Meet the social team:

April Bethea | @AprilBethea

April is a homepage producer at The Washington Post, which she joined in February. Before that, she wore many hats (including reporter and web producer) at The Charlotte Observer. She’s excited to be back on the social team for a second conference.

Catherine Cloutier | @cmcloutier

Catherine is an associate editor at Google Play Newsstand and co-organizer of the ONA Boston group. Her current obsessions include long reads, long strolls, and short — but informative — push notifications.

Meena Ganesan | @MeenaGanesan

Meena is an editorial producer for the live events team at The Washington Post, where she develops stories and segments for the stage and the live stream. Previously, she covered the 2012 election for the PBS NewsHour’s politics division. Meena, who hails from Anchorage, Alaska, studied multimedia journalism in Boston at Emerson College.

Luis Gomez | @RunGomez

Luis is a public engagement editor at the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Opinions and Ideas section. He’s the editor/publisher of the CA//MEDIA//JOBS weekly newsletter for journalism job seekers in California. He mostly tweets about news, politics and his dog, Charlie.

Lauren Katz | @Laur_Katz

Lauren is a social media manager for Vox. Previously, she worked on the social teams for Google Glass and NPR. She believes you miss 100 percent of the likes on the tweets you don’t send. When Lauren is not staring at a screen, she’s biking around Washington, D.C., discovering the best spots for her gluten-free blog.

Alex Laughlin | @alexlaughs

Alex is a social editor for The Washington Post, where she (wo)mans the main Facebook and Twitter accounts. She is also the co-founder and moderator of Pay Up, a Slack-based community dedicated to fostering conversations about the gender wage gap. Outside of work, she is the host and producer of The Ladycast, a podcast where she interviews women about their lives and careers. She graduated from the University of Georgia, where she co-founded the ONA at UGA student group in 2013.

Adrian Lee | @AdrianKLee

Adrian is a Toronto-based digital editor and arts critic at Maclean’s, Canada’s national magazine. He has a combined honors degree in journalism and philosophy, because he thought the journalism degree was way too practical and wealth-generating on its own. If you want to argue about Drake, he’s your man.

Ross Maghielse | @Maghielse

Ross is an audience development and engagement editor for The Guardian in the U.S. In previous roles, he’s worked as a social strategy manager, reporter and copy editor at both legacy and new media organizations. Originally from Michigan, currently in New York.

Ron Nurwisah | @boyreporter

Ron is an audience growth manager and social media editor with the Huffington Post Canada. He can be found running around Toronto.

Jessica Plautz | @jessicaplautz

Jessica is the Digital News Editor at Travel + Leisure. She is an experienced digital journalist who previously worked at Mashable, the Institute for Nonprofit News and KPBS San Diego.

Jillian Sederholm | @JillianSed

Jillian is social media editor at NBC News, where she divides her time between overseeing social strategy and stalking the cast of SNL in the halls of 30 Rock. She previously worked as a breaking news editor at Project Thunderdome and social media editor at Newsday Westchester. You’ll be able to recognize her by all the purple.

Katie Yaeger | @KatieYaeger

Katie is a master’s student at the Missouri School of Journalism who is interested in media innovation, especially in audience engagement, strategy and business models. She’s most recently worked at Facebook, the American Press Institute and the Reynolds Journalism Institute. Being from Atlanta, the home of Coca-Cola, she refuses to drink Pepsi.

Karen Workman | @KarenWorkman

Karen is a Senior Staff Editor for The New York Times. She came to New York from Michigan and has been hanging around newsrooms since she was a teenager. She resides in Brooklyn, which she loves dearly despite not being any good at the hipster thing. She is the social team volunteer chair for ONA16.

Jennifer Mizgata | @JMizgata

Jennifer is the only member of the team who is not a volunteer. She leads communications and social media strategy for the Online News Association and organizes events and trainings for ONA. She lives in Baltimore and works out of D.C., which is a totally reasonable thing to do and gives her access to all of the best things in both places.

