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10 reasons you should attend journalism conference news:rewired

Next Friday (19 April) 35 speakers and more than 200 journalists and other media professionals will come together for news:rewired, a digital journalism conference.

This is the ninth news:rewired conference and is being held at MSN HQ in London, (near Victoria station). It is organised by Journalism.co.uk, a site reporting on innovations in digital journalism.

Here are 10 reasons you should be one of the 250 people attending (and hurry, we don’t have many tickets left and the event always sells out). Here’s the link to buy a ticket.

1. To learn about tools to help you do your job as a journalist

We have Vadim Lavrusik, journalist programme manager for Facebook coming over from the US to lead a practical keynote session in Facebook tools for journalists. Before joining Facebook, Vadim worked at Mashable and the New York Times.

Madhav Chinnappa and Stephen Rosenthal from Google will lead a Google tools masterclass. You can learn how to get your content on the Google Currents app and how to use various free tools.

You can learn how to use Popcorn Maker, a tool for creating web-native video.

2. To hear about developments that have taken place in digital journalism so far in 2013

That includes the release of Vizibee, a video network app for journalists, and the launch of BuzzFeed UK. We have Luke Lewis, editor of BuzzFeed UK leading a workshop on growing a social media communities. The lightning round will highlight a few other new projects and businesses too and there will be an announcement at the event from ipadio.

3. To hear speakers travelling from the US and elsewhere

We have speakers travelling from far and wide for the event. This is a rare opportunity to hear from Vadim Lavrusik from Facebook, from Cory Haik from the Washington Post and from ProPublica’s Blair Hickman.

We also have speakers from ScribbleLive (Canada), Newsmodo (Australia), Scoopshot (Finland) and the Mozilla Foundation (Italy).

4. To hear from key news outlets

We have speakers from Washington Post, ProPublica, Huffington Post UK, BuzzFeed UK, the Financial Times, Guardian, the Economist, CNN, Trinity Mirror Regionals, RTE, Channel 4 News, BMJ and The Next Web.

5. To attend practical sessions and hear case studies

The sessions are highly practical and case-study led so that by the end of the day you will have a Twitter stream, notebook, or memos on your phone or tablet filled with ideas shared during the day.

You can hear about sources of government data, how the BMJ is doing in-depth investigations, how the Washington Post is approaching curation, how ProPublica, CNN iReport and Trinity Mirror regionals are encouraging community participation, and you will get chance to ask questions and take part in a debate about standards and best practice in making corrections online, communicating on social media and linking to sources.

6. For ideas on making digital journalism pay

There will also be a Q&A session with three people who have launched journalism start-ups. It’s a chance for you to find out how they are making money and lessons learnt along the way. This could be a useful resource for anyone thinking of starting their own project or looking for ideas for new revenue streams for a news outlet.

7. For ideas for low and zero budgets

Each session is designed to include ideas for news outlets of all sizes and all budgets. If you work in a small newsroom without a dedicated social media team, without data journalists and developers, you will leave the event with just as many ideas as the people attending who work for larger outlets.

8. It’s also about the conversations

Attending conferences is not just about hearing case studies that give you ideas for your own projects and practical tips and tools, it is also about the conversations you have during coffee breaks and over our after-event drinks. Fellow delegates can also inspire ideas and spark new connections, which can then lead to partnerships and even job opportunities.

You might want to take a look at the delegate list to see who’s coming (most, but not all, delegates are included on the list).

9. It’s just £130

Not bad for hearing from 35 speakers, attending seven sessions (there are 11 sessions in total, with two streams running in parallel at various points in the day). The price also includes lunch and networking drinks.

10. Don’t just take our word for it

Here are a few things previous delegates have said about the event:

“Spend a day at news:rewired, then go back and wow your colleagues with your new found technical expertise,” Janet Snell, RCN Publishing.

“The combination of speakers from the cutting edge of journalism and an assembly of people driven to be at the cutting edge makes news:rewired the most electric gathering of journalists in Europe. A must-attend,” Markham Nolan, Storyful

“A conference that invests in talking about the future of journalism and social media, rather than simply reacting to changes in practice after they’ve already happened,” Richard Moynihan, Metro

The speaker list is here, the agenda is here, and you can buy tickets here.

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