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RTDNA24 Session Details
[Subject to Change]
| THURSDAY | FRIDAY |
Thursday
J.O.B.: The Joy of Belonging
When: Thursday, June 13, 8:30 - 10 a.m.
About this session: The Ultimate Outcome of connection is Belonging. Life is about who we are, more than what we do. Ginger Johnson delivers this lively and interactive keynote experience so that guests will get a big How-to-think along with How-to-do’s to build and boost cultures of strong and resilient belonging. When we know how to shift a J.O.B to the Joy Of Belonging then we realize true and meaningful human connection to happy, healthy and long-lasting organizations.
About Ginger Johnson: Most biographies for speakers are full of credentials, awards, accomplishments and other unexciting information.
Let's say this for now: Everything in life is Powered By Connection. And Connection is Ginger's jam. It's the art, science and energy that makes the world go 'round.
She works with great leaders, teams and organizations to do their best work by tapping into the incredible possibilities meaningful connection creates.
If you want to learn more about her, she invites you to visit gingerjohnson.com If you're really curious, you'll likely Google her anyway, finding her TEDx talk, book, events and programs, YouTube channel, and various and sundry other information all promoting and teaching human connection.
For now, she thanks you for your time and attention. Let's get to it.
Leaders: Be a Coach, Not a Fixer
When: Thursday, June 13, 10:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.
About this session: You’re responsible for quality. You have high standards and expectations. That’s why, like many leaders, you spend a lot of time “fixing” things. You tell people what to do. You revise their work. Sometimes you just do the work for them. And too often, you do those same things over and over, wishing all your fixing would have more long-term impact.
Here’s the solution: Learn to coach, not fix. Take it from Jill Geisler, a veteran news leader and educator who calls herself a “recovering fixer.” She will share a step-by-step coaching process she’s taught to countless managers. You’ll get a chance to see on-the-spot coaching. You'll even practice coaching in a very supportive environment - and leave with a new tool kit for doing more coaching and less fixing.
About Jill Geisler: Jill Geisler is the Bill Plante Chair in Leadership and Media Integrity at Loyola University Chicago and an internationally recognized expert in leadership and management.
She teaches a very popular Master Class for Media Managers for Loyola and is the coach to countless leaders she’s never met through her book, “Work Happy: What Great Bosses Know,” her management columns for the National Press Club Journalism Institute and Columbia Journalism Review, and her podcasts, “What Great Bosses Know” and “Q&A: Leadership and Integrity in the Digital Age.”
Jill’s first career was in broadcast journalism, where she began as a reporter, photographer, producer, and anchor. At the age of 27, she became one of the country’s first female TV news directors at WITI-TV in Milwaukee. Her award-winning newsroom was known for its culture of enterprise and ethics. After 25 years on the front lines of news and news management, she joined the faculty of the Poynter Institute, where she guided its leadership and management programs for 16 years and became known as a master teacher and coach.
How Might We...: Using Design Thinking to Manage the Changing News Industry
When: Thursday, June 13, 10:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.
About this session: Beginning with a simple prompt, this innovative workshop will explore how Design Thinking can help walk participants through a creative journey of envisioning the newsroom of tomorrow. How might we establish an agile, innovative, and audience-focused newsroom that galvanizes an engaged and informed community? Join us in this session and let’s work on it together.
About Erin Lewis, Executive Director, Center for Innovation & Change, University of Evansville: With almost two decades in civic education and a passion for positive change, Erin is an inspirational driving force for meaningful community transformation. A former US Marine, she served as Indiana’s Director of Civics with the ISBA and Indiana Bar Foundation from 2004-2010, the IU Public Policy Institute as a Research Assistant, and Indiana Humanities. Prior to joining UE eight years ago, she was former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s national Director of Outreach at iCivics from 2013-2015. Most recently, she helped lead UE’s collaborative efforts to bring a $30,000,000 Promise Neighborhood to Evansville in 2023. She received her Bachelor’s in Political Science and Psychology from the University of Evansville, and her Master’s in Public Affairs and Policy Analysis from SPEA.
About Andrew Carter, Associate Director, Center for Innovation & Change, University of Evansville: With more than a decade of experience in the higher education marketing industry, Andrew embraces every challenge with a “So, do it” attitude. His passion is combining creativity and tenacity to find a way to make wild ideas come to life. He earned his Bachelor's in Creative Writing and Master's in Public Service Administration from the University of Evansville, and brings a uniquely empathetic and human-centered design focus to strategically operationalizing the Center's significant project demands with multiple constituencies.
Leadership Lessons In Athletics
When: Thursday, June 13, 3:30 - 4:30 p.m.
About this session: Do you want to know the behind-the-scene insights of Leadership Lessons In Athletics? Join Molly Grisham, a seasoned former college coach and established public speaker, for a transformational workshop. During our time together, will experience personal stories of individual and team development that took place on and off the field. This session is ideal for aspiring and seasoned leaders seeking insights, strategies, and inspiration to elevate their leadership game. Join us as we explore the intersection of athletics and leadership and embark on a journey toward transformative leadership excellence. Reserve your spot today and step into your leadership potential!