Joining in conversation with Andy, who serves as reported.ly’s Editor-In-Chief, are Deputy Managing Editor — and ONA Board member — P. Kim Bui; Anchor/Reporter Wendy Carrillo; Anchor/Producer Asteris Masouras, and Social Journalist Marina Petrillo. On Sept. 17, they will sit down with moderator Mathew Ingram, Senior Writer at Fortune, for an inside look into how they created an innovative social news operation with a small team, and next steps as they part ways with First Look Media.

Unique and experimental in its focus, structure and revenue stream, the two-year-old operation uses social media platforms as a home for real-time news reporting and live fact-checking, with a team of reporters based in Europe, North America and Asia. The project was created with seemingly deep-pocket support from billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar as part of his First Look Media. But, after garnering enviable sources, a loyal audience and acclaim, reported.ly is suspending operations on Aug. 31.

This keynote will offer a candid look into many of the issues newsrooms across the world are dealing with today, including how to create a responsive and accurate social team to cover breaking news, how to support distributed teams and how to fund social news operations.

More on the panelists:

Andy Carvin is Editor-In-Chief and founder of reported.ly. He joined First Look Media in February 2014 after spending seven years running social media at NPR. An online community organizer since 1994, Andy has been coordinating online communities on topics ranging from Internet policy to education to Hurricane Katrina. In 2001, he created SEPT11INFO, one of the very first online communities developed to respond to a breaking news event in real time. While at NPR, Andy spent two years embedded within social media communities to cover the Arab Spring, for which he was nominated to TIME magazine’s annual TIME 100 list. He is a recipient of the Knight Batten Award, the Shorty Award for best journalist on Twitter and co-recipient of the Peabody Award for his work with NPR’s online team.

P. Kim Bui is reported.ly’s Deputy Managing Editor. She’s also an adjunct instructor at the University of Southern California and co-founder of #wjchat, a weekly Twitter chat for web journalists. Previously, she worked at Digital First Media on the Breaking News team. She has also worked on mobile projects for KPCC, bridging the gap between the editorial side and the technologists. She has focused on new storytelling techniques and technologies that allow readers, users, listeners and audience members to consume media better and in their preferred setting.

Wendy Carrillo is a radio veteran with 10+ years experience. Wendy was the host and executive producer of “Knowledge is Power” on KPWR Los Angeles, a radio news magazine show, integrating social networks to crowdsource and curate show topics and conversations. Wendy is a regular contributor to various online and TV news networks and has hosted discussions on race, identity and politics for public radio and various town halls.

Asteris Masouras is a reported.ly Anchor/Producer, and a social justice and human rights advocate from Thessaloniki, Greece. He has been curating global breaking news on Twitter since 2007, following stories ranging from protest movements and conflicts around the globe, to the refugee crisis and digital rights activism.

Marina Petrillo is a social journalist, author, blogger and radio broadcaster, and has been part of reported.ly since 2015. From 2012 to 2014 she was editor-in-chief of Italy’s largest community radio, Radio Popolare, where she worked for many years. She worked for Italian state radio and teaches nonfiction and digital storytelling at Alessandro Baricco’s Scuola Holden. In 2011, The Independent called her Twitter profile @alaskaHQ “one of the most influential for world news.”

Mathew Ingram is a senior writer at Fortune, where he writes about the intersection between media and the internet.

Register now to join us for this important conversation at ONA16, which will bring together journalists, technologists, educators and students in Denver for three days of programming exploring the most forward-thinking trends in the news industry. ONA members save more than $300 off of the cost of registration and ONA offers discounts on groups of 10 or more.

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 Thursday, September 15.

The best part about lightning talks is that they are exciting, fast,  invigorating and full of good ideas.

Here’s what you do:

1. Figure out what you want to talk about.  (A highlight reel on a great project, your side hustle that no one knows about yet, a love letter to your favorite beat … the sky’s the limit, as long as you’re PASSIONATE about it).
2. Pitch your idea to the ONA16 Lightning Talks.
3. Convince your friends and other conference attendees to vote for your session. You can use #ONA16lt to join the conversation on social or our main conference hashtag, #ONA16.
4. Vote for your own session and other lightning talks you want to see. Voting takes place at the conference on Friday.
5. When you win, (as you will since you will have submitted an exciting idea that you are passionate about and people are fascinated by),  prep your lightning talk! Keep it under five minutes and get to the point quickly! No need for lots of background — explain your idea as quickly as possible. If you make a presentation, use it to show the audience good examples and great jokes. Don’t create a slide deck of every word you are going to say. We can’t read that fast.
6. Give your awesome lighting talk in front of ONA16 attendees on Saturday, Sept. 17 from 4 – 5 p.m., after our Saturday keynote and before the Online Journalism Awards banquet!

