Join a fascinating group discussion on how to find good journalism online, hosted by NewsTrust.net, our social news network. We will have a diverse group of journalists, educators, technologists and community leaders for this conversation. After a short presentation about NewsTrust, we will break into small work groups. First, groups will review an article together and then talk about how to discriminate between good and bad journalism. We will also discuss best practices for helping citizens sharpen their news literacy skills.
Some of the questions we’ll discuss in this one-hour event include:

During the meeting, we will introduce what we’re doing at NewsTrust to address these questions– and ask your thoughts on how to best expand this public service — to help more citizens make informed decisions about their lives and governments.

Session leaders: Fabrice Florin, Rory O’Connor and David Cohn, NewsTrust.net, a non-profit social news network dedicated to good journalism.

In a networked culture, innovation and creativity emerge everywhere. This workshop will illustrate how small networked teams of part-time employees and volunteers collaborate to produce Global Voices Online, a human-powered aggregator of ideas emerging from every corner of the planet.

Session leaders: Solana Larsen and Georgia Popplewell, Co-Managing Editors, Global Voices

How can media and technology be used to facilitate meaningful and measurable change in our society?

Working Group Chair: Brian Reich, author, Media Rules!

• Ruth Behar, professor of anthropology, University of Michigan
• Luis Ramiro Beltr√°n, Bolivian journalist and scholar
• Andrew Karanja Githeko, Chief Research Officer & Head: Climate and Human Health Research Unit, Kenya Medical Research Institute
• Tom Kennedy, Managing Editor for Multimedia, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
• Pedro Paulo Poppovic, Editor, Sur International Journal of Human Rights
• Tini Tran, correspondent, The Associated Press
• Wang Wei, Senior TV anchorwoman and journalist, Shanghai Media Group

Founders and would-be entrepreneurs pitch their big ideas to a panel of business-launching experts. Even if you’re not pitching an idea, come watch the competition to start the next big thing.

Chair: Rick Ducey, EVP, BIA Financial Network

• Suha Araj, Founder and VP of Strategy, Real Girls Media
• John McKinley, Founder, LaunchBox Digital
• Joe Natoli, SVP, Business & Finance, University of Miami

Women and girls are a powerful force online: They users, creators and participants, as well as marketing targets for advertisers. Yet women-led businesses and gender-balanced teams in new media are more an exception than a rule. What can some of today’s female media leaders tell us about building successful businesses, leading strong teams and creating a more egalitarian workforce?

Session Chair: Susan Mernit, Senior Director, Yahoo! and blogger, Susan Mernit’s Blog

• Mary Hodder, Founder, Dabble
• Judith Meskill, Co-Founder, Crowd Fusion
• Carolyn Washburn, Executive Editor, The Des Moines Register
• Barbara Kahn, Dean, University of Miami School of Business
• Jan Schaffer, Executive Director, J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism

Blogged by Jessica Mikulski, (with additional commentary from Renata Avila)

Sponsored by the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, AARP, Kaiser Permanente and Microsoft

Leading edge thinkers discuss one of the most important and personally meaningful issues of the 21st century: How communications technology and the content delivered through it will be used to improve the health and quality of life for people worldwide.

Introduced by Dr. Pascal Goldschmidt, Dean, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Session Chair: Kendall Lockhart, Co-Founder, Nenuphar Mobile Media

Keynote conversation with Scott Mowbray, Editorial Director, Health.com

Forum conversation:

• Bert van Hoof, Director, Microsoft Health Solutions Group
• Don Jones, VP, Health & Life Sciences, Qualcomm
• Emilio Pardo, Chief Brand Officer, AARP
• Dr. Andrew Wiesenthal, Associate Executive Director, The Permanente Federation
• Grant Harrison, Vice President, Integrated Consumer Experience, Humana

Blogged by Jacqueline Kreinik: post one, two, three, four and five, (with additional commentary from Zita Arocha)

If you can’t google it, does it exist? Search functions unlock the Internet’s potential, but how can we make it easier for everyone to find relevant information and act on it? Innovative thinking about metadata, permissions and trust could provide the necessary breakthroughs.

Session Chair: Jim Kennedy, VP Strategy, The Associated Press

• Fabrice Florin, Executive Director, NewsTrust
• Mary Hodder, Founder, Dabble
• Josh Cohen, Director, Business Development, Google News

SEARCH WORLD – Trust, Relevance and Rights (Breakout): Blogged by Jonathan Hendler

Afternoon sessions:

Who can you trust in the We Media landscape? Where’s the line between commerce and information? No more is it a question of parsing the biases of individual media outlets: It’s time to define a global media-education agenda so everyone can understand how today’s media works, and how best to use it. Our goal: Create a set of guidelines for media literacy today.

Session Chair: John Bell, Managing Director, 360° Digital Influence, Ogilvy

• Vinita Srivastava, Assistant Professor, Ryerson University
• Sam Grogg, Dean, University of Miami School of Communication
• Sara DeWitt, Senior Director, PBS KIDS & Parents Interactive

Blogged by Travis Smith, (with additional commentary from Renata Avila)

It’s supposed to be the YouTube-MySpace-power-to-the-people campaign. So why are online political junkies so frustrated with what they’ve seen so far?

Session Chair: Brian Reich, author, Media Rules!

