All Sessions
Thursday, June 07
1 pm
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5 pm
The economy is still the biggest story going, and this workshop will equip you with the story ideas and skills you need to tackle economic stories on any beat. Economic inequality, the foreclosure crisis and joblessness all have social justice themes that resonate with the alt-media audience and lend themselves to long-form stories. Yet, alt-media journalists sometimes shy away from stories with economic angles. Get armed with the tools and understanding you need to tackle economic stories, including those on the labor and housing markets.
Presented by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.
Marilyn Geewax is NPR's national economics correspondent and an editor of business news for the National Desk. In addition to assigning and editing business stories that are posted on NPR.org, Marilyn is regularly heard discussing economic issues on Tell Me More and Talk of the Nation and Weekend Edition. Her work contributed to NPR's 2011 Edward R. Murrow Award for Hard News for "The Foreclosure Nightmare." Marilyn worked with NPR reporter Chris Arnold on the foreclosure crisis was recognized with a 2009 Heywood Broun Award. Before to coming to NPR 2008, Marilyn was the national economics correspondent for Cox Newspapers' Washington Bureau for nearly a decade. Marilyn served for the Cox flagship paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, first as a business reporter and then as a columnist and editorial board member. She got her start as a reported for the Akron Beacon Journal. In 2010, she went to China with a group of journalists to study the economy. From 2001 to 2006, Marilyn taught a business journalism class as an adjunct professor at George Washington University. She was a 1995 Nieman Fellow and studied economics and international relations at Harvard. Marilyn earned a master's degree at Georgetown University, focusing on international economic affairs. She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from The Ohio State University.
Josh Harkinson is a reporter with
Mother Jones. Born in Texas and based in San Francisco, Josh covers the economy, the national Occupy movement, and a wide range of political issues in California and the West.
Follow Josh on Twitter.
1 pm
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4 pm
Professor Jeremy Rue will kick-off with a presentation of the tablet and mobile ecosystem and trends to watch. Then, Helen Berman, president of the Berman Media Sales Institute, will conduct a workshop which will cover selling the benefits of cross-media packages and expanding print sales skills into multi-media environments.
Helen will talk about why and how media salespeople must become marketing subject experts. You will hear how new media has turned marketing on its head, the new sales and marketing funnel, social media's impact on print, how to meet advertiser and agency expectations, and advertising metrics and research.
Speakers:
Jeremy Rue, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and
Helen Berman, Berman Media Sales Institute
Jeremy Rue is a lecturer at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He serves in a dual capacity for the school; as a multimedia instructor for the Knight Digital Media Center and as a co-instructor for a Carnegie-Knight funded program called News21. Before teaching, Jeremy previously worked as a multimedia journalist for the Oakland Tribune, where he helped produced Not Just a Number, an immersive interactive project that humanized the historically high 2006 homicide rate in Oakland. The project won Online News Association's Knight Award for Public Service in 2007. Jeremy has also worked as a photojournalist for a number of publications, including The Fresno Bee, The Modesto Bee and the Duluth News-Tribune in Minnesota. He also worked as a reporter for the Selma (Calif.) Enterprise, where he covered city government, courts and crime. Jeremy is the recipient of the 2007 Dorothea Lange Fellowship for his photo documentary work on migrant farm workers in the California Central Valley. He has experience with Adobe Flash/ActionScript, HTML/CSS, JavaScript/AJAX, Unix, PHP and a variety of other scripting languages.
Helen Berman is president of the Berman Media Sales Institute and a brilliant, one-of-a-kind, strategic thinker and problem-solver. With Helen, there’s no cookie-cutter, heard-it-all-before presentation. No jargon. No dull lectures. Instead, Helen Berman steps in and reframes your media sales issues in ways you never considered. With laser-beam precision, she penetrates to the heart of your biggest sales dilemmas, and you get solutions you can act on immediately.
There's more to web traffic than you think. Join analytics specialist Sondra Russell to get really deep into your analytics. Mine them for user behavior, trends, stickiness and find ways to monetize your content and get more traffic in new ways. And it won't be a burden on an already stressed staff. This workshop will be hands-on and tailored to participants.
Sondra Russell joined NPR in 2008, where she is a web metrics analyst. After working as a web developer for ten years in San Francisco, London, Paris, and Norman, Oklahoma, she got her Master of Business Administration at University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. She enjoys all aspects of web metrics analysis, from going "under the hood" to perfect collection methods, to writing customized dashboards using APIs, PHP, and MySQL, to writing a weekly newsletter for NPR staff analyzing recent trends in traffic across all of NPR's platforms. She is also a published short story writer.
This look at trends in social media will provide info on best practices across all digital media, how to use different platforms and how all of that helps the weekly product. We'll also include a few tricks and hints, look at good times to post, discuss management of accounts and much more.
Kelly Ferguson is the social and digital media director at The Arkansas Times. Her department currently manages the social media accounts of the newspaper and its affiliated publications. Kelly has a bachelor’s degree in Journalism with minors in both Speech Communication and Theatre Arts from Texas A&M University. She has worked as a reporter and as an editor for more than 15 years in daily newspapers. In 2008, she took on the role of web content coordinator in the marketing department at Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas, and created the school’s first social media campaigns. In January 2011, The Arkansas Times recruited Kelly via Twitter to come to Little Rock and build the department there.
