Washington, D.C., July 23, 2010 — The Online News Association, the world’s largest membership organization of digital journalists, today announced Vivian Schiller and Tim Armstrong will headline a “keynote conversation” moderated by wsj.com’s Kara Swisher at its annual conference in Washington, D.C.
The 2010 Online News Association Conference and Awards Banquet, Oct. 28-30, is expected to attract more than 800 online journalists from around the world to the Marriott Renaissance for three days of training, panels and workshops on emerging trends and technology, as well as a growing Career Summit and Job Fair. Last year’s event in San Francisco sold out.
Swisher
Armstrong
Schiller
“In 2009, we saw a new excitement in the industry and a commitment to redefining journalism,” said ONA President Christine Montgomery. “This year, we want to build on that momentum, using all the amazing new media wisdom at our disposal.”
Jump-starting the discussion on reinventing media companies will be Vivian Schiller, who joined NPR as President and CEO in 2009, coming from The New York Times Company where she served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of NYTimes.com. Schiller oversees all NPR operations and initiatives, including the organization’s critical partnerships with its 800-plus member stations, and their service to the more than 26 million people who listen to NPR programming every week. Before joining NYTimes.com, Schiller spent four years as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Discovery Times Channel, a joint venture of The New York Times and Discovery Communications, and as Senior Vice President of CNN Productions, where she led long-form programming efforts. Documentaries and series produced under her auspices earned multiple honors, including two Peabody Awards, two Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards and five Emmys.
Joining Schiller in conversation will be Tim Armstrong, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of AOL, LLC. Armstrong is responsible for setting strategy and overseeing the businesses and day-to-day operations of the company. He joined AOL in March 2009 from Google, where he served as the President of The Americas Operations, overseeing its North American and Latin American advertising sales, marketing, and operations teams. His tenure covered the scaled launch of its advertising efforts as well as defining many of the operating structures that supported the growth of its global expansion. Armstrong was the Vice President of Sales and Strategic Partnerships at Snowball.com, and served as the Director of Integrated Sales and Marketing at Starwave’s and Disney’s ABC/ESPN Internet Ventures. He started his career by co-founding and running a newspaper based in Boston before joining IDG to launch its first consumer Internet magazine, I-Way.
Moderating the pair will be Kara Swisher, Co-Executive Editor of All Things Digital. With Walt Mossberg, she currently co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech conference with interviewees such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and many other leading players in the tech and media industries. Swisher, a former reporter for the Washington Post, is the author of “aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads and Made Millions in the War for the Web” and the sequel, “There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future.”
The Online News Association is the world’s largest membership association of digital journalists. Its mission is to inspire innovation and excellence among journalists to better serve the public. Membership is open to individuals who produce news and information for digital distribution, those indirectly associated with the process, academics and students. ONA also hosts an annual conference, held Oct. 28-30 in Washington, D.C., and administers the Online Journalism Awards.
For more information, contact:
Jane McDonnell, Executive Director
Online News Association
646-290-7900
director@journalists.org
Sherry Skalko
Editor, Journalists.org
312-881-6477
sskalko@journalists.org
