Online and Upward at ONA

By: David Hirschman Blogger/professor Jeff Jarvis called the Online News Association's convention in Washington, D.C., in early October "the death of Eeyore," referring to the pessimistic donkey in the Winnie the Pooh children's books. Indeed, as opposed to past conferences, this year there was less fear and hand-wringing and more of a focus on how the news industry will continue to evolve.

More than 500 people showed up at this year's confab, making it the best-attended in the association's history. Right from the outset, keynote addresses from Washington Post Editor Len Downie and BBC News Deputy director Adrien Van Klaveren focused on the ways new technology has forced their organization to adapt strategies. At the Post, said Downie, "everyone wants to be a blogger," because it brings reporters closer to their readers. Klaveren, meanwhile, touched on questions of how the BBC would work to incorporate more photos and videos submitted by users. He emphasized the importance of distributing content on multiple platforms, and talked about how the task for content producers is to remember that they're in the "information" business, which he said should be thought of as a more broad focus for news.

Dallas Mavericks owner and HDNet founder Mark Cuban suggested that news sites should focus on micro-niches ? such as elementary school drama performances, for example ? and he expanded on his recent assertion that anyone who bought video-sharing site YouTube would be "crazy." Even as he said it, word had begun to circulate about the site's imminent $1.65 billion purchase by Google.

Yahoo's Kevin Sites explained how he spent the past year creating his "Hot Zone" project that combined video, text, and still photography to cover armed conflicts and expose stories largely ignored by the mainstream media. The year took him to 22 conflict zones and 19 countries, and he described how he edited video on the fly and filed it to the site via satellite hook-up.

MSNBC's Jennifer Sizemore spoke about her site's special features being readied for the 2006 midterm elections. She noted that MSNBC.com had partnered with several offline publications (including the National Journal), and described different features including a "virtual earth map" that would be deployed on the site so that users could get in-depth, up-to-the-minute updates on election night.

Capping the two-day event was the presentation of the ONA's 7th annual awards for excellence in digital journalism. This year, MSNBC.com, The Center for Public Integrity, and Roanoke.com ? Web site of The Roanoke (Va.) Times ? took top honors for general excellence, while NOLA. com (Web site of The Times-Picayune in New Orleans) won the newly established Knight Award for Public Service.