• Ellen Miller, Sunlight Foundation
• Catherine Geanuracos, Live Earth
• Carolyn Washburn, Executive Editor, The Des Moines Register
• Michael Silberman, EchoDitto
• John Della Volpe, SocialSphere
• Amy Schatz, The Wall Street Journal
• Anthony Wojtkowiak, MTV Street Team

Blogged by Nathaniel James, (with additional commentary from Jillian York)

With the traditional media losing its monopoly on information, opinion and storytelling, all sectors of society now have the power through media and communications to make themselves heard. How can we use this new power to make the world a better place?

Session Chair: Andrew Nachison, Co-Founder, iFOCOS

• J. Sebastian Traeger, CEO, Razoo
• Jim Brady, Executive Editor, Washingtonpost.Newsweek.Interactive
• Katrin Verclas, MobileActive
• Jean Marc Coicaud, Director, United Nations University
• The Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., CEO, Hip Hop Caucus
• Darya Shaikh, Executive Director, OneVoice

Closing Thoughts from Brian Reich, author, Media Rules!

Blogged by David Cohn, (with additional commentary from Jillian York, and comments on UNU from Renata Avila)

With Richard Sarnoff, President, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, and William C. Weiss, Chairman &CEO, The Promar Group, Chairman, iFOCOS

Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one and two.

Andrew Nachison and Dale Peskin, Co-Founders, iFOCOS

Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, three, and four.

With Jeff Gomez, author, Print is Dead and Roger Black, Principal, Danilo-Black

Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, and three.

Meet and chat with author, blogger and media strategist Brian Reich at The National Press Club in Washington, DC.

When: Tuesday, April 1, 4 pm ET

Where: The National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, Washington, DC 20045, 13th Floor First Amendment Room [map]

What: Conversation Followed By Reception

More: If you have questions, contact Brian directly: brian AT themediarules DOT com. Or learn more about him and connect with him in the We Media Community [here's Brian's profile].

Brian is a partner at web design and strategy shop EchoDitto, he’s a media-and-politics savvy blogger and co-author of a new book, Media Rules!: Mastering Today’s Technology to Connect With and Keep Your Audience. That’s his exclamation, not mine, like Yahoo!! Brian is also a member of the iFOCOS advisory board.

As part of our on-going wrap-up of last month’s We Media Miami conference, I’m collecting here all the live-blog posts from the iFOCOS We Media blog, organized by panel.

The We Media fellows — that dynamic, hard-working group of folks who received some financial help to attend the conference, thanks to generous assistance from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation — took turns covering panels and posting their notes on our blog.

These live-blog posts serve as a written record of each panel. You can also, of course, access audio from the panels as well — eventually all the audio should be avaible.

Note: To see live-blogging and online commentary by other conference participants and fellows writing on their own sites, go to this round-up of conference blog coverage.

Panels on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008:

Morning Sessions:

MEDIA AT THE TIPPING POINT (Intro): Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, three, and four.

PRINT IS DEAD (Keynote): Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, and three.

PRINT REINCARNATED (Keynote): Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one and two.

THE POWER TO CHANGE THE WORLD (Forum): Blogged by David Cohn, (with additional commentary from Jillian York, and comments on UNU from Renata Avila)

POLITICAL WORLD – Hype vs. Reality in Campaign ’08 (Breakout): Blogged by Nathaniel James, (with additional commentary from Jillian York)

INFORMED WORLD – The Citizens Guide to Media Literacy (Break-out): Blogged by Travis Smith, (with additional commentary from Renata Avila)

SEARCH WORLD – Trust, Relevance and Rights (Breakout): Blogged by Jonathan Hendler

Afternoon sessions:

HEALTHY WORLD – The Future of Information & Communication Technologies in Health (Forum): Blogged by Jacqueline Kreinik: post one, two, three, four and five, (with additional commentary from Zita Arocha)

PITCH IT – Tomorrow’s Best Start-ups (Breakout): Blogged by Craig Smith. Post one and two.

PRO-AM WORLD (Breakout): Blogged by Zita ArochaLEADERSHIP WORLD – Women, Media and Technology (Breakout): Blogged by Jessica Mikulski, (with additional commentary from Renata Avila)

NONPROFIT WORLD – Endowed Journalism (Breakout): Blogged by Adrienne Ammerman, (with additional commentary from the Pulitzer Center’s Nathalie Applewhite)

INNOVATION WORLD – The Knight News Challenge (Breakout): Blogged by Jessica Reyes

ACTIVIST WORLD (Breakout): Blogged by Jessie Schuster.

WIDGET WORLD – The ME Revolution (Breakout): Blogged by Jacqueline Guitierrez

CIVIL DISCOURSE (Breakout): Blogged by Sarah Schacht

NEWS WORLD – Traditions and Transformation (Breakout): Blogged by Travis Smith

SOCIAL WORLD – Social Experiences in Business (Breakout): Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, three and four.

INDIGENOUS WORLD – We Tell Our Own Stories (Breakout): Global Voices blogging (and additional commentary from Renata Avila)

Panels on Thursday morning, February 28:

DEVELOPER’S WORLD: Emerging Content, Yours Mine and Ours (Forum): Blogged by Brooks Lindsay

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS: Journalism as a Cause (Keynote): Blogged by Rob Park (with additional wrap-up by Andrew Nachison)

NETWORKED ECONOMICS (Forum): Blogged by Lauren Movius: post one, two and three.