the partnership announcements later this month should offer more clarity on the company’s direction. Here’s what CEO Razmig Hovaghimian had to say about the company’s first five months:  

 Lesson learned: “The importance of over-communicating! In May, we launched with a group of official partners and linked to a broader group of content partners through their Twitter handles and RSS. Our sole goal was to amplify the reach of their content, but I didn’t get it right at launch. We published all our content, be it from an official partner or not, in full (instead of 300 words max). Some thought we were copying and pasting their content, and we absolutely were not doing that. I listened, apologized, and started writing and calling up media companies, and we fixed the problem literally within a few hours. I was happy that we got a second chance to make our case…

To recap, we set out to solve a tough problem, that of hyperlocal content discovery, in every city. We felt it’s an important mission, and we wanted to amplify important stories down to the neighborhood level. Since launch, it has frankly been six months of steep learning, fine-tuning, and thinking of new ways to attack this very real problem through great content, technology and community.”

Biggest success and failure: “I’ll answer them in reverse, given the over-communication point I shared above. By the second day after launch, I was wishing I had more time to reach out to potential media partners, so that I could explain our model and how we wished to work with them. It was heartening to hear our existing partners stand by us and say they believed in our vision, tell us to fix things quickly, to own our mistakes, and to keep building even faster.

The biggest success this year has been the Hoodline acquisition, which we announced in August. It was an absolute no-brainer partnership. When we set out to build Ripple News, Hoodline was an inspiration, and we thought, what if there were a Hoodline in every city? It’s a brilliant and inspiring team, and we’re learning from them every day. Together, we’re working to take local news and content discovery global. We’ve built a strong San Francisco audience, reaching nearly half the city-wide readership.”

Advice for digital media entrepreneurs: “Well, startups are just crazy. The hardest part is surrounding yourself with a team that can cultivate a strong culture, and that builds with a sense of ownership and urgency. I would simply start and build with a phenomenal team that will win or die solving a meaningful problem. It better be fun, too.”

The Coral Project

The Coral Project, a collaboration of the Mozilla Foundation, the New York Times and the Washington Post to help publishers create stronger communities around their journalism, was just getting started in January when I profiled their early development work on Trust, a tool designed “to bring productive conversation to comments sections by giving news organizations better tools for sorting, rating and prioritizing audience contributions.”

The Trust tool is currently in a closed beta test, but last month The Coral Project publicly released another product, Ask, which “allows journalists to build callouts, manage submissions and create galleries in smarter, more flexible ways,” writes community lead Sydette Harry.

In addition to its flashy new website, The Coral Project recently launched a Comments Lab — to allow people to play with and share different comment box configurations — and is now working on a multi-newsroom survey of commenter behavior, conducted in collaboration with the Engaging News Project. Meanwhile, integration engineer Jeff Nelson is working with newsrooms to install Coral’s products on their servers — a huge asset for any open-source software initiative. 

Harry sent along these responses on behalf of The Coral Project team: 

The Coral Project launched a new-and-improved website in September.

Lesson learned: “Journalism is still one of the most important functions of a democratic society. Communities form around news, but where they are and how they operate changes all the time. If journalists and news organizations don’t engage with, and be part of, these communities in a sustainable way that focuses on building relationships, then maybe journalism won’t remain as prominent or as important in the future. Everyone agrees this is important, but nobody has it figured out.”

Biggest success and failure: “We’ve built an amazing, diverse team that is invested in everything we do, and why we are doing it. But while we are doing so much great work, we need to do a better job at being open about what we’re doing. We want as many people as possible to feel invested in our work, beyond just our team, and to participate in what we’re doing. People have been wonderfully supportive, but we want to increase everyone’s investment in being part of our community.”

Advice for digital media entrepreneurs: “Think as hard about your community as you do about your product. And your community is not ‘them.’ If you are going to succeed, your community needs to include you.”

The Tylt

The Tylt, the first product built by Advance Digital’s in-house incubator, Alpha Group, lets social media users vote on hot-button issues in the news, from marijuana legalization (#MakeWeedLegal vs. #KeepWeed) to U.S. involvement in Syria (#InterveneInSyria vs. #StayOUTOfSyria). The Tylt then displays real-time voting results on its website, where it also gives a shout out to the “influencers” who are driving the conversation on social media.

When The Tylt launched in April, my review wasn’t exactly glowing: “If community participation is the problem,” I wrote, “The Tylt isn’t looking like the answer.” I was critical of The Tylt’s attempt to spark meaningful debate with either-or questions, and I lamented that its website didn’t pair questions with relevant content.

Five months later, I’m still not in love with The Tylt’s binary issue framings, nor do I think they’ve achieved the “interesting debates” that Alpha Group co-founder Michael Donoghue said he was aiming for. But if you accept The Tylt for what it is — a voting platform that allows social media users to sound off on issues they care about — there’s no doubt that the Advance Digital team is making progress.

For one, on the landing pages for each question, The Tylt now embeds links to related news stories. Sure, it’s likely that many users never visit these landing pages (the hashtags make it possible to vote without leaving Twitter and Facebook), but for people who want to learn more about the issues before voting, the links are a helpful resource.

As for reach, the platform is showing signs of improvement. Currently, The Tylt has about 50,000 followers on Twitter and 73,000 likes on Facebook, and its posts appear to be receiving more engagement than in April. Another good sign is that when local news partners have embedded the voting module into content on their sites, engagement metrics have improved significantly, says David Cohn, senior director at Advance Digital.

“Over the last five months we’ve assembled a talented team, grown our social footprint significantly, while maintaining excellent engagement, and built a growing community of people who use the Tylt regularly,” Cohn wrote in his response. “We’re getting ready now to launch upgrades to our social voting algorithm that ingests more signals from Facebook and Twitter to better determine how people feel about particular topics or opinions, which means our community will have more opportunities to have their opinions heard and counted.”

A screenshot from the The Tylt’s homepage on Oct. 20, 2016.

Lesson learned: “The most important thing is to have a core premise that you believe in. We are building our community and trying to work with them, which means that should be our singular focus. Whenever you launch a new product that goes against established norms, particularly in the media space, you’re subject to pundits who either don’t understand the nature of your idea or don’t want to see it succeed because it changes comfortable paradigms. We like to treat the opinions of our community members and regular users as the most valuable input we can get. It’s always important to keep them as your compass. If you listen to users, you can’t go wrong. Additionally, in testing content syndication to our local news partners, we’ve seen how having embedded voting modules included in stories can dramatically increase engagement on their sites, which is why we’re going to be making it available to more media companies soon.”

Biggest success and biggest failure: “Creating a media organization isn’t easy. It bakes for a long time, goes back and forth, requires you to look hard at assumptions and stay true to an original hypothesis. Our biggest success is that in launching, we’ve proven out the original hypothesis, that people have a desire to vote on stories that matter to them and will share those opinions socially in order to get more people to rally to one side or another. We’ve been really impressed with the network effect of opinions. Seeing influential people take notice of how our community feels on a particular topic is incredibly rewarding. Our biggest failure was initially ignoring some really valuable, passionate niche communities with our content. We started out writing to appeal to a broad audience but soon realized how eager niche audiences are to have their voices heard. Since then we’ve integrated that into our editorial approach and it has paid off.”

Advice for digital media entrepreneurs: “Keep your head down and focus on what you are working on and why. Remember that a startup is a roller coaster ride — there are high highs and low lows — and as a team you need to be able to ride it all the way through. Teamwork is incredibly important. Nobody can do a big endeavor on their own. Know what your individual strengths and weaknesses are and be ready to tag your partners when they can do something you wouldn’t be able to. Remember, despite the highs/lows, there is important information coming to you from your community, and that is the most important.”

Global Reporting Centre

The Vancouver-based Global Reporting Centre, which was featured in July as part of MediaShift’s series on collaborative journalism, is continuing to make noise in its first year as an independent nonprofit (after previously operating as the International Reporting Program, a student-driven project at the University of British Columbia.)

In addition to racking up accolades for its project Out of the Shadows, the Centre is now working on a new project called Hidden Costs — an investigation into global supply chains — and experimenting with “empowerment journalism,” a type of journalism that gives local storytellers the means and platform to tell neglected stories from their own countries. GRC’s early forays into empowerment journalism include a crowd-sourced documentary project about the rise of xenophobia in Europe; an ongoing partnership with a group of Somali radio reporters who are wearing body cameras to document their daily reporting from their points of view; and a crowdsourced web platform for indigenous storytellers throughout North America and Australia.

GRC founder and executive director Peter Klein says the Centre is also conducting a survey of “fixers,” with the goal of developing best practice guidelines for global reporting, and piloting a global journalism education consortium called the Global Reporting Program. “Add to that the weekly public events we’ve been hosting,” Klein told me via email, “and we are super busy.” Here are Klein’s responses:

A screenshot from the Global Reporting Centre’s project “Out of the Shadows.”

Lesson learned: “As a producer at 60 Minutes, I spent a lot of time chasing dodgy business people and convincing reluctant politicians to let me into their offices, but nothing prepared me for the challenges of fundraising. Philanthropists are understandably guarded, since everyone is coming to them with their hands out. At first, I felt like I was imposing on foundations and individuals, but then I started to take a more journalistic approach. When I go to a source, I convince them to go public because it’s ultimately in their own interest — not because they’re doing any favor for me. Likewise, with philanthropists, they feel strongly about certain issues and want those issues to get attention. We have the academic, reporting and storytelling skills, as well as the media contacts, to do deep dives into important neglected global issues. The only thing missing is money, so if we can bring funders into the process, we can provide them with opportunities to spend their philanthropy dollars efficiently and effectively.”

