Online News Association

Update: Membership application accepted.

Submitted an application for the Online News Association today. According to their site:

“The Online News Association was founded in 1999 by several working members of the online press. ONA is open to journalists from around the world who produce news on the Internet and other digital platforms, and to others with an interest in online news”

Seeing that it will be the first professional organization I’ve ever been a part of, I’m pretty excited about that.

Prior to being an actual member, I signed up to be a screener for the 2008 ONA awards. That means I’ll be critiquing some heavy-hitting news Web sites, specifically those entries submitted in the “Investigative Journalism: Large” category. I’m looking forward to learning a few things about integrating site design, user interface and storytelling on the Web.

Winners announced in September. Stay tuned.

‘Hard news is back in style’

So says Martin Merzer, formerly of the Miami Herald, at the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors multimedia workshop in Tampa this past weekend.

In a session about writing online, Merzer said in an on-demand world, those who can write the news straight, accurate and fast are in demand. Hey now.

Training

I’m applying for a multimedia training seminar at the Knight Digital Media Center in Berkeley, Calif. It’s the real deal for learning the tools of the trade and applying them to good storytelling. Can’t hurt to apply, right? Here’s the essay I wrote:

I can’t escape the question of whether or not being a fairly young, jack-of-all trades in the newsroom is a good thing.

In my year in the big leagues, I hope I’ve proven that I can be good at whatever I’m asked to do. On any day, that could be a lot of different things, all related to reporting, writing, recording, photographing and producing news. For the paper and/or the Web.

But I don’t think I’m great at any of them (yet).

That’s why I’m applying for this training. I want to shape online news coverage for the future while holding onto the hallmarks of the past. That means being armed with skills and going far beyond basic knowledge to produce smart, sophisticated and meaningful multimedia.

It’s time to exceed what’s expected of a reporter charged with the upkeep of the newspaper’s breaking news blog. I want to break free of the stigma that only the big stories, or stories that are guaranteed to garner page hits, deserve a multimedia treatment. That’s gonna kill us.

The way I see it, there’s an untapped audience clamoring for good online journalism. Good multimedia will be what convinces an entire generation that’s neglected the traditional newspaper to Start Paying Attention.

And it’s going to take a new generation of journalists to lead the way. I want to be one of them.