By
Angela Washeck
There’s no shortage of international
journalism conferences these days, and there’s a reason.
With legacy publishers having
difficulty making their digital efforts profitable, niche digitally native
operations looking to capitalize on the “social sharing” culture, and concerns
about engagement metrics and advertising strategies all weaving into a dynamic
media thread, venues like the recent ISOJ (International Symposium on Online Journalism
conference and this year’s GEN (Global Editors Network) Summit
are vital exercises for media professionals to come together and share ideas
and solutions from across the world.
The Global Editors Network is led by 24
media professionals across the world, including Mashable’s Jim Roberts and Wolfgang Blau of The Guardian. The group
champions innovation and engagement as some of its foremost goals.
Hundreds of editors, hackers, writers
and media execs will travel to Barcelona, Spain, on June 11 to 13, 2014, to
hear from industry leaders, exchange ideas, solve problems and be rewarded for
their work (see who attended the 2013 occasion here).
But this year’s event, “Mobile. Video.
Data. Challenge the Status Quo,” is designed to break new ground regarding the
media industry’s newest technologies.
Sessions and keynotes will revolve around
the idea that mobile, video and data must be top-of-mind in the modern
newsroom, and GEN’s international Data Journalism Awards will honor an
up-and-coming sector of technological leaders.
Herman, Haik, Carvin lead speakers
Main sessions include: Robot Journalism
Bootcamp, Media Metrics and Media Social Impact, “How to reshape your newsroom
around live reporting and video sharing,” and extensive looks at the cost,
benefits and risks involved with automated content production.
Noteworthy
speakers are Burt Herman, co-founder of Storify; Cory Haik, executive
producer of news innovations and strategic projects at the Washington Post; and
First Look Media engagement editor Andy Carvin. Carvin will give a special keynote
presentation.
Looking over the three-day GEN Summit schedule, a few sessions
stand out. One session, “How to Reshape Your Newsroom Around Live Reporting and
Video Sharing” will address live-blogging, streaming and commenting. A lecture
from Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s David Levy will explain the
state of news consumption in ten countries as featured in the Reuters Institute
Digital News Report.
Spot.us founder and Circa co-founder David Cohn plans to speak about digital trends,
which will surely include some discussion on wearables and data analysis. In
another conversation, “Are Journalists Becoming Journalysts?” representatives
from Germany and Italy will teach the audience how to
become a “classical storyteller, a social media manager and an algorithmyst.”
Jim Roberts and other top editors will
decide whether editorial and business ends of media organizations should still
be separate. And Dan Gillmor, director of
the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State’s
journalism school, along with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Publisher Frank Schirrmacher will
chat on press freedom in the digital landscape.
Data Journalism Awards and Hackday
Finals
Now back to the Data Journalism Awards
(DJA), supported by the Knight Foundation and Google. The summit is announcing
just eight winners, and they received 525 applications; these are going to be
ones to watch. Last year, the Guardian US won a cash prize for its data-driven
storytelling piece on gay rights by state.
Reuters took home a win for a piece
called “Connected China,” which “explains the social and professional network
of China’s leaders” and took 18 months to research, design and create. Other winning projects came from
the BBC, Argentinian publication La Nacion and smaller newsroom operations.
The Editors Lab Hackdays Final will
feature competitors from all over the world who have excelled at some of the 18
“hackdays” the GEN hosted over the past year. Editor Lab Hackdays provide
teams of three: an editor, designer and developer from respected international
news organizations.
They provide venues for conceptualizing and “building an
innovating and content engaging editorial tool to develop their newsroom
digital strategies,” according to GEN Business Development Manager Alexis
Daninos. The tool could be an app or a digital news service.
Daninos said not to discount the social
aspects of this year’s summit, either. Participants are encouraged to explore
the city while there.
“Barcelona is great in the summer. The
venue is very impressive: The CCCB is the contemporary
cultural center of Barcelona,” he said.
This post originally appeared on PBS
MediaShift and is published on IJNet with permission.
Angela Washeck, PBS MediaShift
editorial assistant, is a freelance writer and editor based in Dallas. Angela
also writes for MediaBistro’s 10,000 Words blog and TexasMonthly.com, and she
once interned with TV newsmagazine “Dan Rather Reports.”
MediaShift tells stories of how the
shifting media landscape is changing the way we get our news and information.
MediaShift correspondents explain how traditional media such as newspapers,
magazines, radio, TV, music and movies are dealing with digital disruption and
adapting their business models for a more mobile, networked world. Learn more
at MediaShift on the web, follow MediaShift on Twitter or on Facebook.
Image CC-licensed on Flickr via Jamie Henderson.
Source: http://ijnet.org/blog
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