If you’re curious about an emerging trend, want to know more about a topic or are hoping that speakers will dig into a specific issue during their sessions, now’s your chance to post a question.

We’ve embedded question forms on the session pages. To see them, just click on a session from the schedule and you can post your question directly on the ONA16 site. We’ve created hashtags for each session, so you can keep the conversation going on social media, too.

For example, if this is your first time attending the conference and you are curious about what to expect, how to plan your day, or what sessions are a can’t-miss, just ask the speakers leading the first-timer orientation a question.

We’re looking forward to seeing your questions!

Fidji and Samantha will join more than 2,000 attendees Thursday, Sept. 15, at ONA16 in Denver for a candid look into product development at one of the world’s largest and best-known tech companies and how their products impact media. The conversation will focus on the new opportunities — and challenges — for publishers based on the new features and products that Facebook has released in the past 16 months.

Facebook is the largest multimedia platform on the planet, with more than one billion users per day. In 2016 alone, the company introduced Facebook Live, opened up Instant Articles to newsrooms of all sizes and made adjustments to the Facebook algorithm that impact publishers. Fidji and Samantha will discuss each of these updates, as well as how each decision Facebook makes now has an even more profound effect on news publishers and how communities receive and interact with news.

“This year, as audience appetite for news on social media platforms explodes, we’ve seen Facebook’s media role expand to everything from live, fast-breaking news events to politics and culture,” said ONA Executive Director Jane McDonnell. “We hope this crucial conversation will give journalists a long-awaited inside view into the company’s decision-making process and products.”

Fidji Simo is a Director of Product who leads the product teams in charge of Media (Video, News, Influencers) and Advertising in News Feed. Most recently, she launched Live videos, videos and video ads that autoplay in News Feed, and Instant Articles. She was also in charge of simplifying Facebook’s ad product suite from 27 ad formats to only seven. Fidji joined Facebook from eBay. There, she was part of the Strategy group and rotated through eBay’s main offices of France, Spain and the U.S., then joined eBay’s incubation team to develop new growth businesses. She holds a Master of Management from HEC Paris and spent the last year of her Master program at UCLA Anderson School of Business.

CNN Digital Rebranding 2014
Samantha Barry

Samantha Barry serves as CNN’s head of social media and senior director of social news, managing the company’s global social media teams. Her teams span social publishing, news-gathering, digital and TV and are responsible for the largest social accounts of any news brand in the world. The path from Ireland to the United States has been a global one for Samantha, who, after stints in RTE and Newstalk, traveled the world working for ABC Australia and the U.S. State Department, training young journalists in creating content for social media platforms, before taking a role at BBC World News in London. Samantha is also currently a Sulzberger Fellow at Columbia University and a guest lecturer at Yale.

Register now to join us for this important conversation at ONA16, which will bring together journalists, technologists, educators and students in Denver for three days of programming exploring the most forward-thinking trends in the news industry. ONA members save more than $300 off of the cost of registration and ONA offers discounts on groups of 10 or more.

The Online News Association is the world’s largest association of digital journalists. ONA’s mission is to inspire innovation and excellence among journalists to better serve the public. The membership includes news writers, producers, designers, editors, bloggers, developers, photographers, educators, students and others who produce news for and support digital delivery systems. ONA hosts the annual Online News Association conference and administers the Online Journalism Awards.

On Thursday, Sept. 15, attendees are invited to a fireside chat with Fidji Simo, Facebook’s Director of Product and CNN’s Senior Director of Social News Samantha Barry, an incisive leader whose background ranges from training journalists around the world on creating social content for various platforms to making strategic decisions about when and how to use Facebook to support CNN’s news coverage.

