The Online News Association is staying true to the times and asking journalists – including freelancers – to help them choose topics for sessions at its annual conference, ONA10, which takes place Oct. 28-30 in Washington D.C. The best part – you don’t need to be an ONA member to have a say.

ONA is the largest professional organization for reporters, editors and other journalists working primarily in digital media, whether on staff for newspapers or magazines or for themselves as freelancers, bloggers or entrepreneurs. Based in Washington D.C., ONA has regional chapters around the country and in recent years has started several international outposts.

The ONA recently asked members to submit proposals for conference sessions. Suggestions poured in, including proposed sessions on teaching writers how to code – and computers how to write – building nonprofit news ventures and thriving as a journalist entrepreneur.

Now the organization’s crowding, asking anyone and everyone interested to vote on which of the 118 proposed topics they’d like to see at the conference. To vote, go to the Session Selector page, and create an account. Each proposed topic comes with a brief explanation, and you can see who the presenters would be. You can give a thumbs up to select as many as you like.

Although it’s still months away, it’s not too early to start thinking about attending ONA 2010. Last year’s conference in San Francisco was a sell out, with guest speakers such as Twitter’s Ev Williams and BlogHer’s Lisa Stone, and close to 750 professional and student journalist in attendance.

For more information on the ONA 2010 conference visit the main registration page. Get conference updates on Twitter at @ONA10 and track conversations at #ONA10.

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published details of a plan by AOL for a 21st century news system that depends as much on computer algorithms as it does editors to decide which news is fit to print and which, well, isn’t.

You’ll have to subscribe to the paper in print or online or borrow a copy from a friend to see AOL to Produce News, Video by the Numbers in its entirety. But here are some of the relevant details:

• AOL will rely on a new digital newsroom system that uses computer algorithms to predict what types of stories, videos or photos will be popular, then assign articles accordingly.
• Here’s where freelancers come in. Stories will be assigned to freelancers via a new Web site called Seed.com. According to the story, AOL already works with a network of 3,000 freelancers but is looking to increase that number through Seed.com, “which is open to anyone looking to submit a story.” In other words, not necessarily professional writers. Note: The Seed.com website isn’t much to look at just yet, but they will take your email address and promise to get back to you after they launch, if you’re so inclined.
• Under the new system, AOL’s freelance fees will range from nothing up front and a share of ad revenue to more than $100 per story.
• According to the WSJ story, AOL will offer advertisers “the chance to work with its editorial team to create custom content.” In other words custom publishing. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s not exactly journalism, and hopefully won’t be labeled as such.

The WSJ story used the recent baby crib recall as an example of how AOL’s new system would work. If the new system had been up and running, according to the article, the company’s number-crunching wizardry would have determined that people were interested in seeing more stories on the subject, which would have prompted editors to assign more stories.

To which I can only say: no duh. Any editor worth their salt would have come to the same conclusion, and wouldn’t have needed a lot of computer algorithms to do it.

All this is being directed by Tim Armstrong, the former Google advertising exec who’s slated to take over as AOL’s CEO when Time Warner completes spinning off the Internet company in December.

Some of my freelance friends are already up in arms over the whole situation. They’re ready to put AOL into the same group as Demand Studios, Associated Content, Helium, Studio101 and other sites that I’ve called content aggregators but other freelancers have dubbed content mills for the paltry amounts they pay, whether to professional writers or hobbyists, to churn out how-tos and other articles based on topics that are more prized for how high they’ll turn up in keyword searches than for their reportage.

But other freelancers I know who work on AOL’s blogs and other news enterprises have nothing but good things to say about the working conditions, including friendly editors and decent money.

For now, it remains to be seen whether AOL’s new endeavor will turn out to be a legitimate new market for freelance work, or give new meaning to the term bad seed.

Whatever happens, it’s also worth noting that AOL is the latest in a string of companies that most people would identify as technology ventures getting into the media business, a growing list that includes Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. As newspapers continue to struggle, are these tech giants the real future of the news?

It’s been 48 hours since the close of the WeMaketheMedia conference that took place on Saturday, Nov. 21, more than enough time to let the dust settle and see what actually happened.

A crowd of about 150 or so media professionals and just plain folks attended part or all of the conference, which was created to explore the feasibility of starting a nonprofit organization to cover local news. Many of them have already weighed in with their views, which are all over the map.

There are those who thought the conference, put together by a handful of long-time Portlanders with roots in local media and public affairs, excluded – accidentally or otherwise -  groups that are chronically under-served by the state’s existing media, specifically people of color.