Biggest success and failure: “Since we are affiliated with a university, we have been able to bring leading academics into our orbit, which has deepened both our reporting and our identification of topics on which to report. They have also given us an entry point into academic funding, which is increasingly prioritizing “knowledge translation” (a fancy word for journalism). So we have been able to fund some of our research and reporting initiatives through the kinds of academic grants that journalists typically do not pursue, and we have been extremely fortunate to have the backing of the University of British Columbia, which has given us both funding and in-kind support. But the affiliation with a university has been a double-edged experience. We don’t conform to the typical media entrepreneurial model, so some potential donors have seen us as a bad fit. Some might see us as already having funding from the university, meaning we don’t need more (which couldn’t be further from the truth!). Others might assume we are focused primarily on academic research or teaching, which is also wrong. We are a journalism organization, run by journalists around the world, with the goal of innovating and practicing global journalism.”

Advice for digital media entrepreneurs: “I’ve discovered it’s critically important to sharpen the story about what your organization is and how it stands out in the increasingly-crowded media landscape. Whether an organization is for-profit or non-profit, the competition for funding and market share is fierce, and your goals have to be articulated clearly to get any attention. Also, when it comes to fundraising, there’s a fine line between giving up too quickly and being overly aggressive. I’m still searching for that sweet spot.”

Ben DeJarnette is the outgoing associate editor at MediaShift. He is also a freelance contributor for Pacific Standard, InvestigateWest, Men’s Journal, Runner’s World, Oregon Quarterly and others. He’s on Twitter @BenDJduck.

The post Where Are They Now? An Update on 5 Startups/Projects You Read About on MediaShift appeared first on MediaShift.

OCTOBER & BEYOND DEADLINES

National Press Foundation Awards
The National Press Foundation celebrates the best of journalism with its annual awards. These prestigious and highly coveted awards are open to journalists across the media spectrum.
Deadline: Oct. 14, 2016

Webby Awards
The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. The Webbys now honors excellence in 6 major media types: Websites, Film & Video, Advertising, Media & PR, Social, Mobile Sites & Apps and Podcasts & Digital Audio.
Early Deadline: Oct. 28, 2016

Hearst Journalism Awards Program – Feature Writing
William Randolph Hearst Foundation
The Hearst Journalism Awards Program was founded in 1960 to provide support, encouragement, and assistance to journalism education at the college and university level. The program awards scholarships to students for outstanding performance in college-level journalism, with matching grants to the students’ schools. The feature writing category is open to color or mood articles covering news, business, feature or entertainment, as opposed to conventional news stories or personality profiles.
Deadline: Nov. 1, 2016

New Media Film Festival Awards
For years, The New Media Film Festival has led the way in the pursuit of stories worth telling, the exploration of new media technologies, boundary pushing resulting in new distribution models and creating and establishing new methodologies in the global monetization of content. A total of $45,000 in awards will be given out.
Regular Deadline: Nov. 3, 2016

The Michael Kelly Award
Atlantic Media Co.
The Michael Kelly Award honors a writer or editor whose work exemplifies a quality that animated Michael Kelly’s own career: the fearless pursuit and expression of truth.
Deadline: Feb. 3, 2017

Ancil Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism
University of Oregon
The Ancil Payne Awards honor journalists who exhibit extraordinary commitment to the highest standards of ethical conduct in journalism, even when faced with economic, personal or political pressure.
Deadline: Feb. 13, 2017

International Women’s Media Foundation Awards
The International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism Award honors women journalists for their extraordinary bravery. In facing and surviving danger to uncover the truth, they raise the bar for reporting under duress. The IWMF also recognize the pioneers who kicked down barriers to make it possible for women all over the world to find their voices and make them heard. Lifetime Achievement Award winners persevered, opening doors for future generations to make a difference.
Deadline: Mar. 1, 2017

DEADLINES DOWN THE LINE

Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards
Columbia University
The award recognizes excellence in broadcast, documentary and digital journalism.

Asian Digital Media Awards
World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
The awards honor Asian publishers that have excelled in their digital offerings.

Data Journalism Awards
Global Editors Network
The awards is an international contest recognizing outstanding work in data journalism worldwide.

Middle East Digital Media Awards
World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
The awards honor Middle Eastern publishers that have excelled in their digital offerings.

Meyer “Mike” Berger Award
The Columbia Journalism Awards
The Meyer “Mike” Berger Award and its $2,000 cash prize are awarded for outstanding human interest reporting across platforms.

Mirror Awards
Syracuse University S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
The Mirror Awards honor excellence in media industry reporting in various categories for various forms of media.

New America Award
Society of Professional Journalists
SPJ’s New America Award honors public service journalism that explores and exposes an issue of importance to immigrant or ethnic communities currently living in the United States.

Pulitzer Prizes
Columbia University
The Pulitzer Prize awards achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition.

Selden Ring Award
Presented by the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the Selden Ring Award highlights the importance of investigative journalism in modern day reporting. Nominations are generally received in January.

Sigma Delta Chi Awards
Society of Professional journalists
The awards recognize the best in professional journalism in categories covering print, radio, television, newsletters, art/graphics, online and research.

Society of Professional Journalists Awards
The Society of Professional Journalists has various awards for professional to collegiate journalists for excellence in various forms of media. Awards are rolling and there are several with deadlines in June. Please check the site for more details.

The Bookmarks Awards
Digital Media and Marketing Association
The Bookmarks Awards, based in South Africa, honor excellence in digital work, from websites, app development and games to multimedia and digital journalism.

The Cabot Prizes
The Columbia Journalism Awards
The prizes recognize a distinguished body of work that has contributed to Inter-American understanding.

Ben DeJarnette is the associate editor at MediaShift. He is also a freelance contributor for Pacific Standard, InvestigateWest, Men’s Journal, Runner’s World, Oregon Quarterly and others. He’s on Twitter @BenDJduck.

The post Media and Journalism Awards: Oct. 6 Edition appeared first on MediaShift.

OCTOBER 2016 & BEYOND DEADLINES

Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship
The Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship was launched in 2013 as a new component of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. It provides opportunities for U.S. citizens to participate in an academic year of overseas travel and digital storytelling in one, two, or three countries on a globally significant theme. This Fellowship is made possible through a partnership between the U.S. Department of State and the National Geographic Society. Fellows publish stories on the Fulbright-National Geographic Stories blog.
Deadline: Oct. 11, 2016, 5:00 p.m. ET

Reynolds Business Journalism Week Fellowships
Business journalists and journalism educators are invited to apply for fellowships to take part in the 11th annual Reynolds Business Journalism Week at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will select 24 fellows for the training, which will cover how to find and cover business angles in any story and where to find economic and financial data. Reynolds Week will take place Jan. 4-6, 2017, at the Cronkite School’s state-of-the-art building in downtown Phoenix.
Deadline: Oct. 16, 2016

New York Times Summer Internships
New York City
The New York Times offers 10-week summer internships to undergraduate and graduate college students who have decided on careers in journalism. Some internships are limited to seniors or graduate students; others also accept juniors. The program provides a summer of demanding work and high journalistic standards, with individual internships in reporting, in visual and interactive journalism and in video, and it offers copy-editing internships with placement by the Dow Jones News Fund.
Deadline: Oct. 31, 2016

Kiplinger Fellowships
Columbus, Ohio
Kiplinger Fellows typically spend a week in April on Ohio State’s main campus in Columbus, where they receive cutting-edge training on digital tools and tactics from leading industry experts. Topics include social media for reporting, branding and audience engagement; spreadsheets and data visualization; smartphone videography; and media ethics. The highly coveted fellowships provide lodging, most meals and free training – thanks to the generosity of the Kiplinger Foundation and Kiplinger family.
Deadline: Oct. 31, 2016

High Country News Fellowship
Paonia, Colorado
High Country News is looking for informed and enthusiastic editorial interns and fellows to report on natural resource, environmental and community issues in the 11 Western states. High Country News, published twice-monthly in Paonia, Colorado, is a nonprofit newsmagazine and website “for people who care about the West.” The magazine reaches 25,000 subscribers — an estimated 60,000 readers — and the website reaches thousands more, including grassroots activists, public land managers, tribal officials, government policymakers, educators, students and interested citizens.
Deadline: Nov. 1, 2016

Grist Fellowship Program – Editorial, Video, and Justice Fellowships
Seattle (or remote, if applying for justice fellowship)
The Grist Fellowship Program is an opportunity to hone your skills at a national news outlet and deepen your understanding of environmental issues. We’re looking for early-career journalists with a variety of skills, from traditional reporting to multimedia whizbangery. We will offer exposure to the leading sustainability thinkers and theories of our time, real-world experience at a fast-paced news site, and the occasional “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” debate. We are an independent nonprofit media organization that shapes the country’s environmental conversations, making green second nature for our monthly audience of 2.5 million and growing. At Grist, green isn’t about hugging trees or hiking — it’s about using humor and straight talk to connect big issues like climate change to real people and how they live, work, and play.
Deadline: Nov. 8, 2016

Wall Street Journal Graphics Internship
New York City
The Wall Street Journal is seeking a data visualization intern for its Graphics team based in New York City. The Graphics team creates visual journalism in a number of ways, but we mostly focus on data visualization for print and online. This is a paid summer internship. The summer internship is 10 weeks long and generally starts in June, though the start date can be flexible in certain circumstances.
Deadline: Dec. 1, 2016

Roy H. Park Fellowships
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
The University of North Carolina School of Media and Journalism awards seven or eight new doctoral students and seven or eight incoming residential master’s students with Park Fellowships. All Park Fellows work as graduate assistants 15 hours per week. Assignments vary according to the needs of the school and faculty, and the interests and skill levels of the students. Due to the work requirement of the fellowships and the academic demands of the program, Park Fellows may not work outside the school during the academic year without approval from the associate dean for graduate studies prior to the employment. Roy H. Park Fellowships are available only to U.S. citizens. There is no special application; all qualified applicants will be considered for Park Fellowships.
Deadline: Dec. 13, 2016

Investigative Reporters and Editors Diversity Fellowships
Established by the Philip L. Graham Fund to send a limited number of professional journalists to attend IRE’s conferences. These fellowships are aimed at increasing the diversity of IRE’s membership. Applicants for this award should identify themselves with one of the following minority groups: Black/African American, American Indian/Alaskan, Native American, Asian-American, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino.
Deadline: Jan. 1, 2017, for the CAR Conference; Apr. 23, 2017, for the IRE Conference

ROLLING DEADLINES

Outside Editorial Fellowship
The fellowship is a six-month, paid position in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Duties include fact-checking, reporting, research, proofreading, and assorted support chores for the editorial department. Fellows occasionally have the opportunity to write short pieces for the magazine and website, and they will attend editorial meetings, work closely with top editors, and gain hands-on experience at an award-winning magazine.
Deadline: Rolling

Holly Whisenhunt Stephen Fellowship, Investigative Reporters & Editors
Send broadcast and/or radio journalists to IRE’s weeklong Computer-Assisted Reporting (CAR) Boot Camp series. The fellowships were established by IRE and WTHR-Indianapolis to honor Stephen, an award-winning journalist and longtime IRE member who died in Nov. 2008 after a long battle with cancer.
Deadline: Rolling — 60 days before the Boot Camp you are applying to attend.

