Tag: Professional

ONA: New site for them, new role for me

New ONA site
New ONA site

Tah-dah! Another social network!

The Online News Association officially launched their new Web site (see right) Monday evening.

If you’re a member with full access, or even a non-member just perusing, you can tell this site is big step forward.

Here are some of the features, as outlined in an e-mail from ONA President Jonathan Dube:

  • Networking features, including discussion groups that connect members by region and area of interest, giving you the ability to have one-on-one conversations and to chat in real time.
  • An easy-to-navigate membership directory – searchable by name, type of organization, areas of expertise, and more – enabling you to more easily network with people with common interests.
  • A Career Center that allows members to post and search job openings.
  • A new training section with innovative digital presentations tagged by topic, source and medium. This section features videotaped sessions from ONA’s sold-out 2008 annual conference, with tips on the latest techniques in multimedia storytelling from the New York Times, Washington Post, USA TODAY and the BBC, among others.

So why I am blogging about this? Earlier this month I was asked to be the student group discussion leader, a role I enthusiastically accepted. 

I’ll be posting there a couple times a week in order to start conversations on topics such as classes, cool projects and internships. The group has six members so far, including two pros. 

If you’re a student ONA member, please join us!

If you’re a student interested in online journalism, I highly recommend joining ONA. I joined in April and think ONA is a group often overlooked by student journalists (read about membership benefits).

For only $25 a year, you can’t say no.

One benefit is that you get a heavily discounted conference registration — we’re talking less than half the pro rate.

And if you saw my posts or tweets about this year’s gathering in D.C., you’d see why the experience is so valuable. I went to a number of great sessions, but more important are the connections you make.

NETWORKING IS KEY! (see No. 8)

As someone in the midst of an internship – and soon job – search, I can’t emphasize that enough.