1:15 pm
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2:15 pm
We all know digital distribution channels are the future. But how are we doing with our websites and mobile compared to other legacy media and compared with our peers? Some of the answers are with The Media Audit which has more than 300 media websites selling with its data. In response to increasing interest in web and mobile performance The Media Audit has developed benchmarks for us to look at our markets. Join us for this session that focuses heavily on web benchmarks and some mobile (phone and tablet) insights. You'll take away who the leaders are and how your paper and website stacks up if you are in one of the 100+ markets, The Media Audit surveys.
Phillip Beswick has 30 years experience in media research, sales and sales management. His research experience includes a stint as TV research director for the largest TV broadcaster in Canada, Baton Broadcasting. Subsequently he took on responsibilities in national sales, serving some of Canada's largest ad agencies in Toronto. After three years managing sales for an Ottawa radio station he opened Birch Radio's Canadian operation. Eventually Phillip left Toronto for New York as senior VP group sales for Birch/Scarborough Research and helped build the company into a major radio ratings and qualitative research company. In 1993, he joined The Media Audit as EVP with local market and group sales responsibilities. Working with media from small local operators to the country's largest media companies, Phillip helps the media substantially increase their revenues by matching their strengths to the market needs.is executive vice president of The Media Audit.
The digital trend is in full swing, but don't sacrifice your print quality in the process! This workshop provides a simple process to achieving better quality images, ads, and over-all print production.
Learn how to:
-Set up your Photoshop, so that it understands the characteristics of a newspaper press.
-Establish a photo-toning workflow, which standardizes what is done to every image.
-Use your existing tools to maximize quality, minimize complaints, and create consistency.
John Williams is the founder and owner of Cygnus Consulting Group LLC, which provides digital imaging solutions for print production through consulting, training, and outsourcing. John has worked in the newspaper industry for the past 17 years specializing in digital workflow management and print quality. His career began at Gannett/USA Today working on quality control, presses, consumables, and print quality statistical analysis. After working at several Gannett daily newspapers including The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, The Indianapolis Star, and The Louisville Courier-Journal, John worked for a consumable supplier providing Photoshop and Quality training for newspapers throughout North America.
Find out about the technology you can't live without. Learn what everyone is using, how well it's working, and where you're wasting your money. Discussion based on a 2012 technology survey of every AAN website and with participation of the audience.
Anton Gelman is the CEO of Cont3nt.com -- a market for entrepreneurial media and video journalism that connects freelancers with media companies, media companies to each other and allows them to buy, sell, and trade breaking news. Formerly of the National Geographic where he launched online communities and collaboration systems, Anton has over a decade of technology experience that he brings to bear to develop the first free market for the free press. Always up for a coffee or a drink to chat about the future of media.
2:45 pm
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3:45 pm
What are the implications of taking them? How do they affect the industry as a whole? How much do these bring to our bottom line? How are they affecting other business relationships and are they a turn-off to readers.
Rob Jiranek , chief operating officer, joined Southcomm in January 2012. Previously he served as vice president for EW Scripps Commercial Appeal where in 2008 he launched the niche publishing division. Before Scripps, Rob was partner and group publisher of Portico Publications in Charlottesville where he led the acquisition and/or startup of eight individual publishing lines. Rob and his wife, Pam, have three children and live in Charlottesville.
Feeling overwhelmed by how to approach the next big thing in technology? Confused on terminology? Don't be embarrassed. Join us to learn how to speak geek as we give an overview of technologies, terms, social media and what you should know to operate in a digital newsroom and more importantly, how to plan your digital strategy.
Doug Mitchell is a nationally recognized media trainer, project strategist and career coach. His former students who are now working professionals send him wedding invitations (he shows up) and birth announcements. Doug is a former Knight International Press Fellow and William S. Fulbright Scholar to Chile and spent 21.5 years as a producer and director at NPR, where he still consults on diversity related projects. While at NPR he created and managed a professional development program called "next generation radio" and built NPR's "Intern Edition." Currently, he's co-director of a startup camp funded by the Ford Foundation to develop journalists of color as tomorrow's media CEOs and a consultant and project manager for NPR. He likes to create substantive, progressive media projects from scratch.
If you've gone digital but don't have video -- you haven't gone digital. Find out how AAN members are tackling digital with photo and video, the resources available to you, and the new AAN Content Exchange that lets you create your own iReport, share video with other papers, and develop a revenue stream through licensing.
If you have ever asked yourself -- "How do we increase engagement and make more revenue from our digital presence?" -- this session is for you.
Anton Gelman is the CEO of Cont3nt.com -- a market for entrepreneurial media and video journalism that connects freelancers with media companies, media companies to each other and allows them to buy, sell, and trade breaking news. Formerly of the National Geographic where he launched online communities and collaboration systems, Anton has over a decade of technology experience that he brings to bear to develop the first free market for the free press. Always up for a coffee or a drink to chat about the future of media.
5 pm
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6:30 pm
Are you under 40, Canadian, a first time convention go-er? Join the AAN board and staff for a beer and get to know us!
Friday, June 08
9 am
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10:15 am
Matt Thompson will deliver a lively talk: Why the alternative press was invented for the Internet - Alternative Newsweeklies pioneered a voice and style that's come to reflect the best of digital culture - irreverent, authentic and passionate. Now, in the age of Wikileaks, what can the alts learn from the Awl, while retaining their mission and brand.
