Confronting Journalism's Poverty Problem (ONA18 Conference Recap/Follow-up)

One of the most important sessions at ONA's recent annual conference dealt with journalism's role in our national conversation about poverty and inequality, and its responsibility to serve the estimated 40 million Americans living in poverty as well as the one-third of Americans living on the threshold of it.

The shortcomings and challenges that our profession faces in covering poverty and serving the needs of audiences in those circumstances has additional implications for socioeconomic diversity in newsrooms and the politics and polarization of our nation.

Please join ONA/SF and the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University for an enlightening conversation with Heather Bryant about journalism's poverty problem and the strategies and tools that she and others have spearheaded for addressing it.

Pizza and beverages will be provided.

SCHEDULE:

6:30pm: Doors open.
7:15pm (sharp!): Conversation with Heather begins.
8:30pm: Program ends. Informal mingling.
9:00pm: Doors close.

SPEAKER BIOS:

Heather Bryant is the founder of Project Facet, an open source software platform that helps newsrooms manage the collaborative editorial process. As a journalist and software developer she is focused on the intersection between journalism and technology and class. In 2016, she was a JSK Journalism Fellow at Stanford where she explored collaborative journalism. She also researches and writes about the intersection of journalism and poverty.

Heather will be in conversation with Ernie Ting, a co-organizer of ONA/SF.

Ernie Ting is the founder/CEO of CivImpact Labs, a venture that helps journalists discover more effective ways to inform the public about civic issues in a world of growing misinformation and political polarization. He is also a former senior policy advisor to federal and California state officials and administrator of local health and social safety net programs.