Jennifer Mizgata | ONA15

Author: Jennifer Mizgata

ONA Local: Harnessing ONA15 energy all year

September 22, 2015 / Jennifer Mizgata / Comments Off

ONA’s annual conference is a great time to meet and network with colleagues from around the world. We hope you carry the energy and inspiration that you get from our community back to your own to improve your work, share tips and connect with other digital journalists.

To help you keep the momentum going, join our ONA Local program. Our 50 ONA Local groups around the world connect more than 10,000 journalists, technologists and educators through meet-ups and professional development events. Getting involved is a great way to collaborate with others who are passionate about digital journalism. Continue reading

Can’t-miss guide to ONA15: Jen Mizgata

September 3, 2015 / Jennifer Mizgata / Comments Off

Note: This is third in a series of posts written by ONA staff and conference organizers recommending sessions they feel will be particularly interesting. Of course, we hope every session is valuable to the right audience, but with so many things happening at ONA15, we want to offer useful highlights from a variety of viewpoints.

Previous recommendations came from Julie Westfall and Luis Gomez, co-chairs of the ONA15 Program Team. This list was created by Jen Mizgata, ONA’s Senior Communications Manager.

Jen Mizgata

One of the very best things about working at ONA is getting to suggest ideas and speakers for the annual conference. This is my fifth ONA conference (!) and ONA15 is hands-down the highlight of my work year. It’s so energizing to have meaningful conversations about what is working in journalism and how others can learn from the best projects and initiatives we’ve seen over the year.

My bread and butter at ONA is community engagement, so I’d be remiss not to mention that we have a whole track focused on audience and engagement and impact, which is full of really excellent sessions.

This year, I want to highlight a range of things that I’m super psyched about because they represent important conversations that the industry needs to be having today, but often haven’t been raised at our conference or other digital journalism conferences. Continue reading

Can’t-Miss Guide to ONA 15: Program Team co-chair Julie Westfall

August 27, 2015 / Jennifer Mizgata / Comments Off

Note: This is second in a series of posts written by the conference organizers recommending sessions they feel will be particularly interesting. Of course, we hope every session is valuable to the right audience, but with so many things happening at ONA15, we want to offer guidance from a variety of view points that will give you useful highlights. These recommendations come from Julie Westfall, co-chair of the ONA15 Program Team.

Julie Westfall

Here’s a common sight at the Online News Association’s annual conference: A mass of attendees flooding the common spaces between sessions, flipping through their programs (or scrolling through it on the conference app), debating their next moves and being torn between this session or that session: “On the one hand … on the other hand.”

A big team worked hard to give you all those choices — but sometimes the decisions can be hard to make in the moment, so a number of us are pointing out some of our personal top picks — the ones that most frequently catch our eyes when we peruse the schedule — and here are mine. We can’t wait to see you in Los Angeles.
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Have a big idea? Pitch an ONA15 Lightning Talk

August 27, 2015 / Jennifer Mizgata / Comments Off

Every ONA conference is driven by ideas from the digital journalism community. In the spring, we take session pitches through the Suggestion Box, and throughout the spring and summer, the Program Team helps select and build out sessions. Now, just before the conference, we’re opening up two more ways to get involved: the Lightning Talks and the Unconference.

If you’ve got an idea for a full-blown conference session, you should pitch the unconference. If you’ve got a big idea to share and the guts to present it in five minutes or less, send us your lightning talk by Wednesday, Sept. 23. Continue reading

Introducing the participants in the WNYC Podcast Accelerator at ONA15

August 20, 2015 / Jennifer Mizgata / Comments Off

We’re thrilled to introduce the finalists of the WNYC Podcast Accelerator at ONA15. The seven finalists (representing five podcasts) are now receiving coaching and guidance from WNYC and ONA staff as part of this new program, the first of its kind to provide production advice, industry connections, mentorship and a platform for creating remarkable audio content. The podcasts were selected from almost 400 entries.

The finalists will head to Los Angeles in September to pitch their projects to a panel of judges in front of a live audience of conference attendees at an ONA15 special event. Continue reading

A local’s guide to LA for ONA15

August 18, 2015 / Jennifer Mizgata / Comments Off

We asked ONA Board Member Kim Bui, Deputy Managing Editor at First Look Media living in Los Angeles, to pull together tips for your trip to ONA15.

Los Angeles is super excited to have you here, ONA friends. September is a great time in the city, and here’s to hoping that you can tack on an extra day or so to see the rest of LA while you’re here.

Below is a little list of things you should check out while you’re in the City of Angels, organized by whether you have a car or don’t have a car at your disposal.

About that: You might not think it, but LA has pretty great public transit. The bus system gets you most anywhere and our trains run on time (mostly) and are mostly shiny and new. Uber, Lyft and all those other ride services can get you anywhere else and they’re the preferred mode of transportation if you’re going to be engaging in a significant amount of libation. Continue reading