Ottaway Fellowships, Investigative Reporters & Editors
Established by David Ottaway and the Ottaway Family Fund to send a limited number of professional journalists to IRE’s weeklong Computer-Assisted Reporting (CAR) Boot Camp series. These fellowships are aimed at increasing the diversity of IRE’s membership. Applicants for this award should identify themselves with one of the following minority groups: Black/African American, American Indian/Alaskan, Native American, Asian-American, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino.
Deadline: Rolling — 60 days before the Boot Camp you are applying to attend.

R-CAR Fellowship, Investigative Reporters & Editors
The Fund for Rural Computer-Assisted Reporting helps a journalist from a news organization in a rural area attend one of IRE’s week-long CAR boot camps. It was established by IRE member Daniel Gilbert to give rural reporters skills that will help them uncover stories that otherwise would not come to light. The fellowship is offered in conjunction with The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.
Deadline: Rolling — 60 days before the Boot Camp you are applying to attend.

IN PROGRESS OR FUTURE FELLOWSHIPS

Associated Press Global News Internship Program
Various locations
This paid internship program is for students who are aspiring cross-format journalists and will contribute to AP’s text, video, photo and interactive reporting. The application period for the 2016 internship is closed. Questions may be emailed to internship@ap.org.

Bay Area Video Coalition Mediamaker Fellowship
San Francisco, CA
The fellowship selects fellows for a 10-month program that supports project development with professional mentorship in multiplatform and transmedia storytelling through emerging technologies and strategic marketing.

Data & Society Fellow
New York City
The fellowship brings together researchers, entrepreneurs, activists, policy creators, journalists and public intellectuals who are interested in engaging one another on the key issues introduced by the increasing availability of data in society.

Donald W. Reynolds Fellowships
Columbia, MO or remote
The fellowship offers an annual program for individuals to develop innovative ideas within journalism and to help build the public’s knowledge in these areas.

Fulbright Journalism & Communications Grants
Fulbright offers opportunities in Germany, Ireland, Spain and Taiwan. The timeline for this year is now closed but will start again in the early spring.

Google News Lab Fellowships
Various locations
The Google News Lab Fellowship offers students interested in journalism and technology the opportunity to spend the summer working at relevant organizations across the U.S. to gain valuable experience and make lifelong contacts and friends.

Knight-Mozilla Fellowship
Various locations
The Knight-Mozilla Fellowship places creative technologists in newsrooms to work on open-source tools and support reporting that strengthens the web and changes people’s lives. Knight-Mozilla Fellows spend 10 months working with newsroom technology teams to write open-source code, analyze and visualize data, and explore tough problems facing journalism.

Reuters Journalism Fellowship Program
Oxford, UK
This fellowship allows 25 mid-career journalists from around the world to conduct academic research at the University of Oxford.

Ben DeJarnette is the associate editor at MediaShift. He is also a freelance contributor for Pacific Standard, InvestigateWest, Men’s Journal, Runner’s World, Oregon Quarterly and others. He’s on Twitter @BenDJduck.

The post Media and Journalism Fellowships: Oct. 5 Edition appeared first on MediaShift.

FEATURED TRAININGS

DigitalEd: How to Host Great Live Media Events
Great events don’t happen by accident. It takes a lot of hard work and time to find the right people, book a venue, get good speakers, and then promote, promote, promote! I’ll explain how MediaShift got started in events — with simple mixers — and how we use our entire team to help promote and run events. I’ll also address how media outlets can best make use of their platform before, during and after an event. (Note: We don’t run large conferences, and this training will not focus on those.)
Featured Presenter: Mark Glaser, MediaShift
Date and time: Oct. 5, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
Producer: MediaShift
Place: Online with BigMarker
Price: $39

DigitalEd: Smarter Audience Analytics for Journalists

Do you get bored reading your own analytics report? Are you only reporting numbers? Analytics are a powerful tool, but only reporting pageviews and other statistics doesn’t change how a newsroom operates. In this online training, we’ll look at how you can put analytics to work for you. What is your baseline? What measures do you use to determine a post’s success? What do analytics tell you about your audience? How can you turn that insight into actionable items by your staff?
Featured Presenter: Elizabeth Stephens, news editor, Columbia Missourian
Date and time: Oct. 6, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
Producer: MediaShift
Place: Online with BigMarker
Price: $39

Register here!

OCTOBER 2016 

CUNY J+ SuperResearcher
Find even the most elusive sources. Dig up hard-to-find information. Avoid embarrassing mistakes in your news stories, in this series of workshops by the former director of news research at the New York Times.
Date and time: Oct. 4, 11, 18, 25, 2016, 6:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City or online webinar
Price: $49 (single workshop); $149 (entire series)

CUNY J+ News Bots
News bots, Twitter bots, Slack bots, chat bots, weather bots… Robot journalism is one of the year’s hot topics as more media brands are experimenting with the automated delivery of news on mobile. In this two-hour workshop, John Keefe, Senior Editor for Data News & Journalism Technology at WNYC, will explain what bots are, how they work and what they may mean for journalism.
Date and time: Oct. 5, 2016, 6:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $25

DigitalEd: How to Build and Teach an Online Course
New technology and tools are transforming the learning experience and creating new opportunities — and challenges — for educators at high schools, community colleges, and four-year universities. In this online training, you’ll learn how to organize a course and plan modules in a learning management system — whether you’re transitioning an existing course or starting one from scratch. You’ll also get a chance to try out tech tools to enhance the online educational experience, understand how to develop relationships with students in an online environment and discover new techniques for creating robust discussion among students in the class.
Featured Presenter: Stacy Forster, associate faculty associate, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Date and time: Oct. 12, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
Producer: MediaShift
Place: Online with BigMarker
Price: $39

CUNY J+ FOIA Online
Using Freedom of Information laws in the age of the Internet represents new challenges and new opportunities. The former director of news research at the New York Times, will guide you through the most accessible, mostly free FOIA resources the Internet has to offer, including letter generators, repositories of public documents, tools and organizations.
Date and time: Oct. 12, 2016, 6:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $39

NewsU: A Road Map for Surviving Digital Transformation
Digital denial is over. But catching up AND positioning for what lies ahead is no easy trick. Poynter media business analyst Rick Edmonds works full-time to understand evolving business models. This webinar will include his take on where digital transformation efforts stand and what key issues to expect in 2017.
Date and time: Oct. 13, 2016, 2:00 p.m. ET / 11:00 a.m. PT
Producer: Poynter News U
Place: Webinar
Price: $29.95

CUNY J+ VR Video: Intro to 360-Degree Shooting and Stitching
This all-day, hands-on workshop teaches the basics of 360° video production and post-production. Participants will practice shooting, stitching and editing 360° video, as well as discuss immersive storytelling techniques, ethics and distribution platforms. Students will work in small guided teams with 6-GoPro camera rigs and the Kolor stitching software.
Date and time: Oct. 14, 2016, 9:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $449

The Art of the Pitch: Selling Your Stories
As the journalism industry evolves, newspapers, magazines, and websites are relying more and more on freelance writers. In fact, there’s no better time to break into journalism as a freelancer—and that means this is the time to learn how to pitch. In this course, taught by a former New York Times editor, learn how to hatch fresh story ideas that will draw editors’ attention and how to portray these ideas in winning ways. Whether your target publication is Buzzfeed or The Wall Street Journal, and whether you write features, profiles, or criticism, the pitch is the key to opening editors’ doors, getting your writing noticed, and getting paid.
Date and time: Oct. 17, 24, 31 and Nov. 7, 2016, 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Producer: New York University
Place: New York City
Price: $270

CUNY J+ All About Excel
Get started with spreadsheets with the powerful software Excel. Learn to organize, manipulate and visualize your data to unearth trends and stories.
Date and time: Oct. 19 & 26, 2016, 6:30-9:00 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $199

DigitalEd: Facebook Live for Journalists and Publishers
What makes an engaging, high-quality Facebook Live broadcast? This training will explore what news organizations like NPR and AJ+ are doing to maximize their investment in Facebook Live. In addition, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at how success can be measured on Facebook Live. (Here’s a hint: it’s more than simple numbers.)
Featured Presenter: Dale Blasingame, senior lecturer, Texas State University
Date and time: Oct. 20, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
Producer: MediaShift
Place: Online with BigMarker
Price: $39

Social Media Campaign Strategy
Whether you are launching a new product, service or program or getting the word out about an event, social cause, or candidate, social media is the way to engage with your audience. So how do you make the best use of the platforms available and what are the coolest ways to create engaging social media campaigns?
Date and time: Oct. 21, 2016, 1-5 p.m. PT
Producer: Bay Area Video Coalition
Place: San Francisco
Price: $175 / $150 members