Facebook is the largest multimedia platform on the planet, with more than one billion users per day. Its reach alone makes the company’s influence on digital news and content distribution difficult to overstate. Add to that an astonishing number of features and products released over the last 16 months, all of which introduced fascinating news opportunities for publishers.

While the potential reach of these products is groundbreaking, each major decision Facebook makes now has a profound impact on how communities receive and interact with news — and not every decision favors news publishers.

To name just a few developments this year:

• Facebook Live, essentially a live streaming platform for mobile phones, was launched. While its core is similar in functionality to Meerkat and Periscope, the sheer size of Facebook’s audience made it instant competition. The launch also included a map to explore public broadcasts happening around the world.
• An adjustment to the algorithm powering News Feed promotes updates from friends and family over publishers’ content.
• The company shut down Paper, its eye-catching news-reading app.
• Instant Articles, a product designed to host media content and make articles load faster and appear more fully integrated into News Feed’s design, is made available to all publishers.

Our conversation will touch on all things product, allowing ONA16 attendees to gain critical insights into how decisions are made. We’ll also discuss how Facebook continues to evolve its offerings and the impact those choices will have on publishers.

Fidji Simo is a Director of Product who leads the product teams in charge of Media (Video, News, Influencers) and Advertising in News Feed. Most recently, she launched Live videos, videos and video ads that autoplay in News Feed, and Instant Articles. She was also in charge of simplifying Facebook’s ad product suite from 27 ad formats to only 7. Fidji joined Facebook from eBay. There, she was part of the Strategy group and rotated through eBay’s main offices of France, Spain and the US, then joined eBay’s incubation team to develop new growth businesses. She holds a Master of Management from HEC Paris and spent the last year of her Master program at UCLA Anderson School of Business.

Samantha Barry serves as CNN’s head of social media and senior director of social news, managing the company’s global social media teams. Her teams span social publishing, news-gathering, digital and TV and are responsible for the largest social accounts of any news brand in the world. The path from Ireland to the US has been a global one for Samantha, who, after stints in RTE and Newstalk, travelled the world working for ABC Australia and the US State Department, training young journalists in creating content for social media platforms, before taking a role at BBC World News in London. Samantha is also currently a Sulzberger Fellow at Columbia University and a guest-lecturer at Yale.

The ONA16 mobile app is generously supported by Tegna Foundation.

Quick Guide

1. Download the “Grenadine Event Guide” app on iOS or Android.
2. Enter code ONA16 to get started.
3. From the welcome page, tap the menu icon in the upper left-hand corner and you’re on your way!

Need more detail? We’ve provided a comprehensive walk-through below.

If you downloaded the app last year, you’ll just need to do a quick update. Go to the hamburger menu, then select “options”, then “switch conference”, where you then fill in this year’s ONA16 code.

Getting the App

For ONA16, we are using the Grenadine Event Guide, available for both iOS and Android.

Or you can search your app store of choice for “Grenadine Event Guide.” The app will look something like this:

Getting Started

Once you’ve downloaded the app, it will prompt you for an event code. The code is simply ONA16. Then you can download your guide.

You’ll see a welcome page. In the upper left-hand corner, you’ll see a menu icon, which you can tap.

In the menu, you can select “Schedule.”

From there, you can navigate to any day of the conference and scroll through the list of sessions.

Build Your Own Schedule

If you want to add a session to your personal program, just tap on the “plus” icon.

To find your program, tap on the menu icon in the upper left-hand corner as before, and you’ll see “My Program.” Tap, and you should have a list of all of your favorite sessions.

Updates and Troubleshooting

The app will always have the latest changes reflected, so we recommend refreshing early and often. Simply pull down to refresh on the schedule page and any updates will be added to your schedule, along with handy “updated” flag to show you which events have had changes.

Suspect something isn’t correct? Grenadine has a helpful feature that allows you to reload the guide without losing your customized schedule.

First, click on the menu button in the upper left-hand corner.

Next, click on “Options”

Next, click “Reload guide”

The guide should repopulate with new information for you.

Need to replace your ONA15 guide?

Some of our most loyal community members  have the ONA15 guide loaded, and have asked how to replace it with the ONA16 guide.

First, click on the “menu” button in the upper left-hand corner.

Next, click on “Options.”

