Women in Journalism Workshop 2024
Scroll through to see photos from the 2023 WIJ Workshop! Join us in 2024
The Women in Journalism Workshop is an annual workshop that focuses on challenges, accomplishments and issues specific to women in the journalism industry today. We want to help build safer, more diverse and innovative newsrooms to serve our communities worldwide. You will learn how to innovate the way you cover stories, the management of newsrooms and teams and be trained in emerging skills and tools from global leaders in the journalism industry. All session leaders are chosen for their cutting edge knowledge in the topic of the session they are leading.
The 2024 WIJ Workshop will be April 12-14, 2024 at the Reynolds Journalism Institute.
Please apply here and if you are accepted, we will send you a registration form.
Students $50 (or free if you volunteer!), Professionals $75.
Questions
Contact Director of Innovation & Founder of WIJ Workshop Kat Duncan at duncank@rjionline.org.
Session Leader Bios
Davis Erin Anderson, Freedom of the Press Foundation
Davis (she/her) is a senior digital security trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. Davis has been training learners at all levels on concepts in digital security and data privacy since 2016. In addition to crafting fun and engaging hands-on workshops, she has produced training videos and online tutorials for those interested in keeping their data safe. Past projects include NYC Digital Safety, Data Privacy Project, and Web Literacy for Library Staff. In 2019, she helped secure funding to provide digital security and data privacy training to libraries and community-based organizations in advance of the 2020 U.S. Census.
Davis holds degrees in library science and music performance, and she performs regularly as a French horn player with orchestras and other ensembles in and around NYC.
Tara Francis Chan, The Appeal
Twitter: @taramfrancis
Tara is Managing Editor & Operations Director at The Appeal, where she has led its relaunch as a worker-led nonprofit newsroom.
Tara was previously a senior editor at Newsweek and was the launch editor of Business Insider’s Asia desk, helping establish the editorial scope and operations of a news team across three continents. Prior to this, she was the editor of a leading Australian magazine published in 37 countries and managed special projects including a bestselling book and a national conference series. She was previously a finalist for Young Australian Journalist of the Year and was a cohort member of Poynter’s Leadership Academy for Women in Media in 2022.
Tara has a bachelor in communications and biochemistry, as well as a diploma in innovation management, from the University of New South Wales where she was a William McIlrath Rural Scholar. With a background in science communication, she has worked on projects in New York, London, Moscow, Sydney, Edinburgh, and Abu Dhabi.
Heather Bryant
Twitter: @HBCompass
Heather is the founder and director of Project Facet, an open source infrastructure project that supports newsroom collaboration with tools to manage the logistics of creating, editing and distributing content, managing projects, facilitating relationships and sharing the best practices of collaborative journalism. As a 2016-2017 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford, she researched how to make collaboration easier and more effective for newsrooms. She published the Collaborative Journalism Workbook and works with the Center for Cooperative Media to build resources for collaboration. Bryant researches and writes about the intersection of class, poverty, technology and journalism ethics.
Vanessa Charlot
Twitter: @vanessacharlot_
Vanessa Charlot is an award-winning photographer, filmmaker, lecturer, curator and media safety trainer. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Multimedia at the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media. Her work focuses on the intersectionality of race, politics, culture and sexual/gender expression to explore the collective human experience. The purpose of her work is to produce visual representations free of an oppressive gaze. Vanessa seeks to humanize Black bodies through her photography, restoring the dignity and vitality of those often shot as subjects divorced from context, motives, and histories. Her work invites us all to question our relationship to what we think about when we see Black bodies as static images and in motion.
She has worked throughout the U.S., Caribbean and Southeast Asia. Her photographs have been commissioned by the New York Times, Gucci, Vogue, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Oprah Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Apple, New York Magazine, Buzzfeed, Artnet News, The Washington Post and other national and international publications. Vanessa lectures at the International Center of Photography and is the recipient of the International Women’s Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award for 2021. She is currently an Emerson Collective Fellow.
Stefanie Friedhoff, Brown University School of Public Health.
Friedhoff is a professor of the practice and content director at the Brown University School of Public Health, and a veteran journalist. Her work investigates intersecting issues of science, technology, migration, education, culture and trauma. She engages diverse communities on these subjects through research, writing, talks, events, consulting and leadership. At Brown, she leads the School of Public Health’s crisis communication and pandemic policy response team, and researches the relationship between the information needs of marginalized communities, misinformation, and health. Other projects include trauma workshops for journalists, journalism startup support, and journalism conferences. Her work has appeared in Time magazine; The Boston Globe; Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper; and other publications. Friedhoff, who was a 2001 Nieman Fellow, created and led Nieman’s Trauma Journalism Program from 2006 to 2012.
