The Online News Association officially launched their new Web site (see right) Monday evening.
If you’re a member with full access, or even a non-member just perusing, you can tell this site is big step forward.
Here are some of the features, as outlined in an e-mail from ONA President Jonathan Dube:
Networking features, including discussion groups that connect members by region and area of interest, giving you the ability to have one-on-one conversations and to chat in real time.
An easy-to-navigate membership directory – searchable by name, type of organization, areas of expertise, and more – enabling you to more easily network with people with common interests.
A Career Center that allows members to post and search job openings.
A new training section with innovative digital presentations tagged by topic, source and medium. This section features videotaped sessions from ONA’s sold-out 2008 annual conference, with tips on the latest techniques in multimedia storytelling from the New York Times, Washington Post, USA TODAY and the BBC, among others.
So why I am blogging about this? Earlier this month I was asked to be the student group discussion leader, a role I enthusiastically accepted.Â
I’ll be posting there a couple times a week in order to start conversations on topics such as classes, cool projects and internships. The group has six members so far, including two pros.Â
If you’re a student interested in online journalism, I highly recommend joining ONA. I joined in April and think ONA is a group often overlooked by student journalists (read about membership benefits).
For only $25 a year, you can’t say no.
One benefit is that you get a heavily discounted conference registration — we’re talking less than half the pro rate.
And if you saw my posts or tweets about this year’s gathering in D.C., you’d see why the experience is so valuable. I went to a number of great sessions, but more important are the connections you make.
With $1 million to help journalism, I would fund a project to look for ways to financially sustain journalism efforts, building off of the New Business Models for News Summit.
I wasn’t at the conference, so I followed it online. It was a great starting point, but we need more Web people involved. And not just Web people, but innovators who have successfully made money online.
Context: Rich Beckman, Knight Chair in visual journalism at the University of Miami, gave a presentation on Nov. 11 about how we should reshape journalism education. He spoke as part of the first Knight Chair Lecture Series.
I shot and edited the video for my multimedia storytelling class with Rich Beckman, Knight Chair in visual journalism. I got a lot of good responses and feedback* from Beckman and my classmates, but I’m still hungry for more.
What did you like? What could have been done better? Please let me know in the comments or by using this nifty contact form.
*A footnote: One of aspect that could be improved is the amount of visual variety; specifically, use fewer basketball clips and show different types of interaction. From the time the project was assigned to when it was due, there was only one opportunity to go with the class to shoot, so I only have them playing basketball.
Even though the assignment is complete, I plan to go back and shoot more footage of Rocmel interacting with his friends and classmates.