Finally, click on “Switch Conference Guide.” You’ll be prompted to entire a new code, which is ONA16.

Every year, some of the smartest people in digital journalism gather at the Online News Association’s annual conference.

And every year since 2009, we have given those people the chance to take the conference into their own hands with the unconference.

So, what IS the unconference? Easy: Attendees get the chance to pitch what they think should be a part of this year’s discussion. Maybe we’ll sit in a circle and talk about what we love besides journalism. Maybe we’ll consider how design thinking applies to our daily tasks. Maybe we’ll just get to meet the people we follow on Twitter.

That’s the beauty of the unconference: It can be anything we want it to be.

So how does it work? You (yes, you) can start pitching your session ideas on Thursday, Aug. 18 on our Tumblr site. Keep the pitches coming through the first day of the conference, Thursday, Sept. 15. We’ll post all the pitches we receive on this site.

On Friday, Sept. 16, you’ll see Team Uncon roaming the conference corridors, asking you to vote (please vote!). We’ll then tally the votes on Friday night and announce which sessions will be included on Saturday, Sept. 16.

Come Saturday, if your session was selected, you’re on! You’ll have one of the following time slots:

• 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (two sessions)
• 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. (three sessions)

A couple caveats: The opportunity to lead a session is intended for people who are already attending the conference. They’re also meant to be about journalism, not a platform for companies to sell their products.

Beyond that, the rules are up to you. Do you want to host a workshop? Do you want to put together your dream panel? Do you want to take a break and not think about “the future of journalism” for an hour? Let’s do it. Let’s uncon.

Any questions? Contact us at onaunconference@gmail.com.

Happy brainstorming!

Get Started

Jessica Estepa is a Senior Digital Producer at National Geographic Partners. She has been involved with ONA since 2009, starting with the student newsroom and now as the team captain of the unconference track for the past six years and as an organizer of the #ONADC chapter. A recovering congressional and federal government reporter, she likes waffles and news.

The project, called Journalism 360, will use grants, workshops, webinars and online resources to support a network of journalists using 360 video, augmented and virtual reality for storytelling. Two immersive storytelling pioneers, Mitch Gelman, chief technology officer of the Newseum, and Sarah Hill, chief executive officer and chief storyteller of Story Up VR, will lead efforts for the online resource hub. ONA will work with Google and Knight to build an international network of journalists focused on sharing ideas and best practices through live events, training and workshops.

Over the next year, Knight and Google News Lab will invest a combined $500,000 for the following:

• In-depth Content: On Medium, Journalism 360 will host a range of case studies, explainers and analyses on subjects such as narrative techniques, editing video, ethics and more;

• Learning: Online and in-person workshops, events and trainings to encourage more journalists, journalism educators and newsrooms to use tools available from various technology platforms to explore emerging forms of visual storytelling and to engage users;

• Funding: In 2017, Knight and Google will launch an immersive storytelling challenge fund that will award grants ranging from $5,000 to $35,000 for great ideas that will advance the collective understanding of these new forms including narratives, ethics, production and other issues. More details on how to apply for grants will be available soon.

“We’ve heard from journalists around the globe that there is a huge need for this type of knowledge sharing. We’re thrilled to partner with Knight, Online News Association and so many wonderful industry pioneers to bring journalists together to share ideas and experiences in this new field of immersive storytelling,” said Erica Anderson, partnerships manager, Google News Lab.

ONA Executive Director Jane McDonnell announced the Journalism 360 project at the organization’s annual conference in Denver.

“The ONA community prides itself on being early adopters and experimenters, so we are delighted to work with our long-time partners to offer valuable help around this technology, which has already shown incredible potential for deeper journalism,” McDonnell said.

Jennifer Preston, vice president for journalism at Knight Foundation, said the project will address many of the challenges and opportunities identified in a Knight report on virtual reality and journalism that was released at the annual SXSW conference earlier this year.

“By supporting a network of journalists committed to experimenting in immersive storytelling and sharing what they have learned, we can determine how best to support the use of these emerging technology platforms for journalism,” Preston said.