There were also those who railed against how it was structured, with participants who didn’t listen to each other and led by a handful of Boomer and older journalists who aren’t as hip to Twitter et al as their Gen Y counterparts, a techno divide that got bigger as the day wore one.

There were also those who’ve made the rounds of local or national digital journalism conferences over the past year or more and are tired of talking about problems and just want to get on with implementing some solutions.

While I started out as one of the panelists, by the end of the day I’d joined “the corner,” a group sitting in the back of the room near the electrical outlets so they could take notes on their laptops and use Twitter to broadcast meeting updates to people who couldn’t be there, and yes, I’ll admit it, crack jokes and grouse about things they heard and didn’t like.

It’s all well and good to argue about who did what at the meeting or who didn’t respect whom. For me, what it all comes down to is the work. As one of those people who’s been going to these ‘future of news’ presentations for the past six months and written about it for the past two years, I too am ready to stop talking about it and get things done.

Which is why I spent the better part of Saturday with the conference goers who wanted to discuss creating a network of independent, entrepreneurial journalism ventures that could collaborate in some way on a regular basis. What this organization could look like, how the participants would collaborate and how it would be funded is TBD. But as discussed by the 20-plus people who spent a couple of hours hashing it out, it could take several shapes, including some or all of the following:

• A loosely affiliated group of journalists and bloggers, each with their own specialty or beat that would run their respective websites, blogs, email newsletters or other publications, and possibly also contribute some or all of their work to a larger online publication or site.
• A physical co-working space specifically for reporters who want to work someplace other than their home offices some or all of the time
• A social support group that would meet regularly to brainstorm, share advice and commiserate.
• A group that could barter editorial services – my copyediting for your videography or Ruby on Rails development.
• A partnership that could compile and sell its work to other news outlets through some type of syndicate.

Exactly how such a conglomeration would be structured, governed, paid for and operate is yet to be determined. But I like the concept. And it’s something I’m willing to pursue.

The group that worked on this idea on Saturday ended up calling it an incubator. For better or worse the name’s stuck. They also decided the city doesn’t need another new journalism group holding another monthly meeting to hash things out. Instead, they’re opting to piggyback onto the Digital Journalism Portland meetings that are already going on.

If you like the sound of a Portland journalism incubator and want to learn more, get involved – especially if you’re already working as an entrepreneurial journalist or have space to offer or some other goods or services to throw into the pot. Come to the next Digital Journalism Portland social hour. That’s set for Thursday, Dec. 3, 7 p.m., at the Rose & Thistle pub on N.E. Broadway. Get more details at the Digital Journalism Portland blog.

Meanwhile, the conversation about an incubator that started on Saturday is ongoing, in a Google Group set up specifically for the purpose. Anybody can join at WeMaketheMedia.

The incubator wasn’t the only idea to bubble up from Saturday’s gathering. According to meeting organizer Ron Buel, separate groups will be working in coming weeks on initiatives on investigative reporting, preserving traditional journalism values, and possibly, creating an agency to disseminate Oregon state public records to media organizations in a more timely fashion that exists today. To find out more or get involved with those groups, contact eharris@opb.org or ronb@donavoncards.com.

It’s not too late to attend the WeMaketheMedia.com conference, which takes place tomorrow, Saturday, Nov. 21, at UO’s Turnbull Center in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood.

You may be too late to order a box lunch. But you aren’t too late to show up for the all-day discussion of what it would take to create a new, non-profit news organization covering Portland and Oregon. Tickets are $25.

If you attend, you’ll be among 100+ practicing journalists, community activists and plain old citizens expected to be there. I’ll be one of them.

Portland is one of dozens of cities where hyperlocal news sites have started or are being started as newspapers and TV news lose readers and ad revenue. Just this week, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar announced plans to launch a local news service in Hawaii in early 2010. In recent weeks and months similar enterprises have been launched in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and elsewhere.

If you can’t make it, you can still read the working papers the group published in advance of the conference to set out its thoughts and hopes for what a Portland nonprofit news site could be.

You can also follow the conference on Twitter at @wemakethemedia or #wemakethemedia.

Newspapers like the Oregonian may never reach the same level of readers or advertising they once had. But that doesn’t mean the news is going away.

Around Portland and the state, hyperlocal news sites, blogs, and other fledgling news efforts are popping up to take over where traditional media outlets have left off.

That’s the message that came through from journalists – including me – who discussed about the local media scene on this morning’s installment, Rebirth of Local Journalism, on Think Outloud, Oregon Public Broadcasting’s morning public affairs show.