Then, get inspired by local activist Grace Lee Boggs. "Most Americans have a very short-range idea of history," Boggs said recently. The long-range perspective that Boggs brings is that of an activist-philosopher, who steps back to see mass production as a 100-year-old enterprise, capitalism as a few hundred years old, and a city like Detroit in the context of evolution. A one-time associate of Marxist philosopher C.L.R. James, a Detroiter for more than half a century, Boggs' books "Living for Change: An Autobiography" and more recently "The Next American Revolution" have energized activists to think about our cities in fresh ways, to ask how we "rebuild, redefine, and respirit them as models of twenty-first century, self-reliant and sustainable multicultural communities."
Matt Thompson is an editorial product manager at NPR, where he's helping to coordinate the development of 12 niche, local websites in conjunction with NPR member stations. He is also an adjunct faculty member at the Poynter Institute, having completed a four-year term on the organization's National Advisory Board in 2010. He currently serves on the board of the Center for Public Integrity. Before coming to NPR, Matt served as an interim online community manager for the Knight Foundation. From 2008 to 2009, he was a Donald W. Reynolds Fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute; his explorations in building context into news websites have been widely cited in discussions about online journalism's future. He came to RJI from his position as deputy web editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where he led the creation of the Edgie-award-winning, socially networked arts-and-entertainment website vita.mn, as well as managing other technology and interactivity-related projects for StarTribune.com. Matt moved to the Star Tribune after serving as the first online reporter/producer for the Fresno Bee, winning first- and third-place Best of the West awards in 2004 for his multimedia projects. At the Bee, he led an internal advisory committee exploring the paper's strategies for acquiring new audiences. He worked at the Poynter Institute from 2003-04 as the Naughton Fellow for Online Reporting and Writing. While at Poynter, he and his colleague Robin Sloan produced the Flash movie EPIC 2014, a picture of the media past set 10 years in the future, which was written up in the New York Times, Financial Times, USA Today, the Guardian, on MSNBC, and elsewhere. Matt graduated with honors in English from Harvard College in 2002, after writing his senior thesis on the television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Outside of work, he blogs at Snarkmarket.com, has completed one Twin Cities Marathon, and is itching to get ready for another.
Grace Lee Boggs is an author, lifelong social activist and feminist. She is known for her years of political collaboration with C.L.R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya in the 1940s and 1950s. She eventually went off in her own political direction in the 1960s with her husband of some forty years, James Boggs, until his death in 1993. By 1998, she had written four books, including an autobiography. In 2011, still active at the age of 95, she wrote a fifth book, “The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century,” co-written by Scott Kurashige and published by the University of California Press.
10:30 am
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11:15 am
Over the last year, AAN's Diversity Committee has been hard at work on two things this session will cover: the AAN Diversity Best-Practices Document, and the groundbreaking diversity/demographics survey of AAN members. This open discussion will tackle the survey's findings: What do they mean, and where should AAN and its members go from here regarding diversity efforts?
Jimmy Boegle is the founding editor and publisher of the
Coachella Valley Independent in Palm Springs, Calif. He's a former AAN diversity chair and currently serves on the editorial and membership committees. He is a veteran of the
Tucson Weekly,
Las Vegas CityLife, the
Reno News & Review and The Associated Press. He decided to make the move to Palm Springs because the weather in Tucson and Las Vegas simply was not warm enough for him.
Will Sullivan is the self-described Nerd-in-Chief at the news and
technology blog Journerdism.com, chosen by Harvard University's Nieman
Journalism Lab as one of the 10 Best "Future of Journalism" blogs.
Sullivan pushes the boundaries of craft journalism and multimedia
storytelling in his writing, teaching and techie pursuits. This lively
session will address emerging tech tools, how they can make your
reporting better, and even ways to monetize them.
Will Sullivan is the director of mobile news for Lee Enterprises Inc. and was previously a 2010-2011 Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Fellow at the University of Missouri, where he studied mobile, tablet and emerging technologies. Before that, he was the interactive director of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch where he lead the organization's mobile, social and multimedia initiatives. Sullivan was recently selected by Editor and Publisher as one of 2012's "25 under 35" innovative young journalism leaders. Sullivan's work has won more than a dozen professional awards from organizations including the Online News Association, Society for News Design and National Press Photographer Association; projects he's worked on have twice been declared finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and twice been named to Editor and Publisher's annual list of "10 That Do It Right." His personal website,
Journerdism.com, was also recognized by Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab as one of the 10 best "future-of-journalism" blogs. He's the secretary of the Online News Association's board of directors as well as a board member for the Society for News Design foundation and co-creator and co-director of the NPPA's Multimedia Immersion. Will also frequently offers strategic and technical consulting in emerging technologies, as well as hands-on training at organizations, universities, workshops and conferences around the world including the Knight Digital Media Center, South by Southwest Interactive and The Poynter Institute. He can be contacted at will [at] journerdism.com or on Twitter
@Journerdism.
Big money attaches to national marketing campaigns. But how to break into the big leagues? This session offers advice for building relationships with local digital marketing and online advertising agencies in order to leverage national dollars through test campaigns, promotions and a fresh approach to mobile marketing.