In December 2015, Knight Foundation supported a project with Frontline and Emblematic’s Nonny de la Peña to document best practices in the use of virtual reality for journalism. Knight also recently awarded a grant to University of Southern California journalism professor Robert Hernandez for his students to experiment with virtual reality storytelling in the classroom.

Funding for Journalism 360 is part of Knight Foundation’s efforts to advance the practice of journalistic excellence through experimentation, innovation and leadership. Knight also announced support to the University of Oregon this week to create a new community of practice platform to share lessons in engaged journalism.

To learn more about the project please visit: http://kng.ht/journalism360.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.

About ONA
The Online News Association is the world’s largest association of online journalists. ONA’s mission is to inspire innovation and excellence among journalists to better serve the public. The membership includes news writers, producers, designers, editors, bloggers, technologists, photographers, academics, students and others who produce and distribute news for digital delivery systems. ONA also hosts the annual Online News Association annual conference and administers the Online Journalism Awards.

Twelve of the awards now come with $53,500 in prize money, courtesy of Knight Foundation, the Gannett Foundation and the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. These awards honor data journalism, visual digital storytelling, investigative journalism, public service, technical innovation, student journalism and general excellence.

This year’s awards reflect a deeper consideration of how newsrooms engage their audiences, focusing on the emerging prevalence of new digital tools, distribution channels and content platforms. The second James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting will again honor one of the many journalists reporting under the most challenging conditions; a special committee will select the recipient.

“The range of this year’s finalists is truly remarkable,” said David Smydra, ONA Board member and Online Journalism Awards Committee Chair. “In so many respects — newsroom size, geography, subject matter, platform, technology, storytelling techniques and more — judges were extremely impressed by the full scope and achievements of digital journalists across the industry.”

A group of 76 industry-leading journalists and new media professionals teamed up to screen 1,029 entries and select semi-finalists. Twenty judges representing a diverse cross-section of the industry then conferred to determine finalists and winners.

The winners will be announced at the 2016 ONA Conference and Online Journalism Awards Banquet on Saturday, Sept. 17, in Denver.

The finalists, many of whom push the envelope of innovation and excellence in digital storytelling and distribution, are:

Breaking News, Medium

• San Bernardino Terrorist Attack, The Sun (San Bernardino) & Southern California News Group
• An Occupation in Eastern Oregon, OPB – Oregon Public Broadcasting
• Emanuel AME Church Killings, The Post and Courier

Breaking News, Large

• Paris Terrorist Attacks, CNN
• San Bernardino Terrorist Attack, Los Angeles Times
• Paris Attacks, The New York Times

Breaking News, Small

No finalists

Planned News/Events, Small

• Campaign 2016: The Candidates & the World, Council on Foreign Relations
• The New Hampshire Primary,  NHPR – New Hampshire Public Radio

Planned News/Events, Medium

• One Year in Ferguson, St. Louis Public Radio
• For Peshawar, The Express Tribune

Planned News/Events, Large

• US Election Primaries, The Guardian US
• The Election, The New York Times

Explanatory Reporting, Small

• Pulp Fiction, Climate Central
• Video Explainers, Grist
• The Population Bomb?, Retro Report
• Unequal Risk, The Center for Public Integrity

Explanatory Reporting, Medium

• The Circuit: Tracking America’s Electronic Waste, KCTS9, OPB – Oregon Public Broadcasting and EarthFix
• Killing the Colorado, ProPublica and Matter
• Shocking Force, The Baltimore Sun
• The Price of Admission, The Texas Tribune and REVEAL, from the Center for Investigative Reporting
• How The Iowa Democratic Caucus Works, Featuring Legos, Vermont Public Radio

Explanatory Reporting, Large

• What Is Code?, Bloomberg Businessweek, Bloomberg Digital
• The Upshot, Inequality, The New York Times
• 2050 Demographics, The Wall Street Journal
• America’s Great Housing Divide, The Washington Post
• An Exploration Into Medical Errors, Vox.com

Topical Reporting, Small

• Hawaii Behind Bars, Honolulu Civil Beat
• God & Governing: How Texas Legislators’ Religious Beliefs Guide Their Lawmaking, The Texas Tribune

Topical Reporting, Medium

• Reliving Agent Orange, ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot
• Violence in Baltimore, The Baltimore Sun
• Student Voices in a Tumultuous Year, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Topical Reporting, Large

