ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (June 14, 2018) – The Poynter Institute, a global leader in journalism, is pleased to announce the media organizations selected for its fourth annual Media Innovation Tour of Washington D.C. and New York City from Nov. 11 through Nov. 16.
Poynter’s tour will return to The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Quartz, The Associated Press, Chartbeat, and the Pew Research Center and include new stops at Twitter, Chalkbeat, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic and Politico.
“When you can go to these places, and meet people face-to-face, you start to get a handle on not just the ideas, but the cultural dynamics that either build the idea or defeat the idea,” Poynter president Neil Brown said. “I was a participant on the tour before coming to Poynter, so I’m an organic believer in it. The honesty and candor the small group size allows is incredibly valuable. I’m still learning from the innovations I saw three years ago.”
Click here to see the full tour schedule and session information.
Exclusivity is key to the program’s continued success and relevance. Tour groups are no larger than 12 people to allow for intimate, honest conversation. Poynter’s relationships with leading media organizations give participants behind-the-scenes access to both the places and the people. Participants will be able to sit in on an editorial meeting at The Washington Post — and then they’ll discuss directly with managing editor of digital Emilio Garcia-Ruiz.
Diversity is also an essential factor for Poynter’s tour selections. This year’s stops include print, digital, broadcast, research, social media and analytics organizations. Some represent the biggest brands in journalism and are consistently recognized as innovators in the field, like The New York Times and NPR. Others, like Twitter and Chartbeat, will add insight into social media, a crucial component of success in 21st-century media. Sessions at The Atlantic and Politico will give participants real-world examples of creative revenue diversification and product development.
Neil Brown, Poynter digital tools reporter Ren LaForme and American Press Institute deputy director Jeff Sonderman will lead this year’s tour. Through their guidance, participants will be able to translate these innovative examples into practical, scalable takeaways. Poynter added daily debriefs to the 2018 schedule to further enhance participants’ ability to process and apply what they learn.
A key lesson this year will be better understanding audience.
“We call it the ‘media innovation tour,’ but so much of it really is about audience,” Brown said. “Whether that’s how to reach them for revenue or reach them for content — audience is a major theme throughout all our programs.”
Applications for the Media Innovation Tour are now open, and early-bird pricing is available until July 13. The tour is open to anyone interested in the future and success of news media. It will be particularly beneficial for publishers, editors, educators and media leaders around the world who are responsible for revenue, digital content, audience development or new product lines.
“I was overwhelmed by the sheer diversity and depth of exposure to some of the biggest names and brands in American journalism, as well as the ringside view of the contemporary challenges faced by news and media organizations and how they are responding to them,” wrote one participant in the 2017 Media Innovation Tour survey. “It was very much worth the time and financial investment, and I do regard participating in this tour as an investment.”
About The Poynter Institute
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a global leader in journalism education and a strategy center that stands for uncompromising excellence in journalism, media and 21st-century public discourse. Poynter faculty teach seminars and workshops at the Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, and at conferences and organizational sites around the world. Its e-learning division, News University, www.newsu.org, offers the world’s largest online journalism curriculum in 7 languages, with more than 400 interactive courses and 330,000 registered users in more than 200 countries. The Institute’s website, www.poynter.org, produces 24-hour coverage of news about media, ethics, technology, the business of news and the trends that currently define and redefine journalism news reporting. The world’s top journalists and media innovators come to Poynter to learn and teach new generations of reporters, storytellers, media inventors, designers, visual journalists, documentarians and broadcast producers, and to build public awareness about journalism, media, the First Amendment and protected discourse that serves democracy and the public good.
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