This is for a Panel in the category for a Intermediate audience.
From the start, we knew Education Lab would prove both a distinctive journalistic project and a challenging organizational construct. The Seattle Times, which had reported expertly for years on the problems facing Washington state’s public education system, would produce a deeply reported year-long series focused explicitly on emerging solutions to those problems. It would connect its journalism to engagement mechanisms designed to shift the historically fractious discourse around education to one focused on innovation and change.
Not least, Education Lab would be the product of a collaborative partnership between the Times, a for-profit newspaper; the Solutions Journalism Network, a non-profit start-up out to spread the practice of credible solutions reporting; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the world’s largest philanthropic funders in both journalism and education. At a moment when news organizations are energetically exploring new strategies, sometimes with unfamiliar allies, to sustain quality journalism, our learning from this collaboration promised to have relevance well beyond Seattle.
In this session, representatives from all three partners will tell the (mostly) unvarnished tale of how Education Lab happened and what we’ve learned:
• What’s worked and what hasn’t?
• What would we do differently if we could start over?
• What are best practices for a sustainable cross-sector collaboration?
• How did we address journalism ethics concerns about whether the Gates Foundation would influence newsroom editorial decisions?
• Was it worth doing from a journalism perspective? Was it worth doing from a business perspective?
• What’s the legacy of the project in the organization?
This session will play out in the form of a self-guided narrative; rather than having the panelists respond to packaged questions, the speakers will together spin out a synthetic story in real time that reflects the varied perspectives and interests of their organizations. After the storytelling, they’ll take on questions that we hope will focus on Education Lab’s strategy, structure, and execution.
How does your submission contribute to the diversity of the conference?
This is not a technology story, although Education Lab clearly has distinctive online elements. It’s a discussion of newsroom practice change: How we got journalists to approach their work differently, shifting their reporting lens from problem to solution and building the skills and confidence to engage readers very differently. And it will reflect an important conversation, still in progress, about how news organizations can collaborate with outside entities — and accept philanthropic funding — while preserving historic journalistic values.
What will your audience have gained by the time your session is over?
Suggested Speakers
Manami Kano
Sharon Chan | @sharonpianchan
Keith Hammonds