The news industry pivots from tackling one fundamental challenge threatening our very existence to another. It is also fair to say that we have seen some of these things coming but not been able to ac...
Fergus Bell
Fergus Bell is CEO and co-founder of fathm.
He is an experienced journalist, editor and leading expert in digital newsgathering, verification, newsroom innovation and collaborative journalism projects. Fergus’ experience spans both the business and editorial sides of the news industry.
He spent eight years as a journalist and producer at the Associated Press, where he became their first International Social Media and UGC Editor. He then headed up newsroom partnerships and innovation for digital newsgathering start-up, SAM Desk. In 2015 Fergus founded Dig Deeper Media - advising broadcasters, publishers and start-ups on social and digital newsgathering, newsroom transformation and innovation. In 2017 he co-founded Pop-Up Newsroom, a framework for collaborative journalism projects that has already seen success in the US, UK, India, Sweden and with the multi-award winning "Verificado" - an initiative designed to monitor for misinformation during the Mexican elections.
Fergus is a 2019 Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow and is a faculty member of the European Broadcast Union’s Academy. He will join the Online News Association’s Board of Directors in 2020.
Climate change, climate chaos, the global climate emergency – whatever you want to call the environmental crisis already impacting millions around the world and promising to impact millions more in ...
There is little doubt that 2018 has seen the rise of mass journalism collaborations to successfully tackle misinformation and navigate events at a scale that can’t be achieved by an individual organ...
With more than 1.5 billion people around the world using WhatsApp on a monthly basis it has fast become a resource of information and news for many. As the platform grows there have been challenges bu...
The role of social newsgathering in newsrooms has become more ethically complex than ever in recent months, as those who seek to disrupt disinformation and propaganda campaigns must adapt to an enemy ...
Trust in media and the fight against misinformation is a global problem that requires a global solution; it can never be solved within one region alone, or just by the richest newsrooms. Across the...
This session will help equip your newsroom with the knowledge and workflows that will allow you to work with speed and accuracy from the first tweet to publishing the story on your platform. We’ll f...
Electionland was a unique collaborative project to track and cover voting problems during the 2016 US elections across the whole country and in real-time. It was also the largest social newsgathering ...
In the last year, we’ve seen a number of breaking news events where content posted by eyewitnesses to social media has become a story in its own right. Whether that’s the hounding of students ca...
In this workshop, participants will learn how to set up systems that allow you to monitor social media effectively so you will be the first to find out when news breaks. Learn how to find eyewitness...
How are news media investing in and fostering innovation? Does this work better when launching a new start up, such as Ze.tt from the Zeit Online publisher, or creating a separate unit within the p...
We all need to be the first to run social and user-generated content when breaking news happens. That is the nature of a competitive news business. But what about asking for permission, or even wait...
As news events break, newsrooms need the ability to contextualize and verify reports, photos and videos from social media channels. We’ll discuss some simple tools to help journalists verify infor...
The Online News Association recently formed a working group of journalists who deal with user-generated content to discuss the ethics and standards of digital and social newsgathering. The first step ...
Amateur footage: the increasing reliance on user generated content in news output
News outlets are using more and more footage filmed by eyewitnesses at breaking news events. With the proliferation of mobile phones with high quality cameras and easy access to the social web, citize...
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