Laura Garcia, BBC Mundo
Twitter: @lauragrb
Laura Garcia’s work as a multimedia journalist started in her hometown of Mexico as a newspaper photographer covering the “lucha libre.” She’s an incurable nerd and has always been fascinated with new ways of telling stories, new tech, coding, apps, and even VR/AR. Laura worked for newspapers and film production companies in the U.S. before moving to the UK in September 2011. She has worked in different national newsrooms across the UK as a TV and radio producer. She taught multimedia journalism and TV production at the University of Kent for five years until December 2019. Currently, Laura’s main job with First Draft is teaching journos to spot and verify disinformation. She is passionate about getting new diverse voices into the industry and is the co-founder of PressPad, a social enterprise dedicated to helping young people become journalists.
Anika Gupta
Twitter: @DigitalAnika
Anika has worked in the journalism industry for more than fifteen years, at the intersection of journalism and technology. She started her career as a science and tech journalist, shifted into digital product management for organizations like National Geographic and the Atlantic, and now serves as a board member for Hacks/Hackers, an organization that builds links between journalists and technologists all over the world. Her research into online communities became a book, “How to Handle a Crowd,” which was published by Simon & Schuster. Learn more at http://www.digitalanika.com.
Imaeyen Ibanga, AJ+
Twitter: @iiwrites
Ibanga is a presenter with AJ+. She managed a team producing long-form videos for YouTube, which focused on contextualizing domestic and international news. Now, she concentrates on doing digital documentaries from the field, which she writes and produces. Prior to AJ+, Imaeyen produced text stories, social media, and breaking news video stories during her tenures at NBC News, CNN, and ABC News. Also, she’s team kitty cats, dance, comment sections, and memes are her love language.
Marissa J. Lang, Washington Post
Twitter: @Marissa_Jae
Marissa J. Lang writes about gentrification, housing and the changing face of American cities as part of The Washington Post’s social issues team. She previously covered protests, social unrest, activist movements and the rise of domestic extremism, culminating in her coverage of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and its aftermath. Lang came to The Post in 2018 from the San Francisco Chronicle, where she explored the inner workings of tech companies and the disparities they fueled. She won several awards for her coverage of the 2016 Wine Country wildfires and the plight of farmworkers amid the state’s worst-ever drought. Previously, Lang covered City Hall for the Sacramento Bee, criminal justice and courts for the Salt Lake Tribune and breaking news for the Tampa Bay Times. Lang has reported internationally, filing dispatches from Mexico and Rwanda. She is HEAT-certified, an active member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), adjunct professor at the University of Maryland and a dedicated mentor to student journalists to color. A native of New York City, Lang is an unapologetic pizza snob who now lives in Washington, DC.
Katherine Reynolds Lewis
Katherine is the founder of the Institute for Independent Journalists, whose mission is the financial and emotional sustainability of freelancers of color, and a columnist for Nieman Reports on media careers and equity in journalism. She’s an award-winning science journalist, educator and author covering children, behavioral and mental health, education, race, gender, disability, and equity for the Atlantic, Fortune, Kiplinger, New York Times, Undark, and Washington Post. Her book, The Good News About Bad Behavior, grew out of Mother Jones’ most-read story. A Harvard physics graduate, Katherine is a former national correspondent for Newhouse and Bloomberg News. A biracial (White and Asian American) woman, she lives in the Washington D.C. area with her partner Brian and their three children
Kathy Lu
Kathy Lu (she/her) is the founder of Audiencibility, a media consulting business dedicated to helping people, especially journalists, be successful. She is currently an adjunct at Poynter Institute, where she leads training that focuses on management, leadership and diversity, equity and inclusion issues. She also works with Brevity & Wit, a leading consulting group in organizational design centered around equity and inclusion. Kathy draws from more than two decades of experience a leader, manager and editor. She has worked in public media as a digital editor and in legacy media (The Kansas City Star and The Roanoke Times) as an enterprise and features editor.
Leah Millis, Reuters
Twitter: @LeahMillis
Leah Millis is a staff photographer at Thomson Reuters, where she has covered a wide range of issues, including politics, international protest movements, immigration, climate change, mass shootings and the rise of domestic extremism in the United States.
A journalist for more than a dozen years, Millis has worked for local newspapers in nearly every region of the United States, produced several short documentary films and written the accompanying articles for several projects. In 2020 Millis was one of the 11 staff members of the Reuters team awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography for their coverage of the Hong Kong protests for democracy in 2019.
