Rise early tomorrow (Thursday) to catch the free Newsplex webinar on the newsroom of the future.

Questions such as what will it take to make newsrooms economically viable are among those to be answered during the free, two-hour webinar which takes place at 2pm US Eastern Standard Time today Wednesday (which is early Thursday morning in the Asia-Pacific).

The event marks the ten-year anniversary of the founding of Newsplex, WAN-Ifra’s prototype, integrated newsroom and training facility.

It will feature:

• Ken Doctor, a leading news industry analyst;

• Raju Narisetti (@rajunarisetti), the head of the Wall Street Journal’s Digital Network,

• Cherilyn Ireton, Executive Director of the World Editors Forum;

• Kerry Northrup, a key figure in the founding of Newsplex and now a professor at Western Kentucky University, and other industry experts.

The webinar, which begins at 2 pm (Eastern Standard Time, 7 pm GMT) will look at lessons learned during a decade of dramatic change since Newsplex was founded by WAN-Ifra and the University of South Carolina, and will focus on the challenges of the future.



Other participants will include Saf Fahim, the architect who designed Newsplex; former BBC training executive Jonathan Halls, who now provides leadership workshops for media organizations; as well as working journalists from around the world who trained in Newsplex.  



Present in Newsplex will be Charles Bierbauer, the dean of USC’s college of mass communications and information studies, USC journalism faculty and students, as well members of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association.

The webinar is hosted by the World Editors Forum (WEF), the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association (SNPA) and the University of South Carolina College of Mass Communications and Information Studies.



The webinar will be accessible via the Newsplex website (http://newsplex.sc.edu/ ).  Using Spreecast technology, webinar viewers will be able to text their comments and questions throughout the event.

Afterward, excerpts from the webinar will accessible through the Newsplex website.



For more information, contact: Randy Covington, Randy.covington@wan-ifra.org
+1 803 447 6886