Journalists, technologists, programmers, entrepreneurs and others convened at the Walter Cronkite School for the second year in a row over the weekend for an “unconference” to discuss the future of news and the changing media landscape.
NewsFoo (Friends Of O’Reilly) is a private, informal convention collaborated by O’Reilly Media, Google and the Knight Foundation. It is a part of Foo Camp, a program started in 2003 that focuses on relating informational technology with topics like news, science or health.
Founder Tim O’Reilly’s goal for each Foo Camp is “to create new synapses in the global brain,” according to Sara Winge, Vice President of the Radar group at O’Reilly.
O’Reilly Media invited 150 people, including New York Times media reporter David Carr, Wired writer Steven Levy and former Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Jose Antonio Vargas based on their current work to attend NewsFoo at the Cronkite School. The idea was to create cross-pollination between different types of professions.
Winge said the event was more of an “unconference” because of the “minimal framework” given. Participants determined the weekend’s agenda on Friday evening after arriving at the Cronkite School from all around the country. They brainstormed sessions on the spot and invitees decided if they wanted to lead it.
“It’s looking toward the future of news to create a place where people passionate about the innovation of news get together to discuss ideas,” Winge said.
Each day of the weekend conference was broken into six one hour-long sessions, while night sessions were a series of rapid five-minute presentations. Some day sessions included “Making radio more interactive,” “News apps as product development,” and “The future of the news story.”
The New York Times’ Carr led a discussion among about 50 NewsFoo attendees in a cramped third-floor classroom. Carr presented ideas about the future of television news and the oft-cited tension between “lean back” and “lean forward” media consumption.
“It’s not just the (television) screens that are large,” Carr said. “Appetites are large.”
Elise Hu, a digital coordinator at National Public Radio, traveled from D.C. to attend NewsFoo. She stated she enjoyed the conversations about news as a product and drone journalism.
“The conference is what you make of it … you share what’s on your mind and learn from each other,” Hu said. “I think I have to go home and process everything because there were a lot of rapid conversations.”
Several Cronkite School faculty members, including Dan Gillmor, Director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, were also in attendance.
“(NewsFoo) is great. It pulls in a great collection of people,” Gillmor said. “After a couple days, my mind is buzzing with all the ideas.”
Contact the reporter at alicia.canales@asu.edu
Dustin Volz contributed to this report.
