In an ever-changing media landscape, leadership isn’t just about calling the shots. Adaptive leadership means leading through uncertain times by building the skills you need, connecting to others leading through change, and building foresight to understand what’s coming. ONA26 is specifically designed to cultivate your adaptive leadership skills. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned professional, these sessions focus on building skills and gaining knowledge you need to thrive in what’s next in your leadership journey.
Leading through change
Sessions that build your muscle for leading a team through what’s coming next in our industry.
AI and Leadership: Practical Takeaways on the Ups and Downs of Navigating Change
Explore how to create safe experimentation without eroding trust, building internal AI advocates, and navigating the tricky waters of culture change in complex newsrooms filled with skeptical reporters.
Speakers include Tess Jeffers (The Wall Street Journal), Ryan Struyk (CNN) and Giovanny Vega (El Vocero de Puerto Rico).
Getting Your New Project off the Ground: An Interactive Workshop
This highly interactive skills-building workshop will help you figure out where you are with an idea for a new project or initiative, connect you with people who have “been there,” and work with you to get started.
Speakers include Doug Mitchell (Next Gen Journalism), Ryan Y. Kellett (The Independent Journalism Atlas), Kathy Lu (Online News Association), Katherine Reynolds Lewis (The Institute for Independent Journalists), Jodi Rave, (Buffalo’s Fire) and Elaine Díaz Rodríguez (Tiny News Collective).
Creating Your Test Kitchen: Small-Batch Innovation for Newsroom Leaders
This high-level and highly interactive workshop will teach you a framework to evaluate your Big Idea in a newsroom test kitchen before putting it on the main menu.
Featuring Jake J. Hylton (LOOKOUT News).
Building Resilient Newsrooms Without a Safety Net: Lessons from Exile, Immigrant, and Startup Media
This session explores adaptive leadership, community-anchored revenue strategies, and practical approaches to sustaining civic journalism when traditional models fall short.
Featuring Faisal Karimi (Nowruz Media).
This high-level session will cover everything from diversifying revenue to leading teams through uncertainty, providing concrete frameworks for decision-making to an honest look at what “getting shit done” looks like when you’re juggling boards, budgets, burnout, and big ambitions all at once.
Featuring S. Mitra Kalita (URL Media | Epicenter-NYC).
Newsroom strategies and trends leaders need to know
A roundup of sessions to give leaders a lens into best practices and strategies for your team to consider.
Civic Journalism Engages Communities, Informs Audiences, and Empowers Action
A case study workshop to learn strategies for producing great civic journalism that spurs action and engagement in communities of color, immigrants, and other underrepresented groups.
Speakers include Vanessa Maria Graber and Qing Saville (Free Press).
Hard-Won Lessons: Global Reporters on Journalism Under Autocracy
This conversation will lift up strategies for producing impactful, ethical journalism under repressive conditions while also exploring how to safeguard journalists’ physical and psychological safety.
Speakers include Jeje Mohamed (Aegis Safety Alliance), Dana Coester (100 Days in Appalachia) and Jin Ding (International Women’s Media Foundation).
Are Immigrants Not Engaging With Your News? Try Listening to Them First
Join this timely and essential workshop and leave with the hands-on community listening techniques and ecosystem mapping tools required to build trust and relevance and reach immigrant audiences.
Speakers include María Arce and Nicolás Ríos (Documented NY).
Bringing Readers Back: Real-World Tactics for Combating News Fatigue
This timely case study addresses news avoidance in an era of unending content, offering attendees tactics and strategies including creating entire new beats, broadening the scope of alerts, and re-thinking what makes an audience-first story mix.
Speaker(s) include Jennifer Kho (Independent)and Angela Pacienza (The Globe and Mail)
In a friendly and exciting competition format, practice planning for your team’s safety and security needs for digital, physical, psychological, and legal needs in real-life scenarios.
Speakers include Jeje Mohamed (Aegis Safety Alliance), Abigail LP (Freedom of the Press Foundation) and Viktorya Vilk (PEN America).
Open-Access Data and Resource-Sharing Tools For Local Newsroom Collaborations
Learn about collaborative models and tools available to local newsrooms, and hear about case studies and accountability reporting this cooperative work has made possible.
Speakers include George LeVines (The Trace) and Nicole Lewis (The Marshall Project)
Investing in your leadership skills
Make time in your ONA26 schedule for the connections, learning and discussions that will sustain your leadership journey over the next year.
Tackle Your Toughest Challenge with MTC @ ONA (By Application)
Learn how leaders drive organizational transformation and personal growth by focusing on performance, not just projects or plans, and how to tackle your most pressing leadership challenges.
Speakers include Benjamin Wagner and Fran Scarlett (Media Transformation Challenge).
Stepping Down to Allow Others to Step Up
This participatory conversation for insightful advice and fresh perspectives for founders and executives on how to know when it’s time to step down and step back.
Speakers include Candice Fortman (Blue Engine Collaborative), S. Mitra Kalita (URL Media | Epicenter NYC), Garry Pierre-Pierre (URL Media) and Charles Sennott (GroundTruth).
Build Your Fundraising Muscle: Stop Planning, Start Asking
In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn how to articulate the value of your journalism to potential supporters, identify the fundraising approach that fits your stage and capacity, and draft real campaign language you can use before you leave the room.
Speakers include Candice Fortman (Blue Engine Collaborative) and Dustin Block (BlueLena).
This interactive session will feature representatives from both worlds, demystifying what philanthropic funding partners think and value and helping to prepare newsroom leaders to ask for support.
Speaker include Megan Griffith-Greene (The Poynter Institute)