• #OscarsSoWhite, Los Angeles Times
• Missing and Murdered, The Globe and Mail
• The County, The Guardian US

Online Commentary

• Boston Globe Ideas, The Boston Globe
• The Real Miss America, Mashable
• A Conversation on Race, The New York Times

Sports, Small

• Blood and Sport, Retro Report
• Disqualified After Concussions, College Football Players Recruited Back Onto the Field, STAT

Sports, Medium

• Going For Eleven: UConn Women Win The 2016 NCAA Tournament, Hartford Courant
• Becoming Royal, The Kansas City Star – McClatchy

Sports, Large

• BBC Winners – Silvana Lima, BBC World Service
• Sports Visualization, The New York Times

Feature, Small

• The Harbor: This Waianae Homeless Camp Is Not What You’d Expect, Honolulu Civil Beat
• The Doctor, The Atavist Magazine

Feature, Medium

• Inheritance, FRONTLINE
• Unsettled Journeys, The Baltimore Sun
• The Downloaders, Verdens Gang

Feature, Large

• Cosby: The Women, New York Magazine
• The Life and Times of Strider Wolf, The Boston Globe
• Ground Water, The Desert Sun and USA TODAY
• Taken Hostage, The Wall Street Journal

The David Teeuwen Student Journalism Award, Small

• Chasing Lithium, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
• The Wait: Inside the Lives of Asylum Seekers in Germany, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
• Transplanted: How Undocumented Immigrants With Terminal Kidney Failure Fight To Navigate a Health Care System That Doesn’t Acknowledge They Exist, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

The David Teeuwen Student Journalism Award, Large

• NYC Values, NYU Journalism, Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute
• This is a Canadian Issue: Reflecting on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, Ryerson University, School of Journalism
• Bordering on the American Dream, Texas Christian University
• All My Intimate Relations: Stories of Indigenous Sexuality, UBC Graduate School of Journalism

Pro-Am Student Award

• America’s Weed Rush, Carnegie-Knight News21 Initiative, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University
• Bridging Selma, Morgan State University School of Global Journalism and Communication and West Virginia University Reed College of Media
• Return to Chernobyl, NYU Journalism – Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and FRONTLINE
• Out of the Shadows, UBC Graduate School of Journalism

The University of Florida Award for Investigative Data Journalism, Small/Medium

• Surgeon Scorecard, ProPublica
• The Drone Papers, The Intercept

The University of Florida Award for Investigative Data Journalism, Large

• The Tennis Racket, BuzzFeed and the BBC
• What Went Wrong in Flint, FivethirtyEight.com
• Focus on Force: An Investigation In Use of Force by the Orlando Police Department, Orlando Sentinel
• Failure Factories, Tampa Bay Times
• The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election, The New York Times

Excellence and Innovation in Visual Digital Storytelling, Small

• “Permission to Exterminate” Terror in Central Asia, Coda Story
• Asunción 360, DIVE
• Undercurrent, School of Media and Journalism, University of North Carolina
• Fatal Extraction: Australian Mining in Africa, The Center for Public Integrity and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

Excellence and Innovation in Visual Digital Storytelling, Medium

• Casualties of the Streets, Austin American-Statesman
• Virtual Reality, FRONTLINE

Excellence and Innovation in Visual Digital Storytelling, Large

• The Yellowstone Issue, National Geographic
• Buying Democracy, Newsy
• 6×9: A Virtual Experience of Solitary Confinement, The Guardian and The Mill
• Homan Square: An Interactive Portrait of Chicago’s Detainees, The Guardian US
• Visual Digital Storytelling from The Wall Street Journal, The Wall Street Journal

Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism

• Nearby Tipping, Breaking News
• Atlas, Quartz
• Shorthand, Shorthand
• ArchieML, The New York Times
• Autotune, Vox Media

The Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award, Small

• Exxon: The Road Not Taken, InsideClimate News
• Civilian Deaths in Yemen: A Social Media Investigation, reported.ly
• The Mastermind, The Atavist Magazine

The Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award, Medium

• The Color of Debt, ProPublica
• Officer Involved, Southern California Public Radio (KPCC)
• Pesticides in Pot, The Oregonian/OregonLive

The Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award, Large

• Amazon Doesn’t Consider the Race of Its Customers. Should It?, Bloomberg News
• Red Cross, ProPublica and NPR
• Insane. Invisible. In Danger., Sarasota Herald-Tribune/Tampa Bay Times
• The Panama Papers: Politicians, Criminals and the Rogue Industry That Hides Their Cash, The Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 media organizations
• Homan Square, The Guardian US

Knight Award for Public Service

• A Matter of Dignity, Star Tribune
• Clash in the Name of Care, The Boston Globe
• Prisons Reporting, The Huffington Post
• Nuisance Abatement, The New York Daily News and ProPublica

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Small

• De Correspondent, decorrespondent.nl
• KBIA, kbia.org
• The Intercept, theintercept.com
• The Texas Tribune, texastribune.org
• The Trace, thetrace.org

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Medium

• FRONTLINE, pbs.org
• Le Temps, letemps.ch
• ProPublica, propublica.org
• Quartz, qz.com

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Large

• AJ+ Digital News Publishing, ajplus.net
• Bloomberg News, bloomberg.com
• The Huffington Post’s Highline, highline.huffingtonpost.com
• The New York Times, nytimes.com
• Vox, vox.com

The judges for finalists were:

• Matt Carroll, Future of News, MIT Media Lab
• Katelin Chow, Digital Journalist, NPR Code Switch
• Jenn Chang Crandall, Artist-in-Residence, Alabama Media Group
• Kenan Davis, Head of Interactive, Guardian US
• Meghann Farnsworth, Engagement Editor, Recode
• Priya Ganapati, Product Director, Quartz
• Mónica Guzmán, Seattle-based journalist & 2016 Nieman Fellow
• Joshua Hatch, Assistant Managing Editor, Data and Interactives, The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Chronicle of Philanthropy
• Robert Hernandez, Associate Professor of Professional Practice, USC Annenberg School of Journalism
• Liz Heron, Executive Editor, Huffington Post
• Rich Jaroslovsky, Vice President for Content, SmartNews, Inc.
• S. Mitra Kalita, VP Programming, CNN
• Martin Kotynek, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, ZEIT ONLINE
• Jacqui Maher, Interactive Journalist, BBC News Labs
• Miguel Paz, distinguished lecturer in Data Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, founder of Poderopedia
• Rhyne Piggott, Assistant Professor of Journalism, Middle Tennessee State University.
• Robert Quigley, Innovation Director and Senior Lecturer, University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism
• Nabil Wakim, Director, Editorial Innovation, Le Monde
• Sisi Wei, News Applications Developer, ProPublica
• Anita Zielina, Editor-in-Chief New Products, NZZ, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung

*Judges were recused from discussing categories in which their own organizations were entered.

Launched in 2000, the OJAs are the only comprehensive set of journalism prizes honoring excellence in digital journalism.

About ONA
The Online News Association is the world’s largest association of online journalists. ONA’s mission is to inspire innovation and excellence among journalists to better serve the public. The membership includes news writers, producers, designers, editors, bloggers, technologists, photographers, academics, students and others who produce and distribute news for digital delivery systems. ONA also hosts the annual Online News Association annual conference and administers the Online Journalism Awards.

About Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit knightfoundation.org

About the Gannett Foundation
The Gannett Foundation is a corporate foundation sponsored by Gannett Co., Inc. whose mission is to invest in the future of the communities in which Gannett does business, and in the future of our industry. It supports projects that take a creative approach to fundamental issues such as education and neighborhood improvement, economic development, youth development, community problem-solving, assistance to disadvantaged people, environmental conservation and cultural enrichment.

About the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications
The University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications is driving innovation and engagement across the disciplines of advertising, journalism, public relations and telecommunication. The strength of its programs, faculty, students and alumni — in research and in practice — has earned the college ongoing recognition as one of the best in the nation among its peers. The college offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees and certificates, both online and on campus. The college’s strength is drawn from both academic rigor and experiential learning. The college includes seven broadcast and digital media properties and the nation’s only chair in public interest communications.