CUNY J+ Data Journalism Bootcamp
This intensive 3-day course will teach you how to find and analyze datasets, how to find stories buried within and to visualize them for powerful narratives. You will be able to use your new skills to work on your personal data project under the guidance of seasoned data journalist Lam Thuy Vo.
Date and time: Oct. 21-23, 2016, 6:30-9:00 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $899

Drone Photography and Videography: Introduction
Drones have been used by park rangers to spot poachers and save rhinos, to show the scope of droughts and deforestation and to cover important events from festivals to protests. In this Introduction to Drones, Sally French, (aka The Drone GIrl) will share her experience as a drone journalist, enthusiast and instructor.
Date and time: Oct. 22, 2016, 10:30-4:30 p.m. PT
Producer: Bay Area Video Coalition
Place: San Francisco
Price: $235 / $195 members

DigitalEd: Smartphone Filmmaking 101
Whether you’re shooting coverage for your high-concept documentary or making a low-budget music video for your band, the smartphone in your pocket can be an invaluable tool for video production. This training will illustrate the use of the iPhone as a low-budget professional production camera. We’ll include short practical tips on shooting techniques. We’ll review and demonstrate some of the emerging technology, apps and software that can be added to a smartphone in order to make it a more robust production camera. While this class will concentrate on how to use an iPhone, most concepts are applicable to all smartphones.
Featured Presenter: Kyle Brannon, assistant professor, American University
Date and time: Oct. 26, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
Producer: MediaShift
Place: Online with BigMarker
Price: $39

Creating Your Own Augmented Reality – Beginners Workshop
This is a hands-on augmented reality creation workshop foranyone who wants to roll up their sleeves and get started creating in AR. Artists, designers, video editors, social activists, tech-heads, musicians, marketers, and teachers are welcome. No programming knowledge is required. This dynamic three-hour workshop will get you up to date on all of the developments in the world of AR. You will leave with a completed AR project of your own and insider tips on how to create successful augmented reality experiences.
Date and time: Oct. 29, 2016, 1:00-4:00 p.m. PT
Producer: Dream Logic
Place: San Francisco
Price: $100

NOVEMBER 2016 & BEYOND

CUNY J+ Social Media 101 Series
Learn the ins-and-outs and pro tips from professionals who use these platforms every day. Six independent sessions for Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, Snapchat, and Instagram.
Date and time: Nov. 1, 8, 15, 29 and Dec. 6, 13, 2016, 6:30-8:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $49 (single workshop); $250 (entire series)

Social Media for Crowdfunding
Social media gets a bad rep for being a solipsistic medium (and crowdfunding for being, you know, beggy), but I have to let you in on a little secret: It’s just about relationships and good business. In this session, learn why social media skills are essential to a successful crowdfunding campaign, how to be a responsible social media citizen, how to plan your social media for an effective campaign, and how to run a campaign that helps you build your audience, raise money, and continue doing what you love the most.
Featured Presenter: Julie Keck, media and communications director, Seed&Spark
Date and time: Nov. 2, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
Producer: MediaShift
Place: Online with BigMarker
Price: $39

CUNY J+ Intro. to Coding
This class is for journalists and others who want to understand the basics of coding, in particular the HTML, CSS and Javascript languages. News and media employers have consistently listed coding as a sought-after skills and the ability to work with newsroom coders as a management plus.
Date and time: Nov. 2 & 9, 2016, 6:30-9:00 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $199

NewsU: Immersive Storytelling with 360-Degree Video and 3D Virtual Reality
The recent explosion of 360-degree video and virtual reality has opened up new possibilities for visual storytelling. These emerging technologies enable storytellers to capture spaces and experiences from a new perspective, resulting in interactive and immersive content that transports media consumers into stories. In this webinar, you will learn the basics of producing 360-degree videos, 360-degree photos and 3D virtual reality content. We’ll help you find the best equipment, and share the best ways to use it all.
Date and time: Nov. 3, 2016, 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT
Producer: Poynter NewsU
Place: Webinar
Price: $29.95

Virtual Reality Video Production: Introduction
Virtual Reality film offers full immersion into another world and unparalleled connection with characters. As the technology necessary to make VR a reality has finally become accessible, it is our duty as media makers to learn how best to tell captivating stories in this evolving medium. This workshop is your hands-on crash course to being a VR storyteller.
Date and time: Nov. 5, 2016, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. PT
Producer: Bay Area Video Coalition
Place: San Francisco
Price: $345 / $295 members

Virtual Reality Video Post Production: Introduction
Virtual Reality film offers full immersion into another world and unparalleled connection with characters. As the technology necessary to make VR a reality has finally become accessible, it is our duty as media makers to learn how best to tell captivating stories in this evolving medium. This workshop is your hands-on crash course to editing in VR.
Date and time: Nov. 12, 2016, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. PT
Producer: Bay Area Video Coalition
Place: San Francisco
Price: $345 / $295 members

CUNY J+ Incredibly Useful Productivity Tools
During this evening workshop, Jeremy Caplan will guide you through a curated list of current tools to discover, test and compare so you can build your unique, personal toolkit to organize yourself and work better.
Date and time: Nov. 16, 2016, 6:30-8:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $25

Online and Social Media Analytics
The key to creating, monitoring, and adjusting campaign strategy and goals begins with understanding the importance of metrics, stats and analytics. With this in mind, digital marketers and development departments need to know best practices for developing campaigns on multiple platforms, how to understand what statistics impact previously set goals and how to use analytics to fine-tune your marketing content.
Date and time: Dec. 2, 2016, 1-5 p.m. PT
Producer: Bay Area Video Coalition
Place: San Francisco
Price: $150 / $125 members

CUNY J+ So You Want to Be in Academia?
This workshop is for journalists who want to teach on the side or transition to academia. Andrew Mendelson, associate dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, will give provide you with a better understanding of the mysteries surrounding college teaching, both full-time and part-time.
Date and time: Dec. 7, 2016, 6:30-8:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City or online webinar
Price: $25

COURSES ON DEMAND

An Introduction to DocumentCloud
DocumentCloud is a catalog of primary source documents and a tool for annotating, organizing and publishing them on the web. Documents are contributed by journalists, researchers and archivists. We’re helping reporters get more out of documents and helping newsrooms make their online presence more engaging.
Place: online
Producer: Investigative Reporters & Editors
Price: free

Election Coverage: Follow the Money
There are several ways that political funds can play a role in key states, especially during an election year.  You’ll see how to trace money that comes from outside sources to state-based political groups, and how to follow the path of expenditures from the ground game to the air wars.
Place: online
Producer: Investigative Reporters & Editors
Price: free

Marketing with Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr
Market your brand using Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr. This course will give you the knowledge of each of these platforms and enable you to identify the most appropriate ways to implement them to meet your business objectives.
Place: online
Producer: Mediabistro
Price: $149

Skills in 60: Build an Editorial Calendar for Social Media Channels
This in-depth short course will show you how to develop integrated editorial content calendars and establish a robust production and publishing strategy across all your social channels. The video lessons will guide you on how to plan, create, distribute and analyze your editorial calendar for long term success.
Place: online
Producer: Mediabistro
Price: $49

Twitter Marketing
Become a better, smarter marketer with Twitter to generate word-of-mouth, create leads, and grow your business.  From hashtag strategy to deep data dives, influencer outreach to employing an effective posting schedule, you’ll master Twitter 140 characters at a time.
Place: online
Producer: Mediabistro
Price: $129

Whose Truth? Tools for Smart Science Journalism in the Digital Age
As journalists, we ignore science not only at our own peril, but at the peril of our readers, viewers and listeners. In this course, you’ll learn to how make sense of scientific data and tell stories in ways that connect with your audience. You’ll get techniques and tips to improve your interviewing and reporting skills. You’ll also learn how to lift the veil from front groups to launch investigations based on informed fact-gathering. When you’re done, you’ll have a toolkit of ways to identify and overcome the barriers journalists face when reporting on science-related topics.
Place: online
Producer: Poynter’s NewsU
Price: free

Periscope 101: Break News Faster with Mobile Live-Streaming
The power of Periscope means any person can live-stream eyewitness video from anywhere, instantly. Just by pressing a few buttons, the free Periscope app can immediately transport viewers to a breaking news scene. In the hands of a journalist or communications professional, the possibilities are tremendous. Award-winning reporter and mobile journalism trainer Neal Augenstein has developed best practices for this quickly-evolving tool, to enable users to grab and hold an intrigued audience.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

Social Media Master Class Part I
MediaShift’s Social Media Editor Julie Keck will lead you through using some of the most powerful publishing tools any media professional can use. You can learn how to optimize your feeds, post the right amount each day, and help promote your content or projects better. You can establish yourself as an authority using the right mix of social media platforms and skills. And most of all, it’s fun. Don’t be intimidated or overwhelmed by social media – you can do it!
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

Social Media Master Class Part II
You’ve established yourself on social media, but you want to grow your audience. How do you get people talking about your content without seeming too self-promoting? Learn to harness the power of #hashtags, run a popular live Twitter chat, find out what’s trending today and how to jump in at the right moment with the right content.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

DigitalEd: iPhone Audio Reporting 101
The days of carrying recorders, microphones, and cables and cameras are gone – the smartphone is replacing bulky audio gear. This training will show how to use free and inexpensive mobile apps to record and edit audio (as well as video and photos) to creatively engage with audiences. Participants will be encouraged to use a variety of storytelling apps to communicate quickly and effectively.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

DigitalEd: How to Get Foundation Funding
Have you ever considered getting foundation grants to help support your journalism and media projects? Didn’t know where to start? This training will give an overview of the major foundations and what they typically fund. Major media foundations are going through upheaval, with major reorganizations happening at Knight Foundation, McCormick Foundation, Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and others. There will be a discussion of these changes, and how they will affect your chances for grants. And now foundations are supporting both for-profit and non-profit organizations.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

DigitalEd: 5 Tech Tools to Improve Your Reporting
Whether you’re an investigative journalist or a daily beat reporter, free and low-cost technical tools and apps can help you improve and streamline your reporting. We’ll introduce you to tech tools and platforms that will help you obtain and manipulate data. You’ll learn how to scrape social accounts, without knowing any code. And you’ll discover how to use features that are built into services you already use in more powerful ways. Plus, we’ll look at some popular (free!) project management software and applications to help you collaborate with colleagues and manage reporting projects.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

The post Upcoming Trainings and Courses: Oct. 4 Edition appeared first on MediaShift.

