What if you based your election coverage on what your community has told you they actually want candidates to be talking about as they compete for votes? Join our hosts, Brittany Schock from Richland Source, Bridget Thoreson from Hearken, and Joy Mayer from Trusting News as they talk about what that process actually looks like and what they hope it achieves. Read more about The Citizens Agenda.
Topic: Community Participation
OJA Finalists (USA TODAY Florida and Vox)
Join this special hour-long chat with two finalists in the first-ever ONA Gather Award for Engaged Journalism! We’ve got Eve Samples and Leah Voss from USA TODAY Florida to talk about their nominated project, “Florida Voices,” and Lauren Katz will share more about Vox’s nominated project, “Hospitals Kept ER Fees Secret. We Worked with Patients to Uncover Them.”
Why Would Someone Come to Your Event?
Before hosting an event, ask what your community will get out of it. This chat will focus on how to design an event with your potential participants in mind with hosts Tiney Ricciardi of The Dallas Morning News, and Kristin Walters of Illinois Newsroom
Community Advisory Boards
How can advisory boards help newsrooms stay in touch with what matters most to their communities? And what are some best practices for setting them up, recruiting members and making the time useful? Join Elizabeth Stephens of Columbia Missourian, jesikah maria ross (JMR) of Capital Public Radio, and Kim Bode of News Deeply to find out.
Nextdoor for Journalists
You might use Nextdoor to keep up with neighborhood crime, gossip and lost pets. But have you used it as part of your journalism? In this video chat hosted by Beth O’Malley of St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Joe Lanane of Community Impact Newspaper, we’ll talk about how journalists are using Nextdoor and what they can learn by experimenting on platforms that are new to them.
Using Comments to Tell the Story of Journalism
We need to change the conversation about journalism, and engaged journalists are on the front lines of public opinion. In the wake of Annapolis, let’s workshop ways to use engagement strategies to stand up for journalism. How can we answer comments from complainers and haters? Join Joy Mayer to continue the discussion.
WTF Just Happened Today and Reciprocal Relationships with Audiences
On his community page, Matt Kiser describes WTF Just Happened Today as “your guide to the daily shock and awe in national politics.” What started as a personal project to chronicle the new administration has turned into Kiser’s full-time job, and he couldn’t do it without the help of his readers.
Community Information Needs
We chatted on finding and filling local information needs: How do you find out what your community needs to know? How do you identify information gaps? And once you’ve found them, how does that knowledge play into what you decide to cover? Join the discussion with Ben DeJarnette of Bridgeliner, Jesse Hardman of The Listening Post, and Mariko Chang of Civil Beat.
Membership Programs
How can membership programs help news organizations build and reward loyalty? What can we do to celebrate and build relationships with our most committed users? Join Emily Goligoski of Membership Puzzle Project, Matthew Peterson of The Atlantic, Caroline Kitchener of The Atlantic, and Gracie McKenzie of The Atlantic to discuss it.
Hosting Live Events
We had a fruitful conversation on hosting live events with Sarah Binder the Engagement Manager of Iowa Ideas, Megan Finnerty the Director of the USA TODAY Network’s Storytellers Project, and jesikah maria ross the Senior Community Engagement Strategist at Capital Public Radio.