I've spent this week in Hong Kong with a specially trained iMedia team providing primary coverage of the NEWS! World Summit. Check it out our media hub at www.news2011.org. We'll have a metrics report up shortly but the audience reaction has been fantastic.
The Global Editors Network (GEN) commissioned Western iMedia, the entrepreneurial editorial startup that I operate out of Western Kentucky University'’s School of Journalism & Broadcasting, to produce a continuous wave of editorial reports during the three-day international meeting of news executives Nov. 28-30. Twelve Western iMedia cross-format producers and two faculty coordinators including me covered the event through a combination of streaming video, mobile interactivity, rich-media micro-journalism and social networking. An additional member of our iTeam edited and provided production support from the univesity's hometown in Bowling Green, Ky., taking advantage of the 14-hour time zone difference with the Chinese special administrative region to make this a truly globe-spanning 24-hour-a-day editorial operation. “The GEN wants to promote collaboration across all news platforms,” said Bertrand Pecquerie, GEN’s chief executive officer. “This is why we are very interested in the innovative newshandling techniques used by Western Kentucky University’s journalists-in-training, which will ensure the summit’s coverage to integrate all the media platforms.” My fusion journalists combine the ethics, mission and production values of traditional editorial work with a decidedly non-traditional approach to delivering stories and interacting with audiences across a wide range of media. Journalists used to specialize by format. Fusion journalists have areas of expertise but their specialty is collaboration and innovation. The GEN iTeam consisted of Amira Ahmetovic, a Bowling Green senior; Austin Anderson, a Benton senior; Alex Duke, an Elizabethtown senior; Cameron Epperson, a Louisville junior; Alexis Gonzalez-Lopez, an Elizabethtown senior; Laura Haggard, a Georgetown junior; M. Blake Harrison, a Paducah senior; Jacob Kasinger, a Utica senior; Sara Kuhl, an Alexandria senior; Laurel Mallory, a Cynthiana senior; Andrew Ridge, a Louisville senior; Tabitha Waggoner, a Bowling Green senior; and Rialda Zukic, a Bowling Green senior. My invaluable colleague on the effort was Dr. Marjorie Yambor, who works in the broadcasting end of the School of Journalism & Broadcasting doing equally very non-traditional media with the student radio station.