Beacon’s recent announcement that it would cease operations at the end of October came as something of a surprise, especially considering how popular the platform had become within the news industry. Since Beacon’s launch in 2013, the Texas Tribune, the Huffington Post, NJ Spotlight, PolitiFact, InvestigateWest, and dozens of other news organizations had all run successful crowdfunding campaigns on Beacon, and in 2015 alone, the platform helped journalists crowdfund more than $1.5 million.

“If Beacon were still around, I would go back to it,” said Center for Cooperative Media associate director Joe Amditis, who used Beacon to help NJ Spotlight raise $31,000 for an immigration reporting project. “It was really easy to use… the layout, the posting process. I didn’t have to think about it.”

‘A community of journalism-minded folk’

When Beacon closes, the news industry will lose the only major crowdfunding platform that catered specifically to journalists — and that could prove to be a painful loss. In addition to providing tools for posting and sharing content, Beacon periodically offered matching funds for reporting projects on a particular subject (NJ Spotlight’s immigration project received $15,000 in matching funds, for example), and the platform helped connect news organizations with prospective funders outside their core audience. 

“It was a community of journalism-minded folk,” Amditis said. “It felt like a place where you could really dive into the crux of what made a project important, and where you could promote it to a larger audience.”

The future for crowdfunding journalism

Despite the blow delivered by Beacon’s closing, journalists will still have a number of general crowdfunding platform options, including Kickstarter, which raised $1.7 million for journalism projects in the first nine months of 2015, Indiegogo, GoFundMe and Press Start, a new platform for journalists in countries without a free press. Khari Johnson, founder and editor of Through the Cracks, recently told Nieman he expects crowdfunded journalism to remain viable even if another journalism-specific platform doesn’t emerge to replace Beacon.

“Maybe it’s evidence that a [crowdfunding] platform that’s focused solely on journalism can’t survive, but I don’t believe this is evidence that crowdfunding in journalism is going anywhere,” he said. “The platform is not the sun; it’s a planet if it’s anything. The crowd is the sun.”

Nieman’s report on crowdfunding in journalism, published last month, features three in-depth case studies exploring what’s working in crowdfunded journalism and why. The full report is worth a read, but if you’re strapped for time, here are some highlights.

On thinking beyond the paycheck:

Like most start-up businesses, most journalism crowdfunding campaigns (more than 75 percent on Kickstarter) fail to be fully funded. Those that succeed, whether they’re in Texas, St. Louis, or the Netherlands, come from journalists who want something besides a paycheck, and who are willing to use their support and supporters to produce reporting that’s innovative, engaging, and about much more than money.

On crowdfunding for audience development:

In all, the Tribune’s five Beacon projects have attracted hundreds of donors—more than a third of them new to the Tribune—who have given a total of over $130,000. “It kills two birds with one stone,” Ramshaw says. “We’re always in audience development mode. We want to bring in as many new readers as possible. What’s phenomenal is we end up making money for a project and also drawing in new readers at the same time.”

On crowdfunding for public-facing journalism:

“The audience needs to be at the center of what you’re doing because you’re not pitching an idea to an editor, you’re pitching a concept to an audience,” says Ethan Mollick, an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who has studied crowdfunding in all industries in an independent analysis using Kickstarter’s data and network. “I don’t think [crowdfunding] drowns out other forms of journalism, but hopefully it leaves an opening for public-facing new work.”

Ben DeJarnette is the associate editor at MediaShift. He is also a freelance contributor for Pacific Standard, InvestigateWest, Men’s Journal, Runner’s World, Oregon Quarterly and others. He’s on Twitter @BenDJduck.

The post What Beacon’s Failure Means for Crowdfunded Journalism appeared first on MediaShift.

Featured Events

MobileMe&You2
Oct. 28-29, 2016
Chicago and San Francisco

3rd Annual Journalism School Hackathon at University of Georgia
Oct. 21-23, 2016
Athens, Ga.
MediaShift is producing our third annual Journalism School Hackathon on the Oct. 21 to 23 weekend, co-produced and hosted by the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga. We’re convening a group of top students, faculty and professionals for the weekend Hackathon, with a real-world mission of creating startups around fact-checking and verifying online media. Students will have a chance to collaborate on diverse teams of students with faculty and pro facilitators. And they will be able to create startups in one of four threads: social media, photos, video or data. No coding background is needed! The Hackathon is actually more like a Startup Weekend, with the creation of a startup name, business model and pitch deck.
More information and registration here.

OCTOBER 2016

Sustain Local 2016
Oct. 6-7, 2016
Montclair, New Jersey
As the media industry changes, how can local news and information outlets survive and thrive? What does real sustainability look like — and how can we help each other get there? We will explore those questions and much more at Sustain Local 2016, the third national conference about issues facing local journalism hosted by the Center for Cooperative Media.
More information and registration here.

Pulitzer Winners: Exposing Injustices Around the World
Oct. 11, 2016
New York City
Each year, the current prize winners are brought to the J-School to talk about their work. The seminar will look into reporting methodology, ethics, writing and presentation techniques as well as impact. Links to winning pieces will be sent to you ahead of time and we encourage all attendees to read the stories before attending. Journalists reporting from Southeast Asia, Afghanistan and the Mediterranean won 2016 Pulitzer Prizes. In “Seafood from Slaves,” the Associated Press found fishermen shackled to their trade — leading to the release of 2,000 enslaved people. In her pieces, Alissa Rubin of The New York Times gave voice to Afghan women forced to endure unspeakable cruelties. Reuters’ chief photographer for Greece and Cyprus, Yannis Behrakis, was part of the prize-winning team that shared the honor with the Times, documenting the flight of refugees from Syria. Join these correspondents for a panel discussion led by Dean of Academic Affairs Sheila Coronel.
More information here.

Dodging the Memory Hole 2015: Saving Online News
Oct. 13-14, 2016
Los Angeles
Join us at “Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News,” where we will explore solutions to the most urgent threat to cultural memory today – the loss of online news content. Journalistic content published on websites and through social media channels, is fragile and easily lost in a tsunami of digital content. Join other professional journalists, librarians, archivists, technologists and entrepreneurs in addressing the urgent need to save the first rough draft of history in digital form.
More information and registration here.

&THEN Marketing Conference
Oct. 16-18, 2016
Los Angeles
&THEN will challenge everything you know about marketing, from the way you learn about it, to the way you apply it at a higher level. &THEN delivers a next-generation marketing experience for a new generation of marketers—you. It is an open celebration of marketing passion across every platform and for every brand to join in.
More information and registration here.

National College Media Convention
Oct. 20-23, 2016
Washington D.C.
The National College Media Convention is the largest gathering of college journalists and advisers in the world. Associated Collegiate Press prepares more than 350 practical and professional learning sessions, from high-profile keynotes to specific, problem-solving breakouts, hands-on workshops and discussion groups. Other convention activities include an exhibit hall with vendors who sell to student media, Best of Show contest, receptions, awards convocations, critiques and a newspaper job fair.
More information and registration here.

NOVEMBER 2016 & BEYOND

ad:tech NY
Nov. 2-3, 2016
New York City
Ad:Tech is a conference and exhibition where the marketing, technology and media communities come together to share new ways of thinking, build strong partnerships, and define new strategies to address the key industry challenges and opportunities.
More information and registration here.

ad:tech London
Nov. 2-3, 2016
London
An exclusive gathering of 1000 elite brand, agency and media players in the heart of Shoreditch. The hottest start-ups pitching to become Unilever’s Next Big Thing. A new content and networking-fuelled format dedicated to performance marketing & tech innovation
More information and registration here.

Digiday Video Anywhere Summit
Nov. 9-11, 2016
Austin, Texas
The question is no longer whether publishers need to invest in video, but rather how to make calculated investments in the right formats that will yield sizable returns. From the rise of livestreaming to vertical videos and platforms galore, the Digiday Video Anywhere Summit will gather publishing executives to discuss challenges around monetizing this moving content.
More information and registration here.

People-Powered Publishing Conference
Nov. 10, 2016
Chicago
In newsrooms, nonprofits and universities, civic-minded journalists, developers, and engagement practitioners are building tools and telling stories that put audiences first and push the envelope of the traditional reporting process. In partnership with Hearken, GroundSource, City Bureau and the Crowd Powered News Network, and with support from the Pulitzer Prize Centennial Campfires Initiative, Illinois Humanities is convening these like-minded pioneers for a one-day conference highlighting innovative projects and practices that build stronger connections between reporters and the publics they cover. This conference aims to provide opportunities to share resources, talk about what’s working, and strengthen one another’s work. We want you there. To propose a session for the conference, fill out the application by April 29th.
More information and registration here.