About Molly Grisham: Keynote Speaker and Experiential Facilitator, Molly helps to build and sustain teams in a wide variety of industries. She believes that teams don’t grow apart, they die apart. She knows that elite, high-performing teams in all industries get stretched and stressed by the demand to perform. She is passionate about helping teams to rediscover their strengths and restore their relationships, so they can rebuild their teams.
With nearly two decades of experience as a College Soccer Coach and Communication Professor, Molly approaches her work as an educator. She meets people where they are and helps them move to where they want to be.
Molly holds degrees in Communication from Belmont University, the University of Illinois, and Missouri State University. She has completed training as a Civil & Family Mediator, she is a Certified Experiential Specialist with the International Society of Experiential Professionals, and she is a Certified Myers-Briggs facilitator. Additionally, she is now enrolled in a graduate program on Trauma and Resiliency.
Molly is down-to-earth and compels her audience to participate in the learning process. She engages groups from the moment she steps in front of them and leaves them with tools and processes that they will use long after an event has ended. She knows healthier teams lead to happier humans, and happier humans lead to high-performing teams.
When not facilitating, Molly can be found at her favorite used bookstore and at various international restaurants in St. Louis.
Spotting the Fakes
When: Thursday, June 13, 3:30 - 4:30 p.m.
About this session: With the ever-increasing accessibility of AI, it is more important than ever that our teams and newsrooms are trained to evaluate the information they see. It is equally crucial for journalists to assist their viewers and communities in developing skills to discern mis- and dis-information. Join us for this session where we will go over the current tactics and tools being implemented by journalists to help spot the fakes.
About Mike Reilley: Mike has been a lecturer in data and digital journalism at the University of Illinois Chicago for the past eight years and is a digital tools trainer in the Google News Initiative training program. He also owns Penny Press Digital, LLC, a digital consulting company.
Mike has trained more than 14,000 journalists, students and teachers in digital tools since 2016, speaking at conferences, journalism schools and in newsrooms in 42 states. He has done more than 425 trainings in the Google program and dozens more for other clients such as Gannett.
Mike is a former reporter and copy editor at the Los Angeles Times and was one of the founding editors of ChicagoTribune.com. He’s a former digital news editor at WashingtonPost.com and helped run the 2000 Summer Olympics copy desk for AOL. Mike also founded the AI tools site, The Journalist’s Toolbox. He also blogged about the Chicago Bears for two seasons on the NFL Blog Blitz site.
Mike has more than 2,500 bylined stories as a professional reporter, covering teams such as the Los Angeles Rams, Anaheim Angels, Chicago Cubs, college sports and recruiting. He has written for MediaShift’s EducationShift page, and had an article published in 2003 in the Columbia Journalism Review about incorporating computer-assisted reporting and research cross-curriculum.
Mike has a master’s degree in journalism/newspaper-media management from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He graduated at the top of his class at Medill and received the Harrington Award, the school’s highest academic honor. He taught full-time at Medill from 1997 to 2000. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he was editor of his college newspaper, The Daily Nebraskan.
You can reach Mike on Twitter @journtoolbox, @itsmikereilley or LinkedIn. Medium posts and practice for his class: medium.com/@mikereilley1 | Email: mikereilley1@gmail.com.
Friday
Digital Safety and the Mental Health Toll
When: Friday, June 14, 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
About this session: Technology has granted us the ability to stay closely connected with everyone, but what is a journalist to do with the double-edged sword of constant access? Join the team at Trollbusters for a discussion on the tools available for keeping your team safe in our 24/7 world of being online, including how to balance the mental health toll of negative comments, opinions and attacks.
Trainer: Michelle Ferrier, founder and creator, TrollBusters
ZYX's of Connecting
When: Friday, June 14, 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
About this session: This rollickingly fun experience is truly co-created, with each audience fully participating to build directly relevant ZYXs (z-a) thinkings and how-to's to use right away in your work cultures and lives. This tailored word & idea share, expressly chosen to be highly interactive, is a fabulous and fun (unconventional) breakthrough to help you develop more ways to build more expressive and collaborative cultures in your newsrooms. If you're seeking a worthwhile session stacked with joy and participation, this is the one for you.
About Ginger Johnson: Most biographies for speakers are full of credentials, awards, accomplishments and other unexciting information.
Let's say this for now: Everything in life is Powered By Connection. And Connection is Ginger's jam. It's the art, science and energy that makes the world go 'round.
She works with great leaders, teams and organizations to do their best work by tapping into the incredible possibilities meaningful connection creates.
If you want to learn more about her, she invites you to visit gingerjohnson.com If you're really curious, you'll likely Google her anyway, finding her TEDx talk, book, events and programs, YouTube channel, and various and sundry other information all promoting and teaching human connection.
For now, she thanks you for your time and attention. Let's get to it.
