The former New York Times digital journalist takes over at the nonprofit beginning March 31.
A new ICFJ survey found, for instance, that people with digital-focused titles like “digital content producer,” “social media editor” or “analytics editor” made up just 18% of newsroom positions.
Irving Washington, the Online News Association’s current deputy director, will succeed Jane McDonnell as the organization’s executive director on Jan. 1, 2017, ONA said today. Washington currently manages logistics for the group’s annual meeting and runs its $1 Million Challenge Fund in Journalism Education, among other initiatives.
Exclusives
The Online News Association has taken its support of the Free Flow of Information Act one step further by hiring lobbyists for the first time in its history. ONA hired Dow Lohnes Government Strategies, a firm that has represented several telecommunications firms, including Cox Enterprises, Qualcomm and the Online Publishers Association.
ONA 13: Data Emerges As Next Big Thing
Video, mobile and native advertising were among the hot topics at the Online News Association’s annual conference in Atlanta this year, but no topic was perhaps as big as data. From Amy Webb’s prognostication that data will go mainstream in the next year and Nate Silver’s exhortations to let data and statistics guide journalism to something closer to the objective truth to the use of user data to drive revenue, data may have been the key takeaway from ONA.
Digital journalism’s data guru Nate Silver, founder of the FiveThirtyEight blog, told attendees at the Online News Association’s annual conference on Friday that they need to get over their fear of statistics and to apply better objectivity when they do use them.
New Habits Push News To Mobile-First
Mobile experts from CNN, NBC’s Breaking News website and The Boston Globe, speaking at the Online News Association’s annual conference on Thursday, had a litany of ground game tips for newsrooms venturing into the mobile space. The panel agreed that adopting a new set of habits is essential to mobile success.
Twitter’s research into how journalists can best grow their followings found that they should be a firehose of information about their beat, use hashtags and @ mentions as much as they can, and share what they’re reading. Twitter announced the findings at the Online News Association’s conference in San Francisco Thursday.
There will be no “future of” panels later this month at the Online News Association’s convention. Instead, the focus will be on digital tools that news organizations and journalists should be embracing at this moment.