Dana Piccoli, News is Out
Twitter: @DanaPiccoli
Dana Piccoli has been writing about the LGBTQ+ community for over a decade and is now the editor of News is Out, a queer media collaborative. With a special dedication to queer women’s issues, Dana has written for numerous sites, including The Mary Sue, The Decider, Curve, and NBC. She’s the former Managing Editor of the Bella Media Channel and the founder of Queer Media Matters.
Dana is the recipient of the 2023 Curve Award for Excellence in Lesbian Coverage and was named one of The Advocate Magazine’s 2019 Champions of Pride.
Bridget Thoreson, Institute for Nonprofit News
Twitter: @BridgetThoreson
Thoreson works with INN member newsrooms to frame, fund and execute project-based editorial collaborations, ongoing partnerships and collaborative networks. Thoreson supported journalists from 109 news organizations as an engagement consultant at Hearken. She served as project manager for Election SOS, which brought together 45 organizations to support more than 1,500 journalists during the 2020 election, and is a co-author of The Citizens Agenda: A guide for generating more responsive, inclusive and useful news coverage for voters.
Mago Torres, The Examination
Twitter: @magiccia
Mago Torres is an investigative journalist who specializes in research, data and project leadership. She is the Research Project Director at Open News and data editor with the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP). She worked for ICIJ on the investigations Pandora Papers, FinCEN Files, Luanda Leaks and Pulitzer prize-winning Panama Papers. She was a JSK Fellow at Stanford University and holds a Ph.D. in Humanistic Studies.
Liz Worthington, American Press Institute
Twitter: @lizmworthington
Liz is the Director of Product Strategy at the American Press Institute. She manages the product team that supports API’s product portfolio, including Metrics for News and Source Matters. Liz works with newsroom leaders globally that are working to better understand, engage and serve their communities with the help of API’s tools. Metrics for News is a content strategy analytics tool that helps publishers better understand their audiences through data. Source Matters is API’s new source diversity tracking tool that can help publishers answer important questions about sourcing and how their coverage reflects the voices of their communities. Liz has been at API nearly 10 years, which she joined after 10 years as a reporter and editor. Before API, Liz worked as the Senior Editorial Trainer for Patch.com. She also worked as a manager and editor during her time there. Previously, she worked as a local news reporter for the Island Packet in Hilton Head, SC, and the Culpeper Star-Exponent in Culpeper, VA. Liz is a 2005 J-School graduate from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Schedule
Friday, April 12, 2024
9:00 am
Check in, grab your swag and breakfast!
10:00 am
Welcome and introductions
Kat Duncan, RJI Director of Innovation
Welcome to the WIJ Workshop! We will spend our few moments together getting to know each other a bit before diving into our weekend together.
10:30 am
Innovate and Advocate
Marissa Lang, Washington Post
An inspiring discussion of how to stand up for yourself and push for what you want in a variety of circumstances — to your editor, to your sources, to your company. Discussion topics will include building sources in a male-dominated field, engaging communities of which you are not a part, managing up, negotiating pay and benefits, knowing the rules — and when to break them, finding mentors and more.
12:00pm
How to become an independent journalist
Katherine Reynolds Lewis, Institute for Independent Journalists
Interested in freelancing but aren’t sure if you could make a living? This is your crash course in how to get started! You’ll learn how to set an hourly rate, the 3 P’s model © of structuring your freelance portfolio, tracking projects and invoices to get paid, landing plum assignments and more. You’ll leave the session with a slew of tools and strategies for emotionally and financially sustainable freelancing.
1:00 pm
Lunch provided
2:00 pm
Centering consensus and care in the newsroom
Tara Francis Chan, The Appeal
As the journalism industry remains as unstable as ever, worker-led efforts are showing what it takes to rethink newsrooms, and the health of the journalists within them, from the ground up. This session will highlight what it takes to build a worker-led newsroom and flip outdated norms, adapting democratic and consensus decision-making models for any newsroom. It will also spotlight broad policies through to small actions that journalists can use to prevent burnout and support better boundaries for those around them.
3:30 pm
It ain’t all cat videos and dance challenges
Laura Garcia, BBC Mundo
This hands on session will help you get over your fear/hatred/reluctance of TikTok and other vertical & AR augmented storytelling spaces. We will learn with hands on video building, delve deep into why these spaces matter for journalists, how to analyze them critically and enjoy learning new ways of telling stories.
5:00 pm
WIJ Welcome Reception
Join us for our welcome event! Appetizers, drinks and special guests at a private venue nearby.