In case you missed it, here’s a stream of the complete, 60 minute broadcast. Yours truly comes on at about minute 37 (give or take a minute or two).

Oregon Public Broadcast’s morning talk show, Think Outloud, is rushing onto the air a segment on the future of local journalism in light of the WeMaketheMedia.com conference this coming weekend.

The show, called “The Rebirth of Local Journalism,” airs live tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 9 a.m.

I’ll be one of the guests on the show, along with several other Portland and Oregon journalists who’ve made it their business to keep tabs on the local media scene.

The WeMaketheMedia. com conference, which takes place at UO’s Turnbull Center in downtown Portland on Saturday, is looking at what it would take to start a non-profit investigative journalism initiative in the area. Even if you can’t attend, you can get a taste of what they’ll be discussing by reading these working papers the group’s organizers have put together in advance of the event.

If you miss the OPB live broadcast, you can catch a podcast of the segment after it airs. Once a link’s available I’ll include it here.

I’ve talked the talk.

Now it’s time to walk the walk.

After preaching to everyone who visits here about the need to innovate during an era of unprecedented industry change and try new things, I’ve taken my own advice and accepted an assignment to do something I’ve never done before.

What will I be doing?

Here’s a hint:

You know all those things I’ve written about editors – what makes a good one, how to tell a bad one when you see them, how to pitch, how to keep them updated on what you’re doing?

Well, I’ll be taking my own advice as, like Alice, I go through the looking glass and say goodbye freelance writer, hello freelance editor.

I’ll save all the details for another day. But generally speaking, I’ll be helping bring an online-based project from concept to launch, including mapping out timelines and editorial calendars, securing writers, lining up assignments, editing copy and working with what seems like an enormous team.

Am I excited? Of course.

Am I nervous? Of course.

I’ve worked as a business publication editor before, but it’s been awhile. In fact, it was so long ago the publication I was responsible for came out once a month, in print and the Internet was still a twinkle in ARPANET’s eye. In those days, marketing a publication consisted of printing extra copies to take to conventions and trade shows. This project will live online, and once we’re live we’ll let the world know through Twitter and Digg. Times, they are a changing indeed.

I’m not saying goodbye to writing altogether, especially not here. But it’s going to feel good to exercise a few different creative muscles for the time being.

Wish me luck!

An article in today’s New York Times, Business is a beat deflated, by the paper’s media critic David Carr suggests the business press as we’ve known it – Forbes, BusinessWeek et al – has fallen on hard times and isn’t getting back up again any time soon, if ever.

Forbes just announced yet another layoff. Bloomberg bought BusinessWeek from McGraw Hill for a song. Fortune’s scaling back the number of issues it will produce next year. The Wall Street Journal is closing its Boston bureau. Advertising in other business publications has fallen precipitously. Carr suggests that a lot of what passed for business journalism was aspirational in nature, showing would-be captains of industry the prescribed formula to follow if they wanted to be the next Wall Street millionaire. Now that the mighty have fallen, he reasons, people have stopped caring about the the publications that praised them.

While I buy into the fact that the print business press has suffered what might be a fatal blow, it’s not the end of the world for business reporting.

For every Forbes or BusinessWeek that’s downsizing or sold, new publications are popping up online. New entities might not have the gravitas of the old ones. But they don’t have the overhead either. That might be bad in the short run – not as much money equals not as many resources to do investigative pieces or go after the important stories of the day. But at least they’ve got a better shot at living to see another day.

Some of these new publications aren’t really new. One of the best business stories of the year was The Giant Pool of Money, a listener-friendly take on how we got into the present economic mess in the first place, that was a collaboration between NPR and American Public Media’s quirky radio show This American Life. It was such a hit NPR is now teaming up with local public broadcasters on EconomyStory.org, a website that will showcase all the parties’ economy-related reporting.

Other new outlets for business news are starting up all the time. Two I’m acquainted with because I’ve done some work for them: MoneyWatch.com, created by CBS earlier this year, and a still in beta start-up on personal finance for women.

The old guard of online business news, sites such as MarketWatch.com, The Street, The Motley Fool and CNNMoney are still going strong, as are newer outfits such as VentureBeat and The Business Insider.

So, while some of the big glossies might be fading into the sunset, the genre can hardly be said to be dying.

If you cover business, where’s your work coming from these days?

When it comes to online news, are you a Digital or a Turn Back the Clock?

Those are two of six types of new journalists Northwestern University’s Media Management Center identified in a recent report, Life beyond print: Newspaper journalists’ digital appetite.