National High School Journalism Convention
Nov. 10-13, 2016
Indianapolis, Indiana
The National High School Journalism Convention is a semiannual gathering of high school journalists and advisers sponsored by the Journalism Education Association and its partner, the National Scholastic Press Association. The associations partner to prepare hundreds of practical and professional learning sessions, from high-profile keynotes to specific, problem-solving breakouts, hands-on workshops and discussion groups. Other convention activities include an exhibit hall with vendors who sell to student media, JEA’s on-site Write-off contests, NSPA’s Best of Show contest, receptions, awards convocations, critiques, career round tables and evening entertainment.
More information and registration here. 

ad:tech New Zealand
Nov. 14, 2016
Auckland, New Zealand
ad:tech New Zealand is a one day marketing innovation conference & exhibition bringing together brand marketers, agencies, publishers and digital technology professionals.
More information and registration here.

ad:tech Kansai
Dec. 1-2, 2016
Kansai, Japan
Ad:Tech is a conference and exhibition where the marketing, technology and media communities come together to share new ways of thinking, build strong partnerships, and define new strategies to address the key industry challenges and opportunities.
More information and registration here.

Consumer Electronics Show
Jan. 6-9, 2017
Las Vegas, Nevada
For 50 years, CES has been the launch pad for new innovation and technology that has changed the world. Held in Las Vegas every year, it is the world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies and where next-generation innovations are introduced to the marketplace.
More information and registration here.

CSPA Spring Convention
Mar. 15-17, 2017
New York City
This national gathering of student editors and faculty advisers to newspapers, yearbooks, magazines, video productions, and online media will be held at Columbia University. Delegates can choose from 350 or more sessions organized in seven sequences: newspaper, yearbook, magazine, online media, video/broadcasting, law and ethics and advisers. All seven sequences will run simultaneously throughout the three days of the Convention.
More information and registration here.

National High School Journalism Convention
Apr. 6-9, 2017
Seattle
The National High School Journalism Convention is a semiannual gathering of high school journalists and advisers co-sponsored by the Journalism Education Association and the National Scholastic Press Association. With typical attendance of more than 4,000 delegates, the JEA/NSPA convention is the largest gathering of student journalists in the country. The associations partner to prepare hundreds of practical and professional learning sessions, from high-profile keynotes to specific, problem-solving breakouts and hands-on workshops. Other convention activities an exhibit hall, JEA’s on-site Write-off contests, NSPA’s Best of Show contest, receptions, awards convocations, critiques and career roundtables.
More information and registration here.

Ben DeJarnette is the associate editor at MediaShift. He is also a freelance contributor for Pacific Standard, InvestigateWest, Men’s Journal, Runner’s World, Oregon Quarterly and others. He’s on Twitter @BenDJduck.

The post Upcoming Events in Digital Media: Oct. 3 Edition appeared first on MediaShift.

OCTOBER & BEYOND DEADLINES

National Press Foundation Awards
The National Press Foundation celebrates the best of journalism with its annual awards. These prestigious and highly coveted awards are open to journalists across the media spectrum.
Deadline: Oct. 14, 2016

Webby Awards
The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. The Webbys now honors excellence in 6 major media types: Websites, Film & Video, Advertising, Media & PR, Social, Mobile Sites & Apps and Podcasts & Digital Audio.
Early Deadline: Oct. 28, 2016

Hearst Journalism Awards Program – Feature Writing
William Randolph Hearst Foundation
The Hearst Journalism Awards Program was founded in 1960 to provide support, encouragement, and assistance to journalism education at the college and university level. The program awards scholarships to students for outstanding performance in college-level journalism, with matching grants to the students’ schools. The feature writing category is open to color or mood articles covering news, business, feature or entertainment, as opposed to conventional news stories or personality profiles.
Deadline: Nov. 1, 2016

New Media Film Festival Awards
For years, The New Media Film Festival has led the way in the pursuit of stories worth telling, the exploration of new media technologies, boundary pushing resulting in new distribution models and creating and establishing new methodologies in the global monetization of content. A total of $45,000 in awards will be given out.
Regular Deadline: Nov. 3, 2016

The Michael Kelly Award
Atlantic Media Co.
The Michael Kelly Award honors a writer or editor whose work exemplifies a quality that animated Michael Kelly’s own career: the fearless pursuit and expression of truth.
Deadline: Feb. 3, 2017

Ancil Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism
University of Oregon
The Ancil Payne Awards honor journalists who exhibit extraordinary commitment to the highest standards of ethical conduct in journalism, even when faced with economic, personal or political pressure.
Deadline: Feb. 13, 2017

International Women’s Media Foundation Awards
The International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism Award honors women journalists for their extraordinary bravery. In facing and surviving danger to uncover the truth, they raise the bar for reporting under duress. The IWMF also recognize the pioneers who kicked down barriers to make it possible for women all over the world to find their voices and make them heard. Lifetime Achievement Award winners persevered, opening doors for future generations to make a difference.
Deadline: Mar. 1, 2017

DEADLINES DOWN THE LINE

Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards
Columbia University
The award recognizes excellence in broadcast, documentary and digital journalism.

Asian Digital Media Awards
World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
The awards honor Asian publishers that have excelled in their digital offerings.

Data Journalism Awards
Global Editors Network
The awards is an international contest recognizing outstanding work in data journalism worldwide.

Middle East Digital Media Awards
World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
The awards honor Middle Eastern publishers that have excelled in their digital offerings.

Meyer “Mike” Berger Award
The Columbia Journalism Awards
The Meyer “Mike” Berger Award and its $2,000 cash prize are awarded for outstanding human interest reporting across platforms.

Mirror Awards
Syracuse University S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
The Mirror Awards honor excellence in media industry reporting in various categories for various forms of media.

New America Award
Society of Professional Journalists
SPJ’s New America Award honors public service journalism that explores and exposes an issue of importance to immigrant or ethnic communities currently living in the United States.

Pulitzer Prizes
Columbia University
The Pulitzer Prize awards achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition.

Selden Ring Award
Presented by the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the Selden Ring Award highlights the importance of investigative journalism in modern day reporting. Nominations are generally received in January.

Sigma Delta Chi Awards
Society of Professional journalists
The awards recognize the best in professional journalism in categories covering print, radio, television, newsletters, art/graphics, online and research.

Society of Professional Journalists Awards
The Society of Professional Journalists has various awards for professional to collegiate journalists for excellence in various forms of media. Awards are rolling and there are several with deadlines in June. Please check the site for more details.

The Bookmarks Awards
Digital Media and Marketing Association
The Bookmarks Awards, based in South Africa, honor excellence in digital work, from websites, app development and games to multimedia and digital journalism.

The Cabot Prizes
The Columbia Journalism Awards
The prizes recognize a distinguished body of work that has contributed to Inter-American understanding.

Ben DeJarnette is the associate editor at MediaShift. He is also a freelance contributor for Pacific Standard, InvestigateWest, Men’s Journal, Runner’s World, Oregon Quarterly and others. He’s on Twitter @BenDJduck.

The post Media and Journalism Awards: Sept. 29 Edition appeared first on MediaShift.

SEPTEMBER 2016 & BEYOND DEADLINES

Ochberg Fellowship
Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma
The Ochberg Fellowship enables outstanding journalists from around the globe to explore these critical issues during a week of seminars held at Columbia University in New York City. Program activities include briefings by prominent interdisciplinary experts in the trauma and mental health fields; conversations with journalist colleagues on issues of ethics and craft; and a variety of other opportunities for intellectual engagement and peer learning.
Deadline: Sep. 30, 2016

BuzzFeed Emerging Writers Fellowship
New York City and Los Angeles
With the mission of diversifying the broader media landscape by investing in the next generation of necessary voices, BuzzFeed’s Emerging Writers Fellowship is designed to give writers of great promise the support, mentorship, and experience necessary to take a transformative step forward in their careers. During the four-month program, the writers in this fellowship will benefit from career mentorship and editorial guidance while also receiving financial support. The fellows will focus on personal essay writing, cultural reportage, and criticism.
Deadline: Oct. 1, 2016

The Ben Bagdikian Fellowship Program
San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and New York City
So you want to be a journalist. You want to learn how a great magazine comes together, how to cover breaking news, how investigations happen, how awards are won. You want skills, you want experience, you wouldn’t mind cash. Well, you’ve come to the right place. The Ben Bagdikian Fellowship Program offers a crash course in investigative journalism. It also supports emerging journalists and media professionals, allowing them to make invaluable contributions to a high-flying news organization. Mother Jones fellows dive deep into every aspect of a national multimedia outfit—from making news to making it pretty, ensuring its impact, and mastering the inner workings of nonprofit publishing. You should be ready to drill down into complex research, fact-checking, and strategic projects, and have the reporting bona fides or other relevant experience to show you’re ready.
Deadline: Oct. 1, 2016

Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship
The Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship was launched in 2013 as a new component of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. It provides opportunities for U.S. citizens to participate in an academic year of overseas travel and digital storytelling in one, two, or three countries on a globally significant theme. This Fellowship is made possible through a partnership between the U.S. Department of State and the National Geographic Society. Fellows publish stories on the Fulbright-National Geographic Stories blog.
Deadline: Oct. 11, 2016, 5:00 p.m. ET

Reynolds Business Journalism Week Fellowships
Business journalists and journalism educators are invited to apply for fellowships to take part in the 11th annual Reynolds Business Journalism Week at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will select 24 fellows for the training, which will cover how to find and cover business angles in any story and where to find economic and financial data. Reynolds Week will take place Jan. 4-6, 2017, at the Cronkite School’s state-of-the-art building in downtown Phoenix.
Deadline: Oct. 16, 2016

Kiplinger Fellowships
Columbus, Ohio
Kiplinger Fellows typically spend a week in April on Ohio State’s main campus in Columbus, where they receive cutting-edge training on digital tools and tactics from leading industry experts. Topics include social media for reporting, branding and audience engagement; spreadsheets and data visualization; smartphone videography; and media ethics. The highly coveted fellowships provide lodging, most meals and free training – thanks to the generosity of the Kiplinger Foundation and Kiplinger family.
Deadline: Oct. 31, 2016