Sarah Kotlova is an account director at Digitaria and a specialist in interactive marketing. She seeks to create a user-centric culture for her agency and clients, bringing the voice of the customer in impactful ways into each marketing and advertising initiative. Sarah's experience includes building brands and business online for clients such as BumbleBee Foods, WD-40, Webster Bank, Intel Classmate PC, Covad, OAG (Official Airline Guide), and Philosophy. Prior to joining Digitaria, Sarah was the Vice-President of Strategy and Account Services for Geary Interactive, and Account Director for Whittmanhart in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, where her clients included Anheuser-Busch, Kellogg’s Special K, Johnson & Johnson (REMICADE (infliximab) and K-Y), Epson, Avery, Guidant and Kashi. When she can drag herself away from the computer, she also enjoys travel.
Robby Robbins is the multimedia sales manager at the
Santa Barbara Independent. With nearly 25 years in the newspaper industry, he brings his straightforward, no-nonsense, ever-changing approach to staff and product management. With time spent in the daily world and now at his second
Independent, he has pretty much tried it all and kept what works. Robby served on the AAN board of directors from 2002 to 2009.
11:30 am
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12:30 pm
Breaking down the barriers between print and digital content on your digital products and how to design for it. How to be thinking reader first vs. system first. Give your readers content in a way that makes sense to them.
Michael Meyer Naval nuclear engineer, pilot, historian, design artisan, business strategist, storyteller, and educator -- Michael Meyer, partner with Essential in San Francisco, leads executives and their organizations through the complex and challenging conversations of discovery that are critical to success during times of massive change. He draws on his frontline leadership experience to integrate and evolve a unique understanding that marries the business imperative with design awareness. Michael comes to Essential from Adaptive Path where he served as CEO and from frog design, where he led the company’s California studio as general manager, overseeing the firm’s physical and digital product design offering. Previously, he started and led the product strategy practice at IDEO’s Boston office. Michael’s led a wide range of projects: planning a new line of home electrical devices, crafting the vision and expressing the value proposition for a major pharmaceutical company’s internet presence, developing a next-generation electronic payment token, and leading the cockpit and cabin design of a new jet aircraft. His project teams have won two gold and two silver IDEA awards for their work. Meyer has a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley; an MBA from Harvard Business School, appointed as a Fellow of the Batten Institute, Darden GSBA, University of Virginia, where he has taught early-stage innovation and product development. He currently instructs at the Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego.
Join Baltimore City Paper Art Director Joe MacLeod for his now infamous session. You'll need to submit covers in advance to participate.
Joe MacLeod used to be a shoe clerk. He has enjoyed working at City Paper in Baltimore for 22 years, the last million of which he has served as art director. His favorite font is Wedgie. Buy Joe a drink and he will tell you all the Missile Launch Codes.
The red state/blue state divide is not only simplistic, it's misleading. So says Dante Chinni of Patchwork Nation, a project that aims to tease out truth from America's crazy quilt of geographic and demographic diversity without hiding from its complexity. A journalist and author with two decades of experience, Chinni will explain how the true building blocks of this nation are communities, and how their unique perspectives on the economy and politics will play into the 2012 elections. Then, he will lead a discussion on how to use this information to do smart and innovative political stories in your community.
Dante Chinni has been a journalist for some two decades now with stints at Newsweek, the Christian Science Monitor and the Project for Excellence in Journalism. He has also lived the freelance life with pieces appearing in outlets ranging from the Washington Post Magazine to The Economist to The New Republic. Although a card-carrying member of the East Coast Media Industrial Complex (bouncing between DC and New York), Dante’s roots are still firmly planted in the Industrial Midwest. He grew up outside Detroit and went to college at Michigan State University, where he studied journalism and history. Dante's work now centers on exploring the country through the lens of the 12 community types of
Patchwork Nation. The project is the focus of "Our Patchwork Nation," available now from Gotham Books. Patchwork Nation is part of the
Jefferson Institute, an independent research and education institution, inspired by Thomas Jefferson's challenge to pursue truth, wherever it may lead. Dante lives in DC with his wife, Christina Ianzito, and their two children. Feel free to ask any and all questions you might have -- except those concerning the Detroit Tigers 2009 collapse. He won't answer those.
Jeff Larson was the online director at The Nation where he coordinated the magazine's editorial and business activities on the web during the 2009 political season. Previously, he worked at W.W. Norton and as a film and video editor at an Emmy award-winning production company.
From monetizing Facebook contesting to online ticketing, third party social media management, online inventory reselling, white label phenomenon and the evolution of dating and deals sites. Who is making money where in the digital world of NTR. Join us for this Pecha Kucha session showcasing the best ideas from the industry. Want to present? Let us know.
Blair Barna has worked in the world of alt-weeklies for 20 years and is the advertising director of the Charleston City Paper in Charleston, S. C. He founded and co-owns the paper -- now in its sixteenth year -- with his two business partners, publisher Noel Mermer and editor Stephanie Barna. One of them is also his life partner -- he'll leave it up to you to guess which. Barna has two children, three cats, two dogs, and no time to himself. Prior to blazing trails in Chucktown, he worked for Creative Loafing in Savannah and Atlanta.
12:45 pm
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2:15 pm
Herschel Fink defended Dr. Dre's right to film police officers who were on duty, and the Michigan State Supreme Court agreed. Fink, who has represented Michael Moore for the past 20 years, also played a key role in the Detroit Free Press freedom of information lawsuit that eventually put former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick behind bars. Join us at AAN's Free Speech Lunch with the former newspaper reporter who has been described as one of "the best lawyers in America under First Amendment law" by the SPJ.
