Engaged Journalism Accelerator

Engagement Explained Live - 19 June 2019

Thank you to everyone who took part in Engagement Explained Live.

140 practitioners from more than 20 countries came to sunny Berlin (check out the photos) to share their experiences of community-driven journalism and to build connections with others like them. It was a great success.

If you couldn't make it, we published a blog post with tips and advice for listening and co-creating with your community and a list of slides and resources about engaged journalism that were shared by our speakers on the day. We hope you find them useful.

.....

Over the last year, the Engaged Journalism Accelerator has identified over 100 news organisations in Europe that are putting the communities they serve at the core of their reporting, impact and revenue.

We want to celebrate their efforts and provide a space where community-driven news organisations can showcase their work and share what they have learnt with others following in their path.

Engagement Explained Live, our showcase event in Berlin on 19 June, will focus on two particular themes that have been the basis of our case studies and previous events over the past 10 months: how do we create better ways to listen to the needs of our communities?, and how do we bring people into the process of doing journalism that has impact?

Lightning talks and practical workshops at the event include:

- how to incorporate the skills of your community in your reporting

- how to use creative community events as a catalyst for conversation

- how to produce constructive journalism with and for the community

Check out the draft schedule for the day below, and join us in Berlin to learn from and with engaged journalism practitioners across Europe, and map out opportunities to collaborate on stories and other initiatives.

We’re also offering ten travel allowances for participants of Engagement Explained Live to help with the cost of travel and accommodation.

Update 6 May 2019: The deadline to apply for a travel allowance has passed. Successful and unsuccessful applicants have been notified.

PRACTICAL DETAILS

WHAT: Engagement Explained Live

WHEN: Wed, 19 June 2019 - 09:00

WHERE: Spreespeicher, Stralauer Allee 2, 10245 Berlin, Germany

Getting there

Public transport in Berlin is very reliable and there are numerous train stations in the vicinity of Spreespeicher.

The closest S-Bahn is Warschauer Straße. It is a 25-30 minute journey from Hauptbahnhof, the main train station in the city centre, on the S3, S5, S7 or S9 lines.

Another option is Ostbahnhof, which is a 10 minute journey from Hauptbahnhof followed by a 20-minute walk to the event venue, during which you walk alongside sections of the Berlin Wall.

The (free) Citymapper app is available in Berlin and is helpful if you have an internet connection. There are also many reputable taxi companies well as numerous ride-hailing apps (including Uber and MyTaxi) with a presence in the city.

SCHEDULE

(subject to change)

09:00 - 09:45

Arrival and registration

Coffee and breakfast will be included

09:45 - 10:00

Introductions and welcome (Main space)

Kathryn Geels, director, Engaged Journalism Accelerator; Madalina Ciobanu, project manager, Engaged Journalism Accelerator

10:00 - 10:50

Listening lightning talks (Main space)

Three 10-minute lightning talks and Q&A:

• Catalina Albeanu, digital editor, DoR: Ready to listen – starting your own pop-up newsroom

Your newsroom is probably located in a large city, and, unless you cover only local issues, you’ve wondered at some point how your journalism and events could be more representative of your wider audience. Here's what DoR has learned from 1+ years of organising pop-up experiences

• Rico Grimm, editor-in-chief, Krautreporter: Your community has skills. Here’s how to put them to use

Usually, journalists start to talk to to their audience after they have published a story. But what happens when you talk to people before? Here are some ideas for incorporating listening that fits into every reporter's work cycle.

• Beatriz Lara, membership coordinator, Maldita.es: Developing membership with your users in mind

Users could be the key in finding a project's value proposal: listen to their feedback, use it for growing a community and for making tools, and use their skills for improving your work. Journalists can't know everything!

10:50 - 11:10

Moving time

Stretch your legs, check your emails etc

11:10 - 12:15

Listening workshops

Three sessions running in parallel:
• Ties Gijzel, co-founder, Are We Europe: Collaborating with local experts to design stories with impact (Workshop room 1)

Are We Europe has created a new journalism format, based on an adaptation of the Google Design Sprint methodology often used in technical application building and other start-up development. In this masterclass, they will give you an idea of what can can achieved with this new way of pop-up, pan-European storytelling in journalism.

• Cole Goins, engagement lead, Journalism+Design at The New School: Journalism by design – how deep listening can aid your reporting (Workshop room 2)

How can we tailor our journalism to better understand and meet the information needs of communities we may not be reaching or adequately serving? This workshop will explore how a focus on listening, relationships and design can help make your reporting more potent, relevant and empathetic.

• Amanda Eleftheriades-Sherry, co-founder, Clydesider: Using creative community events as a catalyst for conversation (Workshop room 3)

Not everyone shares a journalist’s love for the written word. In this workshop tap into your inner creativity to find new ways of connecting, communicating and creating with marginalised communities.

11:10 - 12:15

Ask Us Anything (Main space)

Vivian Schiller, CEO of Civil Foundation, will discuss the benefits of being attuned to your community and how Civil's newsroom registry and tools help build trust and sustainability.

12:15 - 13:45

Lunch

Food and refreshments will be provided

13:45 - 14:00

Moving time

Stretch your legs, check your emails etc

14:00 - 14:50

Co-creation lightning talks (Main space)

Three 10-minute lightning talks and Q&A:

• Gwen Martèl, conversation editor, De Correspondent: Creating the culture of community within your news organisation

De Correspondent sees its members not as readers, but as sources whose knowledge and experiences can enrich its journalism. Here's how a conversation editor invites people to share their knowledge.

• Oliver Fuchs, deputy editor-in-chief, Republik: Reader-funded journalism and editorial independence – an inherent tension?

What does it mean to take your members seriously? Depends on the story. Here is what Republik learned about that in its first year.

• Michel Penke, investigative data journalist, Correctiv: Investigative journalism for and with community members

How can we integrate readers into our research? A look at Correctiv's ongoing crowdsourced data project, 'Who owns the city?', which has been carried out in several German cities including Hamburg, Berlin and Düsseldorf.

14:50 - 15:10

Moving time

Stretch your legs, check your emails etc

15:10 - 16:15

Co-creation workshops

Three sessions running in parallel:

• Gerd Maria May, founder, Room of Solutions: Producing constructive journalism with and for the community (Workshop room 1)

How can we tailor our journalism to help people solve their problems and those of their communities? This workshop will explore why and how constructive journalism can include your community in choosing the stories you work on, invite them to be part of the stories, and at the same time give an accurate picture of what is happening in the world.

• Andrea Hart, co-founder, City Bureau: Re-writing a contract with the communities we serve, through the lens of a Chicago-based journalism lab (Workshop room 2)

In this workshop, learn how Chicago-based journalism lab City Bureau is reimagining local news and re-writing a contract WITH the community it serves through two of its programmes: Documenters and the Public Newsroom.

• Paul Myles, head of editorial, On Our Radar: Getting beyond the ‘usual suspects’ and working towards a deeper form of engagement (Workshop room 3)

In this interactive workshop, On Our Radar will invite participants to share the challenges they face in terms of making their journalism more inclusive. They will present a series of frameworks that they’ve used to overcome these barriers, building communities' confidence and capacity for a more inclusive reporting.

15:10 - 16:15

Ask Us Anything (Main space)

Our six representatives of the Accelerator Ambassador Network from across Europe – Ties, Marianna, Catherine, Pierre, Alicja and Anna – will share learnings from their recent meetups, talk about the state of engaged journalism in their countries and solicit ideas for community-focused experiments.