Global Editors Network
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Location |
|
---|---|
Services |
Editors Lab Data Journalism Awards Startups For News Climate Publishers Network |
Members | 2,380 |
Key people |
Peter Bale, President Bertrand Pecquerie, CEO Paul Steiger, Treasurer |
Subsidiaries | GEN Training & Consulting |
Employees | 8 |
Website |
globaleditorsnetwork |
The Global Editors Network (GEN) is a cross-platform community of more than 1,000 editors-in-chief and 1,300 media innovators: developers, graphic designers, professors of journalism and CEOs of startups. GEN is committed to sustainable, high-quality journalism, empowering newsrooms through a variety of programmes designed to inspire, connect and share, including The Editors Lab, the Data Journalism Awards, Startups For News and the Climate Publishers Network. GEN members represent more than 80 countries and 300 media groups around the world.[1]
Its goal is to empower newsroom leaders to innovate by breaking down the barriers between traditional and new media, to demonstrate the value of data journalism so that information can be gathered and shared to define an open journalism model for the future, and creating new journalistic concepts and tools.[2] The GEN Community was launched in September 2014. The GEN Community website enables people to connect, share, compare, collaborate on new media projects. Prototypes from the Editors Lab and the Data Journalism Awards are also featured on the GEN Community. There are more than 900 projects and 2,380 members on the GEN Community. The Gen Community is supported by the Open Society Foundations.[3]
GEN was established to respond to the increasing risks journalism faces,[4] as media must be relevant and constantly innovate. Its role is to gather editors with different knowledge sets and to start a dialogue with engineers, developers and digital innovators. Its founding members are leading editors and top executives at The Washington Post, El País, BBC, Le Monde, Aftenposten, The Guardian, Clarìn, and many other media brands worldwide.[5] It is a nonprofit organisation, financed through grants, membership, participation to the annual Summit, sponsorship and donations.
Mission
GEN's objective is to define the future of journalism by empowering editors-in-chief and senior news executives looking for the preservation of editorial quality when working with publishers, media owners and news suppliers as the delivery of news is transforming into new digital platforms.[6] Because digitalisation and broadband access have accelerated media convergence, editors on all platforms are confronted with the same challenges in news production. It is more obvious every day that they are members of the same community, all driven by a journalistic imperative and a common goal: how to invent tomorrow's journalism and to make it sustainable.
The senior news executives who founded the Global Editors Network (GEN) are convinced that news producers and newsrooms across all platforms – print, broadcast, online, mobile and wire services – face comparable challenges. Activities of GEN are based on freedom of expression regardless of frontiers, free access to information and independence of the news. The association encourages multilateral cooperation and collaborates with current press freedom bodies and media development practitioners.
Activities
The annual conference GEN Summit[7] aims to "Hack The Newsroom”[8] by challenging conventional practices in the news media while maintaining the sophistication and integrity of journalism. With more than 600 participants from all over the world, this event has become one of the top media networking events of the year. Gathering together editors-in-chief, newsroom decision-makers, data journalists, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs to share their expertise[9][10][11] on creating a better future for journalism, this conference also includes the Data Journalism Awards, Startups for News, and the Editors Lab Hackdays Final. The GEN Summit 2014 and 2015 took place in Barcelona. The GEN Summit 2016 will take place in Vienna from 15 to 17 June.[12]
The Editors Lab, a worldwide series of hackdays where teams of journalists, designers and developers have competed in the development of innovative journalism tools, content and apps. These are hosted by some of the leading newsrooms in the world with previous events in Poland,[13] France,[14] Netherlands,[15] Turkey,[16] UK[17] and Spain.[18] Including workshops and hack days occurring in newsrooms throughout the world, it is concluded by an international two-day hackaton at the GEN News Summit which gathers the best teams of each Editors Lab stop. Its raison d'être is to drive innovation into newsrooms.[19]