High Country News Fellowship
Paonia, Colorado
High Country News is looking for informed and enthusiastic editorial interns and fellows to report on natural resource, environmental and community issues in the 11 Western states. High Country News, published twice-monthly in Paonia, Colorado, is a nonprofit newsmagazine and website “for people who care about the West.” The magazine reaches 25,000 subscribers — an estimated 60,000 readers — and the website reaches thousands more, including grassroots activists, public land managers, tribal officials, government policymakers, educators, students and interested citizens.
Deadline: Nov. 1, 2016

Grist Fellowship Program – Editorial, Video, and Justice Fellowships
Seattle (or remote, if applying for justice fellowship)
The Grist Fellowship Program is an opportunity to hone your skills at a national news outlet and deepen your understanding of environmental issues. We’re looking for early-career journalists with a variety of skills, from traditional reporting to multimedia whizbangery. We will offer exposure to the leading sustainability thinkers and theories of our time, real-world experience at a fast-paced news site, and the occasional “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” debate. We are an independent nonprofit media organization that shapes the country’s environmental conversations, making green second nature for our monthly audience of 2.5 million and growing. At Grist, green isn’t about hugging trees or hiking — it’s about using humor and straight talk to connect big issues like climate change to real people and how they live, work, and play.
Deadline: Nov. 8, 2016

Roy H. Park Fellowships
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
The University of North Carolina School of Media and Journalism awards seven or eight new doctoral students and seven or eight incoming residential master’s students with Park Fellowships. All Park Fellows work as graduate assistants 15 hours per week. Assignments vary according to the needs of the school and faculty, and the interests and skill levels of the students. Due to the work requirement of the fellowships and the academic demands of the program, Park Fellows may not work outside the school during the academic year without approval from the associate dean for graduate studies prior to the employment. Roy H. Park Fellowships are available only to U.S. citizens. There is no special application; all qualified applicants will be considered for Park Fellowships.
Deadline: Dec. 13, 2016

ROLLING DEADLINES

Outside Editorial Fellowship
The fellowship is a six-month, paid position in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Duties include fact-checking, reporting, research, proofreading, and assorted support chores for the editorial department. Fellows occasionally have the opportunity to write short pieces for the magazine and website, and they will attend editorial meetings, work closely with top editors, and gain hands-on experience at an award-winning magazine.
Deadline: Rolling

Holly Whisenhunt Stephen Fellowship, Investigative Reporters & Editors
Send broadcast and/or radio journalists to IRE’s weeklong Computer-Assisted Reporting (CAR) Boot Camp series. The fellowships were established by IRE and WTHR-Indianapolis to honor Stephen, an award-winning journalist and longtime IRE member who died in Nov. 2008 after a long battle with cancer.
Deadline: Rolling — 60 days before the Boot Camp you are applying to attend.

Ottaway Fellowships, Investigative Reporters & Editors
Established by David Ottaway and the Ottaway Family Fund to send a limited number of professional journalists to IRE’s weeklong Computer-Assisted Reporting (CAR) Boot Camp series. These fellowships are aimed at increasing the diversity of IRE’s membership. Applicants for this award should identify themselves with one of the following minority groups: Black/African American, American Indian/Alaskan, Native American, Asian-American, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino.
Deadline: Rolling — 60 days before the Boot Camp you are applying to attend.

R-CAR Fellowship, Investigative Reporters & Editors
The Fund for Rural Computer-Assisted Reporting helps a journalist from a news organization in a rural area attend one of IRE’s week-long CAR boot camps. It was established by IRE member Daniel Gilbert to give rural reporters skills that will help them uncover stories that otherwise would not come to light. The fellowship is offered in conjunction with The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.
Deadline: Rolling — 60 days before the Boot Camp you are applying to attend.

IN PROGRESS OR FUTURE FELLOWSHIPS

Asia Pacific Journalism Fellowships
The Asia Pacific Journalism Fellowships (APJF) program was initiated in 1998 for the purpose of strengthening understanding between Asia and the United States through study, dialogue and field study in the Asia Pacific for American journalists. Each program offers opportunities for six to eight senior American broadcast, print, and online journalists to participate. 2016 Program pending.

Associated Press Global News Internship Program
Various locations
This paid internship program is for students who are aspiring cross-format journalists and will contribute to AP’s text, video, photo and interactive reporting. The application period for the 2016 internship is closed. Questions may be emailed to internship@ap.org.

Bay Area Video Coalition Mediamaker Fellowship
San Francisco, CA
The fellowship selects fellows for a 10-month program that supports project development with professional mentorship in multiplatform and transmedia storytelling through emerging technologies and strategic marketing.

Data & Society Fellow
New York City
The fellowship brings together researchers, entrepreneurs, activists, policy creators, journalists and public intellectuals who are interested in engaging one another on the key issues introduced by the increasing availability of data in society.

Donald W. Reynolds Fellowships
Columbia, MO or remote
The fellowship offers an annual program for individuals to develop innovative ideas within journalism and to help build the public’s knowledge in these areas.

Fulbright Journalism & Communications Grants
Fulbright offers opportunities in Germany, Ireland, Spain and Taiwan. The timeline for this year is now closed but will start again in the early spring.

Google News Lab Fellowships
Various locations
The Google News Lab Fellowship offers students interested in journalism and technology the opportunity to spend the summer working at relevant organizations across the U.S. to gain valuable experience and make lifelong contacts and friends.

Knight-Mozilla Fellowship
Various locations
The Knight-Mozilla Fellowship places creative technologists in newsrooms to work on open-source tools and support reporting that strengthens the web and changes people’s lives. Knight-Mozilla Fellows spend 10 months working with newsroom technology teams to write open-source code, analyze and visualize data, and explore tough problems facing journalism.

Meredith-Cronkite Fellowship
Phoenix, AZ
The week-long multimedia fellowship program sponsored by the Meredith Corporation and its Phoenix television station, KPHO CBS 5, offers broadcast journalism students from underrepresented groups a week of hands-on experience.

Reuters Journalism Fellowship Program
Oxford, UK
This fellowship allows 25 mid-career journalists from around the world to conduct academic research at the University of Oxford.

Ben DeJarnette is the associate editor at MediaShift. He is also a freelance contributor for Pacific Standard, InvestigateWest, Men’s Journal, Runner’s World, Oregon Quarterly and others. He’s on Twitter @BenDJduck.

The post Media and Journalism Fellowships: Sept. 28 Edition appeared first on MediaShift.

FEATURED TRAININGS

DigitalEd: Using Twitter to Cover Live Events

When news is breaking or an important event is unfolding, people turn to Twitter for authoritative, trusted voices and real-time information and insights. In this session, content creators of all stripes will learn how to use Twitter to provide effective live coverage of news, sports, conferences, and other events. The presentation will feature numerous examples and explore tools and time-saving techniques that help users maximize output and audience engagement.
Featured Presenter: Ian Lamont, author of Twitter in 30 Minutes
Date and time: Sep. 28, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
Producer: MediaShift
Place: Online with BigMarker
Price: $39

Register here!

SEPTEMBER 2016

CUNY J+ Video for Social Media
Video is a powerful engagement tool. It’s no wonder that social media feeds include more and more videos. This popular workshop will go over ways to enhance your social media output with videos made for shorter viewing on the go.
Date and time: Sep. 28, 2016, 6:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City or online webinar
Price: $25

Technology and Product Design for News Leaders
The technology, skills and talent mix in news organizations has shifted dramatically over the past 10 years. What are the key things to know about managing a successful digital newsroom? How do you plan and budget for tech projects, manage vendors and technical staff, and get the most out of analytics? Join INN for a two-day workshop for executive directors and news editors to level up your digital leadership skills and capacity.
Date and time: Sep. 28-29, 2016
Producer: Institute for Nonprofit News
Place: Columbia College in Chicago (travel stipends available)
Price: Free for INN members; $100 for LION members; $250 for non-members

NewsTrain Digital Skills Workshop
Sessions include making smart choices in digital storytelling, reporting with social media, producing data-driven enterprise, creating data visualizations, editing yourself, shooting shareable smartphone video, gathering news using your smartphone, writing for mobile, and building audiences with Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook Live and Periscope.
Date and time: Sep. 30-Oct. 1, 2016
Producer: Associated Press Media Editors
Place: Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Price: $75 (early-bird price through Sep. 1); $85 (regular price)

OCTOBER 2016 

CUNY J+ SuperResearcher
Find even the most elusive sources. Dig up hard-to-find information. Avoid embarrassing mistakes in your news stories, in this series of workshops by the former director of news research at the New York Times.
Date and time: Oct. 4, 11, 18, 25, 2016, 6:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City or online webinar
Price: $49 (single workshop); $149 (entire series)

DigitalEd: How to Host Great Live Media Events
Great events don’t happen by accident. It takes a lot of hard work and time to find the right people, book a venue, get good speakers, and then promote, promote, promote! I’ll explain how MediaShift got started in events — with simple mixers — and how we use our entire team to help promote and run events. I’ll also address how media outlets can best make use of their platform before, during and after an event. (Note: We don’t run large conferences, and this training will not focus on those.)
Featured Presenter: Mark Glaser, MediaShift
Date and time: Oct. 5, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
Producer: MediaShift
Place: Online with BigMarker
Price: $39

CUNY J+ News Bots
News bots, Twitter bots, Slack bots, chat bots, weather bots… Robot journalism is one of the year’s hot topics as more media brands are experimenting with the automated delivery of news on mobile. In this two-hour workshop, John Keefe, Senior Editor for Data News & Journalism Technology at WNYC, will explain what bots are, how they work and what they may mean for journalism.
Date and time: Oct. 5, 2016, 6:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $25

DigitalEd: Smarter Audience Analytics for Journalists
Do you get bored reading your own analytics report? Are you only reporting numbers? Analytics are a powerful tool, but only reporting pageviews and other statistics doesn’t change how a newsroom operates. In this online training, we’ll look at how you can put analytics to work for you. What is your baseline? What measures do you use to determine a post’s success? What do analytics tell you about your audience? How can you turn that insight into actionable items by your staff?
Featured Presenter: Elizabeth Stephens, news editor, Columbia Missourian
Date and time: Oct. 6, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
Producer: MediaShift
Place: Online with BigMarker
Price: $39