The lunch will take place at the Detroit cultural gem known as Cliff Bell's. Located just blocks away from the convention hotel, Cliff Bell's is like taking a step back into Detroit's storied past. Behold the 1930's charm of the lavish, art-deco interior while dining on a delectable catered buffet of French-inspired fare.
Advance registration and separate fee of $25 required.
Herschel Fink is a senior partner at the Detroit law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP. His background includes ten years' experience as a daily newspaper reporter and editor. As an attorney, he has specialized in representing news organizations, media and entertainment companies in a broad range of issues, including libel, privacy and intellectual property. He has represented the Detroit Free Press, Michigan's largest daily newspaper for more than 25 years, as well as local television and radio stations, and national networks. For many years, he taught media law at Wayne State University in Detroit. He received his B.A. from Wayne State, where he was editor of the daily student newspaper, and went on to receive his law degree from Michigan State University. He is a frequent panelist and speaker at national media law conferences, and speaks regularly on media law topics to gatherings of judges and lawyers. He has been listed in every edition of America's Best Lawyers under First Amendment law. He is the coauthor of the Michigan Freedom of Information and Open Meetings Act guidebooks published by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In 2005, he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Michigan Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the only time a lawyer has been so honored, and the Society also awarded him its national 2010 First Amendment Award. Michigan Lamers Weekly recognized him as one of its 25 “Leaders in the Law” in 2009, and Crain’s Detroit Business named him a "Power Lawyer" in 2008. He has been recognized by Chambers USA: America's Leading Lagers for Business every year since 2007, calling him "a highly-regarded First Amendment litigator with superlative knowledge of free speech issues."
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Jeremy Rue will talk about news consumption habits on a desktop computers versus mobile devices, and the role multimedia plays in online news. Designer Kaitlin Yarnall will talk about the process of designing for tablet, whether an app or responsive design. She will take participants through the creative process and discuss nuts and bolts as well as potential pitfalls.
Jeremy Rue is a lecturer at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He serves in a dual capacity for the school; as a multimedia instructor for the Knight Digital Media Center and as a co-instructor for a Carnegie-Knight funded program called News21. Before teaching, Jeremy previously worked as a multimedia journalist for the Oakland Tribune, where he helped produced Not Just a Number, an immersive interactive project that humanized the historically high 2006 homicide rate in Oakland. The project won Online News Association's Knight Award for Public Service in 2007. Jeremy has also worked as a photojournalist for a number of publications, including The Fresno Bee, The Modesto Bee and the Duluth News-Tribune in Minnesota. He also worked as a reporter for the Selma (Calif.) Enterprise, where he covered city government, courts and crime. Jeremy is the recipient of the 2007 Dorothea Lange Fellowship for his photo documentary work on migrant farm workers in the California Central Valley. He has experience with Adobe Flash/ActionScript, HTML/CSS, JavaScript/AJAX, Unix, PHP and a variety of other scripting languages.
Kaitlin Yarnall is the deputy creative director of National Geographic Magazine where she manages a diverse team of designers, graphic editors, artists, cartographers and interactive developers. She has been with National Geographic for seven years and has previously held the titles of senior research cartographic editor and deputy art director. Kaitlin is from Northern California and studied geography at Humboldt State University and George Washington University.
Join the Sunlight Foundation's Bill Allison and Joshua Hatch to learn the ins and outs of government and election transparency and accountability. The session will cover everything from lobbying to super PACs, including where to find the latest data and what you can do with it.
Bill Allison is the editorial director at the
Sunlight Foundation. A veteran investigative journalist and editor for nonprofit media, Bill worked for the Center for Public Integrity for nine years, where he co-authored "The Cheating of America" with Charles Lewis, was senior editor of "The Buying of the President 2000" and co-editor of the New York Times bestseller "The Buying of the President 2004." He edited projects on topics ranging from the role of international arms smugglers and private military companies in failing states around the world to the rise of section 527 organizations in American politics. Prior to joining the Center, Bill worked for eight years for The Philadelphia Inquirer -- the last two as researcher for Pulitzer Prize winning reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele.
Joshua Hatch is the online content manager of
Sunlight Live, which combines real-time reporting, contextual data displays, live video feeds and reader interactivity. Josh comes to Sunlight from USA TODAY where he was the Interactives Director. Josh is also a board member of the Online News Association and lives in Arlington, Va., with his wife, daughter and two spoiled Labrador retrievers.
Experts Neil Chase and Tim Ruder will lead this interactive session on new digital revenue ideas that can be implemented fast and easily -- we'll talk tools, partners, re-using existing resources and everything in between. And, once you have that great idea -- how do you get it to market? We'll also cover training your staff, motivating digital salespeople and how to think about staffing for more digital revenue.
Neil Chase is senior vice president for editorial at Federated Media, where he works with more than 100 of the best independent publishers on the web and oversees custom publishing projects for major clients. He has worked as an editor and page designer at a number of news organizations, including stints as managing editor at CBS MarketWatch and continuous news editor at The New York Times, and for five years he was an assistant professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Neil has also been a consultant for dozens of companies and publications.