The Data Journalism Awards, the first international contest recognising outstanding work in the field of data journalism, sponsored by Google.[20] The Data Journalism Awards 2015 received 482 submissions. A total of 14 winners were selected from a shortlist of 78 by a jury panel led by Paul Steiger from ProPublica. The winners were awarded prizes of €1,500 at the Data Journalism Awards Ceremony at CosmoCaixa Barcelona on 18 June 2015.[21]
Startups For News is an international competition that rewards the most innovative startups disrupting the media industry. GEN selects startups that challenge the status quo with new editorial services for newsrooms or new ways of delivering journalistic content. During the GEN Summit, the winning startups from each category have the opportunity to pitch their work to GEN’s network of media innovators. The startups also able to showcase their product in a dedicated ‘Startups for News’ stand at the GEN expo. The winner of the Startup For News Final 2015 was SourceRise.[22]
Climate Publishers Network – Ahead of the UN Climate Change Summit (COP21) in Paris, 25 media organisations from around the world created a new publishers network to collaborate on their coverage of climate change. The initiative is coordinated by the Global Editors Network.[23] The Climate Publishers Network (CPN) provides a mutual syndication of articles related to climate change free of charge during the run-up to COP21. Each media organisation is able to re-publish material without having to worry about license fees. The aim of the collaboration is to widen each publisher’s spectrum of coverage in the run-up to the UN Climate Change Summit in Paris in December 2015.[24]
Digital Journalism Massive open online course (MOOC), in French, in conjunction with Rue89 and First Business MOOC. GEN has coordinated on three MOOCs since the launch.[25]
GEN Study Tours – Launched in 2013, the study tours programme aims to help discovery and practice sharing between editors. Previous study tours have included: From Big Data to Automated Journalism in Chicago and New York, Mobile Content Strategy in New York and Atlanta and Embracing Video in New York and Washington.
Board members
The 26 GEN Board Members[26] are top media decision makers from news organisations such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, BBC, Le Monde, Clarín, AJ+, Russmedia, India Today, L'Économiste, etc.
The President for 2015-2017 is Peter Bale (Chief Executive Officer at the Center for Public Integrity)[27] The previous GEN Presidents were Xavier Vidal-Folch, Deputy Director of El País, and Ricardo Kirschbaum, the General Editor of Clarín.[28]
Bertrand Pecquerie is the current CEO of the association.[29]
References
- ↑ "HackAgainstEbola campaign".
- ↑ "Médias : création d'un réseau mondial des rédacteurs en chef". Le Monde.
- ↑ "GEN Community".
- ↑ "Global Editors Network launches under former WEF leaders". Journalism.co.uk.
- ↑ "About GEN".
- ↑ "GEN Manisfesto".
- ↑ "GEN Summit 2015 Highlights".
- ↑ "OKFN at GEN Editors Lab Hackday in Barcelona".
- ↑ "GENSummit: Think 'journalism first, technology second'". Journalism.co.uk.
- ↑ "La audiencia se vuelve impaciente... busca la noticia en el móvil o en vídeos". El Pais.
- ↑ "Bezahlsysteme und "Nachrichtenuhren" erleben einen Boom". Der Standard.
- ↑ "Vienna Announced As City for GEN Summit 2016".
- ↑ "Editors' Lab: "Gazeta Wyborcza" Hackdays".
- ↑ "Editors Lab - Le Parisien Hackdays : les médias à l'assaut de l'Open Data".
- ↑ "Tweedaagse EditorsLab-competitie bij de NOS".
- ↑ "The Sharq Forum Editors Lab".
- ↑ "Ideas to improve the news industry from BBC NewsHack".
- ↑ "Una pirámide alimentaria para las noticias del futuro". El Pais.
- ↑ "Center CEO elected president of global news organization".
- ↑ "Google-sponsored Data Journalism Awards open to entries".
- ↑ "Los 14 ganadores de los Data Journalism Awards".
- ↑ "Global editors impressed by startup site matching journalists to on-the-ground international sources".
- ↑ "Global news organisations agree to share climate change content".
- ↑ "Global news organisations agree to share climate change content". The Guardian.
- ↑ "GEN is producing Digital Journalism MOOC in French".
- ↑ "About GEN".
- ↑ "Center CEO elected president of global news organization".
- ↑ "The Global Editors Network, le réseau mondial des rédacteurs en chef".
- ↑ "The future of journalism – interview with Bertrand Pecquerie, CEO of the Global Editors Network".