DigitalEd: How to Build and Teach an Online Course
New technology and tools are transforming the learning experience and creating new opportunities — and challenges — for educators at high schools, community colleges, and four-year universities. In this online training, you’ll learn how to organize a course and plan modules in a learning management system — whether you’re transitioning an existing course or starting one from scratch. You’ll also get a chance to try out tech tools to enhance the online educational experience, understand how to develop relationships with students in an online environment and discover new techniques for creating robust discussion among students in the class.
Featured Presenter: Stacy Forster, associate faculty associate, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Date and time: Oct. 12, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
Producer: MediaShift
Place: Online with BigMarker
Price: $39

CUNY J+ FOIA Online
Using Freedom of Information laws in the age of the Internet represents new challenges and new opportunities. The former director of news research at the New York Times, will guide you through the most accessible, mostly free FOIA resources the Internet has to offer, including letter generators, repositories of public documents, tools and organizations.
Date and time: Oct. 12, 2016, 6:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $39

CUNY J+ VR Video: Intro to 360-Degree Shooting and Stitching
This all-day, hands-on workshop teaches the basics of 360° video production and post-production. Participants will practice shooting, stitching and editing 360° video, as well as discuss immersive storytelling techniques, ethics and distribution platforms. Students will work in small guided teams with 6-GoPro camera rigs and the Kolor stitching software.
Date and time: Oct. 14, 2016, 9:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $449

The Art of the Pitch: Selling Your Stories
As the journalism industry evolves, newspapers, magazines, and websites are relying more and more on freelance writers. In fact, there’s no better time to break into journalism as a freelancer—and that means this is the time to learn how to pitch. In this course, taught by a former New York Times editor, learn how to hatch fresh story ideas that will draw editors’ attention and how to portray these ideas in winning ways. Whether your target publication is Buzzfeed or The Wall Street Journal, and whether you write features, profiles, or criticism, the pitch is the key to opening editors’ doors, getting your writing noticed, and getting paid.
Date and time: Oct. 17, 24, 31 and Nov. 7, 2016, 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Producer: New York University
Place: New York City
Price: $270

CUNY J+ All About Excel
Get started with spreadsheets with the powerful software Excel. Learn to organize, manipulate and visualize your data to unearth trends and stories.
Date and time: Oct. 19 & 26, 2016, 6:30-9:00 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $199

DigitalEd: Facebook Live for Journalists and Publishers
What makes an engaging, high-quality Facebook Live broadcast? This training will explore what news organizations like NPR and AJ+ are doing to maximize their investment in Facebook Live. In addition, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at how success can be measured on Facebook Live. (Here’s a hint: it’s more than simple numbers.)
Featured Presenter: Dale Blasingame, senior lecturer, Texas State University
Date and time: Oct. 20, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
Producer: MediaShift
Place: Online with BigMarker
Price: $39

CUNY J+ Data Journalism Bootcamp
This intensive 3-day course will teach you how to find and analyze datasets, how to find stories buried within and to visualize them for powerful narratives. You will be able to use your new skills to work on your personal data project under the guidance of seasoned data journalist Lam Thuy Vo.
Date and time: Oct. 21-23, 2016, 6:30-9:00 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $899

Creating Your Own Augmented Reality – Beginners Workshop
This is a hands-on augmented reality creation workshop foranyone who wants to roll up their sleeves and get started creating in AR. Artists, designers, video editors, social activists, tech-heads, musicians, marketers, and teachers are welcome. No programming knowledge is required. This dynamic three-hour workshop will get you up to date on all of the developments in the world of AR. You will leave with a completed AR project of your own and insider tips on how to create successful augmented reality experiences.
Date and time: Oct. 29, 2016, 1:00-4:00 p.m. PT
Producer: Dream Logic
Place: San Francisco
Price: $100

NOVEMBER 2016 & BEYOND

CUNY J+ Social Media 101 Series
Learn the ins-and-outs and pro tips from professionals who use these platforms every day. Six independent sessions for Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, Snapchat, and Instagram.
Date and time: Nov. 1, 8, 15, 29 and Dec. 6, 13, 2016, 6:30-8:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $49 (single workshop); $250 (entire series)

CUNY J+ Intro. to Coding
This class is for journalists and others who want to understand the basics of coding, in particular the HTML, CSS and Javascript languages. News and media employers have consistently listed coding as a sought-after skills and the ability to work with newsroom coders as a management plus.
Date and time: Nov. 2 & 9, 2016, 6:30-9:00 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $199

CUNY J+ Incredibly Useful Productivity Tools
During this evening workshop, Jeremy Caplan will guide you through a curated list of current tools to discover, test and compare so you can build your unique, personal toolkit to organize yourself and work better.
Date and time: Nov. 16, 2016, 6:30-8:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City
Price: $25

CUNY J+ So You Want to Be in Academia?
This workshop is for journalists who want to teach on the side or transition to academia. Andrew Mendelson, associate dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, will give provide you with a better understanding of the mysteries surrounding college teaching, both full-time and part-time.
Date and time: Dec. 7, 2016, 6:30-8:30 p.m. ET
Producer: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Place: New York City or online webinar
Price: $25

COURSES ON DEMAND

An Introduction to DocumentCloud
DocumentCloud is a catalog of primary source documents and a tool for annotating, organizing and publishing them on the web. Documents are contributed by journalists, researchers and archivists. We’re helping reporters get more out of documents and helping newsrooms make their online presence more engaging.
Place: online
Producer: Investigative Reporters & Editors
Price: free

Election Coverage: Follow the Money
There are several ways that political funds can play a role in key states, especially during an election year.  You’ll see how to trace money that comes from outside sources to state-based political groups, and how to follow the path of expenditures from the ground game to the air wars.
Place: online
Producer: Investigative Reporters & Editors
Price: free

Marketing with Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr
Market your brand using Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr. This course will give you the knowledge of each of these platforms and enable you to identify the most appropriate ways to implement them to meet your business objectives.
Place: online
Producer: Mediabistro
Price: $149

Skills in 60: Build an Editorial Calendar for Social Media Channels
This in-depth short course will show you how to develop integrated editorial content calendars and establish a robust production and publishing strategy across all your social channels. The video lessons will guide you on how to plan, create, distribute and analyze your editorial calendar for long term success.
Place: online
Producer: Mediabistro
Price: $49

Twitter Marketing
Become a better, smarter marketer with Twitter to generate word-of-mouth, create leads, and grow your business.  From hashtag strategy to deep data dives, influencer outreach to employing an effective posting schedule, you’ll master Twitter 140 characters at a time.
Place: online
Producer: Mediabistro
Price: $129

Whose Truth? Tools for Smart Science Journalism in the Digital Age
As journalists, we ignore science not only at our own peril, but at the peril of our readers, viewers and listeners. In this course, you’ll learn to how make sense of scientific data and tell stories in ways that connect with your audience. You’ll get techniques and tips to improve your interviewing and reporting skills. You’ll also learn how to lift the veil from front groups to launch investigations based on informed fact-gathering. When you’re done, you’ll have a toolkit of ways to identify and overcome the barriers journalists face when reporting on science-related topics.
Place: online
Producer: Poynter’s NewsU
Price: free

Periscope 101: Break News Faster with Mobile Live-Streaming
The power of Periscope means any person can live-stream eyewitness video from anywhere, instantly. Just by pressing a few buttons, the free Periscope app can immediately transport viewers to a breaking news scene. In the hands of a journalist or communications professional, the possibilities are tremendous. Award-winning reporter and mobile journalism trainer Neal Augenstein has developed best practices for this quickly-evolving tool, to enable users to grab and hold an intrigued audience.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

Social Media Master Class Part I
MediaShift’s Social Media Editor Julie Keck will lead you through using some of the most powerful publishing tools any media professional can use. You can learn how to optimize your feeds, post the right amount each day, and help promote your content or projects better. You can establish yourself as an authority using the right mix of social media platforms and skills. And most of all, it’s fun. Don’t be intimidated or overwhelmed by social media – you can do it!
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

Social Media Master Class Part II
You’ve established yourself on social media, but you want to grow your audience. How do you get people talking about your content without seeming too self-promoting? Learn to harness the power of #hashtags, run a popular live Twitter chat, find out what’s trending today and how to jump in at the right moment with the right content.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

DigitalEd: iPhone Audio Reporting 101
The days of carrying recorders, microphones, and cables and cameras are gone – the smartphone is replacing bulky audio gear. This training will show how to use free and inexpensive mobile apps to record and edit audio (as well as video and photos) to creatively engage with audiences. Participants will be encouraged to use a variety of storytelling apps to communicate quickly and effectively.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

DigitalEd: How to Get Foundation Funding
Have you ever considered getting foundation grants to help support your journalism and media projects? Didn’t know where to start? This training will give an overview of the major foundations and what they typically fund. Major media foundations are going through upheaval, with major reorganizations happening at Knight Foundation, McCormick Foundation, Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and others. There will be a discussion of these changes, and how they will affect your chances for grants. And now foundations are supporting both for-profit and non-profit organizations.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

DigitalEd: 5 Tech Tools to Improve Your Reporting
Whether you’re an investigative journalist or a daily beat reporter, free and low-cost technical tools and apps can help you improve and streamline your reporting. We’ll introduce you to tech tools and platforms that will help you obtain and manipulate data. You’ll learn how to scrape social accounts, without knowing any code. And you’ll discover how to use features that are built into services you already use in more powerful ways. Plus, we’ll look at some popular (free!) project management software and applications to help you collaborate with colleagues and manage reporting projects.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19

The post Upcoming Trainings and Courses: Sept. 27 Edition appeared first on MediaShift.