Saturday April 13, 2024
Breakfast provided
9:00
Self-care for the resilient journalist
Stefanie Friedhoff
Trauma is an occupational hazard for journalists. One doesn’t need to be on the frontlines of war or national tragedies to encounter stories of destruction, suffering and despair. Add the stressors of fast-paced news environments, and you’re no longer wondering why you are so exhausted at the end of the day. Let’s explore some essentials about trauma and resilience that help us prepare for difficult assignments and taxing experiences — and discover self-care habits that help keep us sane in the long run.
10:30 am
HEFAT training
Vanessa Charlot
Journalists working in the field and/or hostile environments have to be aware of various aspects of safety to keep themselves resilient. This session will cover situational awareness, risk assessments, de-escalation and simple tactical movements based on identity and gender safety awareness.
11:30 am
Self-defense + Protective gear prep
Leah Millis, Reuters
We’ll practice in groups and pairs: how to get away from an attacker with various holds, disengage when overpowered and other self-defense tactics. Leah will also share her protective prep kit: what gear she carries and how she prepares for situations that may be volatile.
1:00 pm
Lunch provided & puppies to cuddle
It’s lunch time! Grab some food and head outside. The adoptable pups from Unchained Melodies Dog Rescue will also be outside to provide puppy cuddles!
2:00 pm
From values to vision
Liz Worthington, American Press Institute
Each of us has certain deeply held values that fundamentally shape our views of ourselves, our work, other people and the world around us. Each of us benefits from identifying, examining, and sharing our values. This session will help you explore your core values and identify how they show up in your work, impact team dynamics and how they can shape your career trajectory. This session will be valuable for any individual contributor as well as for managers working to build a stronger team culture.
3:30
The Career River
Bridget Thoreson, INN
The traditional metaphors of career ladders and career paths are restrictive, failing to capture the value of non-linear progression in your work. Instead, what would happen if we reimagined our professional journey as a career river? The ultimate goal becomes not to reach the top, but to reach your ocean, and other rivers can join and strengthen yours along the way. Join us for an interactive discussion about the stories we tell ourselves about our careers, as together we develop a more inclusive, adaptive and liberating framework for our lives.
4:30
Hula hooping and sunshine
Laura Garcia
Lets head outside to the grass to end our day with some sunshine and fun!
- Pick up a hoop and get ready to hoop to music with Laura (hoops provided)
- Or relax on the grass and enjoy some time to chat and relax with fellow attendees as we wind down for the day
Grab dinner, rest at your hotel, take a walk – then head to our game night!
7:00
Game night! Over 300+ board games to choose from! Snacks and beverages also available.
Sunday, April 14, 2024
10:00 am
It’s not always objective – Advocacy in journalism
Dana Piccoli, News is Out
It can be nearly impossible to separate who we are from the work we do as journalists. While advocacy in journalism is still hotly contested by some, there is power in media to create a lifeline for readers. Advocacy can exist alongside the facts. Learn more about advocacy journalism and how you can use your journalist power to change the world.
11:00 am
Digital Security in Hostile Urban Environments
Davis Erin Anderson, Free of the Press Foundation
In our increasingly surveillant world, journalists covering protests, rallies, and demonstrations face growing challenges in reporting, investigating, and filing their stories. This session will provide you with the tools and tactics you’ll need to assess risky situations, prepare your devices, and keep yourself and your gear safe.
12:00 pm
Creativity & craftiness
Heather Bryant, News Catalyst
We are more than our jobs and the daily grind! In this session we will take time to be creative, try something new and rediscover the magic of making things for fun.
1:00
Lunch provided
2:00 pm
Product Thinking for Journalists
Anika Gupta
How do you apply the principles of effective product management – innovation, efficiency, experimentation – to the newsroom? In this session, we’ll explore common product management frameworks and ways you can adapt them in your organization. We’ll talk about identifying user needs, managing software development, cost-benefit analysis, learning from the market and continuous improvement and iteration. We’ll discuss emerging technologies – AI! – and how to frame them from a product manager’s perspective. Come prepared with product challenges you’d like to tackle, or questions about product thinking. At the end of the session, participants will walk away with a clearer understanding of product management tools and a plan for how to use those tools to level up their own news work.
3:30
How to lead change
Kathy Lu, Independent
An interactive session to understand the dynamics of leading change in your organization. Through using the principles of “Switch” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, you’ll work through scenarios with your group and plan to lead change in your newsroom inspired by an experience or skill you learned this weekend at WIJ!
5:00 pm