The National Press Club

Surviving and Thriving in a Changing Industry

The Bootcamp, a day-long career-oriented program, will run from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 18. The cost is $15 for National Press Club members, $50 for non-members. Non-members who attend and become Club members on or before the event can pay the member rate and get their first month's dues free -- a value worth up to $100.

Roy Peter Clark, writing coach at the Poynter Institute, will be the keynote speaker at the 3rd annual Journalism Survival Bootcamp on Saturday, June 18. Clark has taught writing to every kind of student -- from school children to Pulitzer Prize-winning authors -- for more than 30 years. He has spoken about the writer's craft on The Oprah Winfrey Show, NPR and the Today Show.

The event is designed to help reporters and editors stay competitive in this digital age. Speakers include representatives from the Poynter Institute, National Public Radio, Google, AP and more.

The seminar includes tips on subjects from “Navigating the New Media Ecosystem” and “Constructing Content for Online Audiences,” and an in-depth session on the pros and cons of going it alone as a freelancer. There will also be classes on building an online portfolio and using social media in reporting and networking.

The event is sponsored by the Eric Friedheim National Journalism Library, the National Press Club’s non-profit arm. Its mission is to train communications professionals in a changing media environment, provide scholarships to the next generation of journalists, recognize excellence in journalism, and promote a free press, the cornerstone of a free society.

To register, contact Nicole Nottingham at nnottingham@press.org or 202-662-7523.

Schedule of Events
8:30 – 9:00 a.m. Registration and Breakfast

9:00 – 9:15 a.m. Welcome and Introductions
- Rick Dunham, President Eric Friedheim National Journalism Library

9:15 – 10:45 Ten Brilliant Moves That Will Lift Your Writing to the Next Level
Just as great basketball players have moves, so do great writers. Clark has spent the last three decades testing those moves and sharing them with writers everywhere.
- Roy Peter Clark, Poynter Institute Writing Coach

10:45 – 11:00 a.m. Coffee Break

11:00 - 12:15 Small Group Sessions

Social and Search
Panelists will discuss social search and what journalists need to consider in using social search to conduct research and to attract readers to their stories. Learn about new social media tools that are available to journalists, including curation tools, and how those interact with search, both through the major search engines and their own internal search functions.
- Beth Shankle, NPC Director of Research (moderator)
- Vanessa Fox, president of Nine by Blue, who built Google’s Webmaster Central
- Joe Webster, former digital marketing director at the Associated Press and central to AP's move into social media

Navigating the New Media Ecosystem
Learn how to embrace the new Media world to tell stories, build social media communities and promote your work.
- Patrick Cooper – Digital Development, NPR

Building an Online Portfolio
In this day and age, journalists have become a brand that often needs web real estate. More importantly, reporters and editors are looking for simple and easy ways to showcase their work online to help save or boost their career path. A "hands on" session will show journalists – who are content creators and have increasingly sophisticated digital skills, but are not professional computer programmers - various options for getting a website together and leave them with some of the skills needed to get their work online.
- Chris Brown, Director of Digital Strategy at Quinn Gillespie, and former Managing Editor for New Media at FOX TV’s “America’s Most Wanted”
- Keith Jenkins, Senior Multimedia Producer, NPR and Professor of Journalism, Georgetown University

12:30 – 1:30 Networking Lunch – The Freelancers’ Life: How to Make Going It Alone Work
- Karen Thuermer has been freelancing since 1992. She is the previous editor of various magazines, including Global Trade, Development, and Electronic Market Trends.
- Margaret Engel was the managing editor of the Newseum and a reporter for the Washington Post. She is now a successful screenplay writer.

1:45 – 3: 00 Small Group Sessions

Constructing Content for Online Audiences
The publishing medium shouldn’t significantly change the content, but how readers consume information online and how search engines and news aggregators collect and display content is important to consider. Why do some images rank in search engines and other don’t? What meta data is used by search engines? What is important for local stories and local searches? We’ll look at headlines, images, videos, and other page elements and provide best practices for ensuring your content is seen by the widest possible audience.
- Vanessa Fox, president of Nine by Blue, who built Google’s Webmaster Central

Multi-platform Reporting – A Colloquium
It used to be called “convergence journalism.” It once meant integrating web content into traditional reporting and media, including then-newfangled embedded video or audio. But that’s so 2007. Now there are mobile apps requiring content, new data sources requiring knowledge of access and application—all adding to the already dizzying set of arrows in the quiver of the contemporary journalist-producer. Here we’ll discuss reporting across ever-shifting platforms and media, telling stories through images and data, and mastering and managing new production and source tools.
- Nyia Hawkins, Coordinating Producer, AP
- Christopher Chambers, Analyst/Commentator, RTTV/RT America and Professor of Journalism, Georgetown University

3:00 – 4:00 Why Hire a Journalist?
Journalists are nitpickers. They are sticklers for the facts. They like detail. They engage people. They research and write well – in an era when many college graduates seem to come into the workforce without those skills. In short, journalists mine, craft and push content, and content is the currency of our information-rich, digital marketplace. Accordingly, journalism is field of expertise that can only add value when journalists move to another line of work, especially public relations, public policy, investor relations, political and social movement messaging. Most important, journalists these days can work across different media and platforms. Aren’t these the people you want to have around the office?
- Pat McMurray, Quinn Gillespie (moderator)
- Ken Cummins, Capitol Inquiry, Inc and former City Paper writer and editor
- Keith Blackman, Principal Blackman Media Solutions
- W. A. “Bill” Wicker, Communications Director for the Senate Energy Committee