Tim Ruder is the chief revenue officer and general manager of audience development services at Perfect Market, Inc., a leading provider of traffic and content optimization solutions for online publishers. He started his career with the Washington Post Co. in 1989, moving to the online division in 1995. During his 17 years with the Washington Post, Tim pioneered the development, management and growth of interactive business lines, serving in various marketing, sales, business development and operational roles, rising to the post of VP of marketing. Before achieving that title, he served as the local vice president, responsible for the company's regional market strategy, initiatives and operations. Under his leadership, washingtonpost.com achieved the highest reach of any local site in its market and claimed multiple industry awards for excellence. His efforts were instrumental to the successful launch, growth and dominant market position achieved by WPNI properties (washingtonpost.com, Slate, Newsweek.com, BudgetTravel.com and Sprig) in local, national and international markets. He oversaw the rise of washingtonpost.com. Tim has consulted with businesses adapting to the changing media landscape, supporting the development of new competencies in search engine marketing and interactive advertising. As a consultant to the Los Angeles Times, Tim helped latimes.com double its audience in less than 12 months. Tim holds a B.A. in political science from Purdue University and an MBA from George Mason University.
2:15 pm
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Information is the key to building political stability, stimulating economic growth, and supporting healthy societies. Empowering local media -- both citizen and professional, in television, radio, online print and mobile -- ensures that locally-relevant news and information reaches individuals and helps them make informed decisions for their families and their communities. For issues ranging from governance to environmental policy to health and education, media acts as a catalyst to help communities create and share the information they need to build better futures. Join Jeri Curry, SVP of global communications and private development at Internews, for a discussion on the importance of local media in developing countries around the world and an emphasis on engaging communities.
Jeri Curry is Internews' senior vice-president for global communications and private development. Jeri is responsible for providing strategic vision for all communications, both internal and external, to ensure that traditional and new media outreach efforts directly support Internews’ myriad field programs as well as the organization’s private development, fundraising and policy goals. Jeri brings extensive marketing and communications experience from a wide-array of organizations. She has roots in the media and communications industry, having worked with the Washington Post, Discovery Communications and MCI Communications. She has also worked with the federal government, having worked with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Emergency Communications and within academia where she was the marketing and licensing manager for Vanderbilt University. Jeri joined Internews in late 2009, and was quickly immersed in the outreach efforts for Internews’ pioneering humanitarian media efforts following Haiti’s devastating earthquake. She supports numerous other Internews projects as wide-ranging as environmental reporting in Southeast Asia, community radio projects in Africa and innovative reporting and news delivery in Central Asia. In addition to her communications duties, Curry is responsible for forging new partnerships with philanthropic foundations, socially responsible companies and private donors. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and currently resides in Washington, DC. She spends her free time training for marathons and enjoys travelling for both business and pleasure.
Hanaa Rifaey is the founder of Press Forward, a boutique consulting shop specializing in nonprofit management, strategic planning, fundraising, and marketing. Previously, Hanaa served as the President and Publisher of The American Independent News Network. She has managed campaigns and programs in a variety of issue areas including civil rights, health care, and climate change. Hanaa received her undergraduate degree from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., and her master's degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She lives in D.C. with her husband and their dog, two cats, and tiny human.
So you finally decided it was time to spruce up your old static site, create a FB page, assign someone on your team to tweet and you've gone mobile -- but let's face it -- so have all your competitors and their moms. Now it's time to really engage those loyal and new readers -- fast! This session will look at proven methods to get those eyeballs back.
Andre Gaulin is a Toronto-based technologist with a focus on emerging technology. Currently, he is the director of agility solutions at Agility Inc. Andre is a graduate of the University of Toronto with a specialist degree in Geography and Geographic Information Systems. Early in his career, Andre transitioned into the world of web development and has never looked back. He has had the pleasure of delivering award-winning solutions for some of Canada's biggest media and entertainment companies including MuchMusic, CTV, Cineplex Entertainment, and the NHLPA to name a few. Andre's focus on usability, information architecture, the mobile web, and rich broadband media have allowed him to transform high level concepts into successful and engaging online properties.
3:15 pm
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4 pm
Wayne Kramer, noted guitarist, songwriter and film and television composer will speak about the city of Detroit, music and community activism.
Wayne Kramer is a songwriter whose reputation writing music for film and television now risks supplanting his legend as one of the world’s stellar guitarists. Rolling Stone lists him as one of the top 100 guitarists of all time.
As teenaged leader of Detroit’s ultimate incendiary rock band The MC5, in the 1960s, Wayne formed the White Panther Party in solidarity with other organizations working for racial and economic equality during the Vietnam War. Wayne and manager John Sinclair’s resulting dubious position at the center of the target for the FBI's counter-intelligence (or "COINTELPRO") program between 1968 and 1971 is well documented.
Following the break-up of The MC5, Wayne suffered from drug addiction, a problem that culminated in a bust and consequential federal prison sentence at Lexington Federal Correctional Institution. Following release, Wayne returned to his musical career and to even greater acclaim. He has subsequently released 10 solo albums and is considered a pioneer of both punk rock and heavy metal. Wayne's involvement in and commitment to social justice initiatives never wavered.
Now a respected film and television composer, Wayne scored the comedy feature Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby; the controversial HBO documentary Hacking Democracy (about the 2004 presidential voting machine scandal) and the PBS film The Narcotic Farm (about Lexington and America’s decades-long failed drug war), as well as all three seasons of the HBO series East Bound & Down.
Wayne has lived a life of music and activism. His friendship with revolutionary British songwriter Billy Bragg inspired the two men to create Jail Guitar Doors USA, a Los Angeles based 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a mission to help rehabilitate prison inmates. The musicians run charity provides musical instruments to inmates with which they are taught non-violent communication skills.