The Northwestern team surveyed 3,800 journalists working at 79 newspapers about their digital habits, “where they want their newsrooms and careers to go, and how well their leaders are doing in managing the tumultuous changes in the news industry.”

Based on their finding, the report placed journalists in one of six groups based on their desire for digital change. While the survey covered only journalists working at newspapers, I’ll wager the categories apply to freelancers as well. They are:

Digitals – Spend a majority of their time online. These are the Web rats who ruled at the recent Online News Association conference, 20somethings who dropped out of j-school to run an online news start up, coding whizzes who win awards for their news-related content management systems, and guys (and girls) who never worked in print in the first place.

Major Shifters – Spend lots of time online outside work and are frustrated they don’t do more online when they are. Think newsrooms need to “get on it and make a more ambitious shift” and would devote heaps more time toward that end if they felt it was worthwhile.

Status Quos - Like the little bear in Goldilocks, find the 30 percent of their time spent producing online news is just right.

Turn Back the Clocks – Long for a return to print. Represented 6 percent of journalists surveyed (good thing, cuz face it, it ain’t nevah coming back)

Moderately Mores – The largest contingent – 50 percent of total surveyed. Would like to double their current digital activities to get to an even split between working online and in print.

Leaders – High-level publishers and editors who typically spend more time focused on print but would like to shift more of their attention to online operations.

The survey results show a need for a reorganized hierarchy of talent, writes Alltop blog curator (yep, that’s her title) Noelle Chun. She observes:

While newsroom veterans provide invaluable editorial instinct and experience, young upstarts tend to bring the digital skills and fresh ideas. How can we soundly lead newsrooms in ambitious new ventures with diverse leadership and colleagues?

I’m not certain where I fit into this group. I’m no digital native, but I spend an overwhelming majority of my work day producing articles that will appear only online, online and in print simultaneously or first in print and then online. None of the publications I write for are print only (are any?) Some of the publications I write for have print issues but the work I produce is for their websites. Guess that makes me a Digital Status Quo.

Which new journalist are you?

The Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, is operating under federal bankruptcy protection. So is the parent company of the Orange County Register. Ditto for the holding company that owns the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com.

When it comes to the newspaper industry, everybody’s a nonprofit. even if they never intended to be – because everybody’s losing money.

In the wake of the disastrous effect the economy has had on the newspaper business and public’s changing appetite for how they consume news, more groups are popping up around the country to offer news on a nonprofit basis.

One of the most well-known to date is the VoiceofSanDiego.org, started four years ago and today 11 journalists strong. Minneapolis-based MinnPost is another. There’s also ProPublica, the investigative outfit headed by former Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger. Ann Imse, a former OC Register colleague of mine who was a casualty of the Rocky Mountain News’ closing earlier this year, is working on putting together a nonprofit news venture in Denver. The staff at VoiceofSanDiego says they field calls from journalists wanting to know how to put a nonprofit newsroom together on an almost weekly basis.

That brings us to Portland, where thriving tech, creative and media communities have already spawned lots of local online and hyperlocal news publications, as well as a budding digital journalism community.

Now it looks like the Rose City could be the next metropolis to host a nonprofit news experiment. A group of media veterans have combined forces on a master plan to establish a nonprofit investigative news agency that would cover the greater metro area. The group, which registered the domain name WeMaketheNews.com and put up a website at that address this week, hopes to kick off its efforts with a day-long conference on Saturday, Nov. 21, at the University of Oregon’s Turnbull Center in the Old Town neighborhood in downtown Portland. The event’s being backed by Oregon Public Broadcasting and The City Club of Portland.

Among the minds behind the venture: Ron Buell, the founding editor and publisher of Willamette Week; Oregonian arts columnist Barry Johnson; Digital Journalism Portland conference organizer Abraham Hyatt; OPB news vice president Morgan Holm, and others.

Full disclosure: I’ve met with Buell, and agreed to participate as a panelist at the conference (I guess as a female independent writer who gets the tech stuff and recently attended the Online News Association’s annual confab, I’m a lot of interest groups rolled into one). That’s the extent of my involvement so far.

Does Portland need another news agency to compete against, or work with established organizations including the Oregonian, OPB, Oregon Business, Portland Monthly, the Portland Business Journal and Daily Journal of Commerce, Pamplin’s Portland Tribune and its various suburban weeklies, Portland Mercury, the Portland Sentinel and other print and online papers and blogs that cover the area’s neighborhoods and interest groups? I don’t know. But I’m willing to listen.

The WeMaketheNews.com conference is limited to 200. Tickets are $25. Sign up here.