Coronavirus Webinars and Live Events

Journalists are exposed to trauma in unique, generally unacknowledged ways. If you are a journalist working in the context of trauma, including covering natural disasters – such as the Los Angeles wildfires – violence, or ongoing conflicts, you should join this essential webinar on managing your mental health. Focusing on the urgent story at hand and ignoring mental health is a strategy that is effective in the short-term, but not sustainable in the long-term. In this Jan. 28 webinar presented in partnership with NPF and RTDNA, you will learn from trauma expert Gretchen Schmelzer about ways to stay attentive to your mental health during your day-to-day work cycle and especially during a crisis. Gretchen is known for offering research-based, practical, and actionable strategies for leaders who face trauma as a routine part of their jobs. Learn more about her work at the Center for Trauma and Leadership.

In 2001, the federal Department of Health and Human Services required all hospitals to post the prices they charge patients for services. Many, but not all, hospitals have complied with this rule. Still, finding the actual prices that hospitals charge for 300 non-urgent (called “shoppable”) services is challenging if not impossible for most consumers.

That allows journalists to empower consumers by finding and publishing hospital price information and to ensure that hospitals are complying with the now four-year-old federal rule.

During this AHCJ webinar, journalists will learn to gather price information from hospitals and compare prices among multiple hospitals. You’ll hear from a Colorado journalist who put transparency to the test when she was expecting a baby and learn from two experts about tools and resources you can use to find prices.

You’ll walk away with the ability to find out what hospitals charge, including what health insurers will pay hospitals and what consumers can expect to pay out of pocket for each service.

Join the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications for a free online class. The First Amendment guarantees five basic freedoms: freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. These sacred freedoms are not absolute. Obscenity, defamation, bribery, perjury, true threats, child pornography, anti-trust conspiracies, false advertising and solicitation to commit murder are classes of speech that get no First Amendment protection.

During the past one hundred years the courts, federal and state, have wrestled with the clash between free expression on the one hand, and privacy, public safety and national security on the other.

This class is a First Amendment primer for students new to the topic and a great refresher for those whose work or volunteer service involves the Five Freedoms.

Your Instructor:

Gregory V. Sullivan, Esq. is the President of Malloy & Sullivan, Lawyers Professional Corporation and teaches First Amendment Media Law at Suffolk University Law School in Boston.  He serves as the President of the New England First Amendment Coalition and on the New Hampshire Supreme Court Committee on the Judiciary and the Media.  He has argued numerous landmark First Amendment and Right to Know cases before the Supreme Court of New Hampshire.  He is a founding Member of the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications

Business Reporting 101 presented by Alexa Gagosz a Rhode Island-based reporter for the Boston Globe covering business, homelessness, housing, healthcare, and hospitality. She writes the weekly “Innovators Q&A” column and “Rhode Island Food & Dining” newsletter, curates the Food & Dining section, and judged the 2023 James Beard Awards. Alexa has earned numerous awards from the Rhode Island Press Association, including recognition for her investigative reporting on housing, healthcare, and tourism. Her story on a middle-class family’s journey into homelessness led to a new state law banning rental application fees and received multiple accolades, including an Eppy Award. She was named the 2023 Hospitality Ambassador of the Year by the Rhode Island Hospitality Association and received the Housing Network of Rhode Island’s “Housing Elevation Award.”

The 30 Minute Skills program is presented by the New England First Amendment Coalition. The goal of the program is to provide reporters and other citizens with knowledge they can use immediately in newsgathering, data collection, storytelling, and other areas of journalism and First Amendment law.

The lessons are provided in a 30-minute format to accommodate the demanding schedules faced by many working in New England newsrooms. The program is free and open to the public. Registration for each lesson is required.

In this 45-minute hands-on lab, we’ll experiment with prompts in Sora to build lengthy videos that will have some journalistic value. We’ll start building a prompt library for Sora videos and tweak/test them as we build videos. We’ll cover how to post them properly online (YouTube) and disclose the AI use to readers when posting. Participants will be given a handout with links to all the tools and exercises on how to use them. Prior to the session, have an account set up at Sora and have access to a YouTube account if we want to post the videos there afterward.

Anyone is welcome to attend. Tickets are free and the event will be recorded. We will send the recording to everyone who registered after the session, regardless of whether they attended live.

Presenter:
Mike Reilley, Senior Lecturer, University of Illinois-Chicago

Funding for ONA’s AI in Journalism Initiative is generously provided by Microsoft, the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation and The Joyce Foundation. 

With the evolving social media landscape, new platforms like Blue Sky and Threads are emerging as important channels for news distribution and audience engagement. But why should your news organization pay attention to these platforms right now?

In this free webinar, we’ll explore the unique opportunities Blue Sky and Threads offer for newsrooms, including reaching new audiences, diversifying traffic sources, and building community engagement in a post-Twitter world.

Host: David Arkin, CEO of David Arkin Consulting and Emilie Lutostanki, content strategist, David Arkin Consulting

Newsletters remain one of the most powerful tools for driving audience engagement and loyalty, but how do you make yours stand out in an increasingly crowded inbox? In this free webinar, we’ll dive into proven strategies to create newsletters that not only captivate readers but also grow your subscriber base.

Learn how to craft compelling subject lines, optimize content for your audience’s needs, and use personalization to boost open rates and click-throughs. We’ll also explore how to leverage segmentation, automation, and analytics to refine your strategy and keep your readers coming back for more.

Host: David Arkin, CEO of David Arkin Consulting