Wayne recently joined forces with Tom Morello for the Axis of Justice music and activism tours and made a special appearance at an anti-war protest concert for 10,000 fans during the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado with Rage Against the Machine.
Wayne regularly writes with, and produces, upstart rock 'n' roll bands.
4 pm
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5:30 pm
We'll recognize and honor the winners of the AltWeekly Awards and their work at an afternoon reception. Toast the winners and runners-up with an adult beverage -- and enjoy a light bite as well.
Open to all, but advance registration and separate fee of $10 gets you two drink tickets.
Moderated roundtable discussions.
In order for editorial products to be competitive in an environment as fragmented as today's, they need to use a process of innovation. Graphic design that is fresh and with high impact may be one way to cater to today's tastes. Using different story forms that deliver the message in a more visual way is one way to make editorial products distinctive.
Presented by
The Society for News Design (SND).
Mauricio Gutierrez , the features design director at the Detroit Free Press, has in his 20-year career designed and consulted for newspapers in North America, Europe and Asia and lectured on innovation and features design at SND workshops and at conferences and universities in several countries. His work has been recognized by the Society numerous times.
Saturday, June 09
9:15 am
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10 am
Within the next three years, digital ad revenue will exceed print ad revenue at the local level. The Alternatives may be able to survive as just a print product, but in order to thrive they'll need to morph into a media organization. If you are not on board the digital steamroller, you might wind up under it. Do you know how much local advertisers spend on digital media in your market and how other media ranks in their share of it?
Peter Conti is executive vice president at Borrell and Associates. Peter received the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) 2010 Service Excellence Award for his dedication and leadership in helping educate local marketers and ad agencies in 2009. He has been engaged in traditional and online business start-ups for more than 20 years. After selling a retail business in late 1996, he began work in Richmond, Va., on one of the first e-commerce marketplaces for a 1,000+ member local merchants association. Peter joined Landmark Communications Inc. in 1998 to develop and manage the highly successful Richmond.com Web site. He has also served as director of interactive media for Media General’s Publishing division with shared responsibility for the online convergence effort of publishing and broadcast sites.Peter has been an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business teaching Global Internet Marketing. He attended the International Studies program at the University of Lund, Sweden, and holds a bachelor’s degree in Radio, TV & Film from the University of Maryland.
10:15 am
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11 am
TED speaker and researcher at Harvard's Berkman Center Ethan Zuckerman will present innovative quantitative data on understanding media ecosystems, including how digital and analog are working together, questions of inclusion and exclusion in media dialog and ways to think about attention and influence.
Ethan Zuckerman is director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, and a principal research scientist at MIT's Media Lab. His research focuses on the distribution of attention in mainstream and new media, the use of technology for international development, and the use of new media technologies by activists.With Rebecca MacKinnon, Ethan co-founded international blogging community Global Voices. Global Voices showcases news and opinions from citizen media in over 150 nations and thirty languages, publishing editions in twenty languages. Through Global Voices and through the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, where he served as a researcher and fellow for eight years, Ethan is active in efforts to promote freedom of expression and fight censorship in online spaces. In 2000, Ethan founded Geekcorps, a technology volunteer corps that sends IT specialists to work on projects in developing nations, with a focus on West Africa. Previously Ethan helped found Tripod.com, one of the web's first "personal publishing" sites. He blogs at http://ethanzuckerman.com/blog and lives in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, with his wife, son and a small, fluffy cat.
11:15 am
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12:15 pm
Comics journalism is inherently stylish, uniquely suited to sharing via social media, and popular as hell. During this panel, we'll share findings gleaned from editors, journalists and artists who have stretched the limits of comics to tell complicated stories in a variety of formats, and how they might fit in your newsroom.
Hanaa Rifaey is the founder of Press Forward, a boutique consulting shop specializing in nonprofit management, strategic planning, fundraising, and marketing. Previously, Hanaa served as the President and Publisher of The American Independent News Network. She has managed campaigns and programs in a variety of issue areas including civil rights, health care, and climate change. Hanaa received her undergraduate degree from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., and her master's degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She lives in D.C. with her husband and their dog, two cats, and tiny human.
Darryl Holliday has written for the Chicago Sun-Times, GapersBlock, The Columbia Chronicle and currently works with the McCormick Foundation's journalism program. He's also writer/reporter of The Illustrated Press: Chicago, an upcoming collection of comics journalism short stories with illustrator Erik Nelson Rodriguez. In addition to his work with comics journalism, Darryl is interested in data journalism, including the use of GIS to illustrate stories, and the use of new media tools to broaden the reach of community reporting. Both Darryl and fellow panelist Erik Nelson Rodriguez can be found on
Twitter @the_ill_press and on their website at
IllusPress.com.
Erik Nelson Rodriguez is a graphic designer for The Columbia Chronicle and has directed the art in various city publications, including R_Wurd, a youth-journalism magazine based out of Columbia College Chicago. Erik has been drawing, literally, longer than he can remember. He's currently the illustrator for the The Illustrated Press: Chicago, an upcoming comics journalism book, with reporter Darryl Holliday. Both Darryl and Erik can be found on
Twitter @the_ill_press and on their website at
IllusPress.com.