Bots to Business: All Things AI in the Newsroom
When: Friday, June 14, 2 - 3 p.m.
About this session: AI is mainstream these days, thanks to rapid development and accessibility of software and tools. This leaves modern newsrooms trying to figure out how journalists should integrate AI into their reporting and editing processes. This session will discuss what is on the horizon for AI and how we all can find useful areas to apply it in our newsrooms.
About Nikita Roy: Nikita Roy is a data scientist, journalist, and Harvard-recognized AI futurist.
As a Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists and the lead of the AI Journalism Lab at CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, she focuses on AI literacy in the news industry.
Nikita is also the host of the globally acclaimed Newsroom Robots podcast incubated at Harvard Innovation Labs. It has ranked among the top technology podcasts in over 30 countries on Apple Podcasts.
She conducts AI workshops for newsrooms and universities, including The Economist, The Boston Globe, Stanford University, and the University of Toronto. Her insights have been featured on BBC, CBC, Nieman Lab, Quartz and Yahoo Finance.
Nikita is the president of the Canadian Association of Journalists - National Capital Region chapter.
An alumna of Harvard University and the University of Toronto, Nikita develops AI products and advises on AI strategy.
Prioritize Your Mental Health and Transform Your Newsroom into Workplace Well-Being Warriors
When: Friday, June 14, 2 - 3 p.m.
About this session: More and more these days, leaders in newsrooms are donning the cap of counselor for their teams, something that once was an unexpected role and task for a leader in journalism. Join us for a deep dive into how we as journalism leaders can feel confident when stepping into that role, how to identify concerning signs, how to handle those situations, and even when and how to best get professional help for your team members who need it.
About Dr. Kortni Alston Lemon: Dr. Kortni Alston Lemon is a Happiness Scholar, TEDx speaker, and Transformational Trainer. Her area of research is interdisciplinary combining the areas of positive psychology, business administration and media management. Her research concentrations value happier workplaces, well-being, and meaningful work.
She is a Podcast Host for Kourting Happiness, which helps listeners learn how to commit to well-being one episode at a time. Dr. Kortni is the founder of Kourting Happiness Movement, which is an online community helping members live a positive life with positive psychology. Currently, she is working on two books focused on positive psychology and workplace well-being.
Dr. Kortni is an in-demand and sought-after trainer. She has created customized training sessions focused on Workplace Well-Being, Resilience, and Happiness. The Carter Center invited her to serve as a trainer for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. In a recent announcement, Dr. Kortni was appointed to serve on the United States Advisory Board for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. You can find out more in this press release.
Report for America invited Dr. Kortni to serve as a facilitator for their Self-Care Session helping journalists build resilience. As Distinguished Lecturer at Middle Tennessee State University for the School of Journalism and Strategic Media, she was invited to train faculty and students. In a university-wide session for faculty, staff, and administrators, Dr. Kortni shared how to leverage positive psychology in workplace well-being for in-person and remote work. Learn more about Dr. Kortni’s latest speaking engagements right here.
Dr. Kortni is a proud member of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA), Broadcast Education Association (BEA), and the National Black MBA Association.
Educating the Electorate: Get Off the Race Track and Into the Issues
When: Friday, June 14. 22, 3:30 - 5 p.m.
About this session: The 2024 elections will test journalists as never before as truth takes a backseat to agenda and polarization makes everyone angry. The result is poll-based horse race coverage that doesn’t add anything to a viewers understanding of the people who want to represent them. How do we cover candidates who treat truth as an inconvenience and voters who want agreement over clarity? This session will take political polarization and bias head-on, giving real options for journalists interested in telling truths over talking points and issues over arguments. We will look at specific coverage examples that will inspire you to avoid the horse race, focus on the issues, and educate your community. Together we will identify the basic tenets of election coverage and develop a first draft of election coverage guidelines for your newsroom.
About Kevin Benz: Kevin is a veteran broadcast journalist and news director who started in broadcast news as a photographer in Austin, Houston and Raleigh, North Carolina. He and his teams have received national recognition from the Sigma Delta Chi awards, the National Edward R. Murrow awards, three National Walter Cronkite awards for excellence in Political Journalism and the DuPont-Columbia awards.
Kevin is former chairman of RTDNA and the Texas AP Broadcasters. He serves on the faculty of the Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Journalism and as visiting faculty with the Poynter Institute. He is co-founder of the Southwest Broadcast Journalism conference. Today he coaches journalists in newsrooms around the country.
Purpose Mindset: Developing the Shared Why
When: Friday, June 14. 22, 3:30 - 5 p.m.
About this session: Today, 63% of the workforce has a Transactional Mindset. They see work and learning as a means to an end. This mindset is at the heart of nearly every social, economic, and environmental problem in the world. Work through how to find your own purpose with author Akhtar Badshah and how to develop a shared purpose with your staff when you return to the newsroom.
Trainer: Akhtar Badshah, author, Purpose Mindset; innovation catalyst, educator, philanthropist, social entrepreneur, artist, and public speaker