The 10 best moneymaking event ideas that we haven't heard before (Best Of, Earth Day Festival, Music Festival) and that you can do in almost any market (No Amateur Porno or Weiner Dog Races).
Josh Gross is the new media czar at Boise Weekly, a job which involves wrangling multimedia reporting, managing social media accounts and coming up with your own job title. He enjoys basset hounds, ukuleles and drunkenly insisting that the robot apocalypse is bloody well nigh to any who will listen.
Follow him online @TheJoshGross. In real life, please don’t follow him.
Don Eggert is creative director and associate publisher of Seven Days. Although he spends most of his time designing and project-managing web projects and marketing initiatives, Don still finds some time to oversee five designers and manage the office IT. When he's not working, he likes to build things and watch Bravo with his partner and pet dachshunds, Edna & Trixie.
Jeff Lawrence is the founder and owner of the award-winning
Weekly Dig, The Best Little Paper in Boston.
Telling great stories on the web doesn't need to be complicated. Meet responsive design, a way of building websites that can conform to any screen -- no mobile app or tablet version necessary. It's the next step in presenting great stories in a simpler, more beautiful way -- for all your readers. Dan Oshinsky of
Stry.us and Ben Callahan of
Sparkbox will walk you through the building of a responsive site, and explain how the magic of responsive design can change your web strategy forever.
Ben Callahan is president of Sparkbox and co-founder of the Build Responsively workshop series. Ben is a thought leader on front-end development sharing his ideas about the web on the Sparkbox Foundry and industry blogs like Smashing Magazine. His leadership at Sparkbox has driven the organization to be a leading provider of responsive web design and he continues to push for better user and content experiences outside the context of specific devices.
Dan Oshinsky is the founder of
Stry.us where he currently leads a team of reporters based in Springfield, Mo. Dan was a 2011-12 Donald W. Reynolds Fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute. He is also a builder of many things, including
BooksAround, a social literacy experiment;
JStart, a wiki of resources for entrepreneurial journalists; and
Very Quotatious, a site for inspiration, thought and other wisdom suitable for quotation. Dan is a graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. Find Dan at
@danoshinsky or email him at dan@stry.us.
12:15 pm
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1:45 pm
2 pm
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3:15 pm
Newsroom staffing levels, freelance pay rates, page counts -- this session is about the nitty gritty. In advance of this third-annual editors-only session, AAN editors will have had the opportunity to fill out a survey that addresses various benchmarks, as well as queries about how they deploy their resources. The survey will ultimately be collated and available in the AAN resource library as an editorial standards document. The session will consist of a lively free-wheeling discussion about how editors are using their budgets and staffs with the goal of generating new ideas and inspiration.
Rachael Daigle is the editor at Boise Weekly. She is a member of AAN's Diversity and Editorial committees, loves to yak about the value of multimedia in the alt weekly world, and is often spotted near the bar at AAN conventions.
Follow her on Twitter at @rachaeldaigle.
Fran Zankowski will moderate discussion of this year's annual benchmarking survey. (Closed session, open only to AAN members who participated in the annual survey.)
Join esteemed author and Detroit-native Thomas Sugrue as he discusses
his latest research on American politics, urban history, civil rights,
and race.
Thomas Sugrue -- A native of Detroit,
Thomas J. Sugrue is David Boies Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He teaches courses on race, civil rights, American cities, and twentieth-century American politics. His many books include "The Origins of the Urban Crisis," which won the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American History and several other awards; "Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North," which was a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Award; and "Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race." His essays, op-eds, and reviews have appeared in The Nation, London Review of Books, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal; and in the Motor City’s Metro Times and Detroit Free Press. Sugrue is an award-winning teacher who has given hundreds of lectures worldwide.
Consultant Tina Barnes will answer key questions about the mobile opportunity: Is mobile considered an advertising medium? What are users doing on mobile devices and how do I target them? When and how do I advertise to mobile users? And most important -- how can I sell it?
Tina Barnes With over 20 years of experience in digital and mobile advertising,
Tina Barnes has become one of Canada’s leading authorities in mobile products and services. She has worked with some of Canada’s leading media and communications companies including Rogers Communications, EastLink and Postmedia Network, as well as a number of mobile solution providers.
Tina also has extensive experience working with small and medium businesses, and is eager to help companies of all shapes and sizes succeed continually evolving digital marketplace.
A hands-on guide to developing ideas with energy, executing them with touch and grabbing eyeballs. Including how it's done at Red Eye and a tour of winning illustration from around the world.
Presented by
The Society for News Design (SND).
Jonathon Berlin is the graphics editor of the Chicago Tribune and the president of the Society for News Design. He has worked at the San Jose Mercury News, Rocky Mountain News and The Times of Northwest Indiana, in addition to the Tribune. He's been a design director and designer, a graphics editor and artist. He's worked days and nights, sports, features and news. He's rolled out Web sites and redesigns. Invented new publications and fixed old ones. He lives in downtown Chicago with his wife, two boys and dog, and he tries to do one marathon a year.
Mike Rich is the art director at Redeye, a sib of the Trib and the official Jersey Shore/Dance Moms paper of record. Since joining the team in 2006 he has designed hundreds of covers, photographed hundreds of bands and been personally told off by Edward Norton. He's a huge fan of delicious sandwiches, biking and biking for delicious sandwiches.
3:30 pm
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5 pm
Author/comedian Baratunde Thurston will keynote the final day of festivities at the 2012 AAN Convention in Detroit.