{"id":1481,"date":"2010-10-29T20:59:15","date_gmt":"2010-10-29T20:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/conference.journalists.org\/2010conference\/?p=1481"},"modified":"2010-10-29T20:59:15","modified_gmt":"2010-10-29T20:59:15","slug":"price-of-admission-stuffing-tote-bags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/2010\/10\/29\/price-of-admission-stuffing-tote-bags\/","title":{"rendered":"Price of admission: stuffing tote bags"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Greg<\/a>

Greg Linch, left, and McKenna Ewen help with the live streams at Friday morning's keynote panel. Photo by Ethan Klapper.<\/p><\/div>\n

Next to the long ONA10 registration desk on Thursday afternoon stood Franco Fernandez, hawking red T-shirts designed by Jennifer Daniel.<\/p>\n

Fernandez, a Web producer at United Press International<\/a>, is one of more than 100 ONA10 volunteers. Due to budget cuts at his employer, it would have been difficult to attend the conference if he had to pay the full price, he said. For an ONA member who registered before Sept. 30, a full conference pass cost $399.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year we\u2019ve had to cut back a lot on the conferences we can go to,\u201d he said. \u201cWith the discounts, and all that, it\u2019s much easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to T-shirt hawking, volunteers do everything from stuffing tote bags, live streaming the sessions, setting up signs and working registration to helping with the opening night reception. Four hours of volunteering gets a volunteer one free day at the conference; eight hours gets them two free days, said Laura Cochran, the co-chair of volunteers.<\/p>\n

Cochran said some prospective volunteers specifically stated on their applications that they would have been unable to attend this year unless they were able to take advantage of the discount.<\/p>\n

\n

If volunteers were not given a discount at ONA, would you still do it?<\/a>online surveys<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThere were several people that wrote me and said, \u2018it is absolutely fantastic that I\u2019m able to come to the conference now, thank you,\u2019 and obviously that\u2019s a great thing,\u201d she said. \u201cThat makes it worth it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tiffany Shackelford, co-chair of the ONA08<\/a> conference, said the number of volunteers has grown in the past two years. She attributes that not only to the growth of ONA as an organization and the growth of the ONA conference, but also to the “topsy-turvy” job market.<\/p>\n

“This year, we’ve had more volunteers than in the past two years,” she said.<\/p>\n

Not far from Fernandez\u2019s perch, three young members of the ONA10 \u201cstream team\u201d were walking through the halls of the conference hotel. They\u2019re responsible for live streaming<\/a> the conference, though only one session was streamed on Thursday, and they had some free time.<\/p>\n

Adam Hemphill<\/a>, a San Francisco freelancer, said recent college graduates like him are thinking of journalism in innovative ways, yet it\u2019s difficult for them to afford the conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kind of what\u2019s happening in online journalism right now, and yet we don\u2019t make enough money to come to the conference,\u201d Hemphill said.<\/p>\n

Hemphill and stream team members S.P. Sullivan, who works for MassLive.com<\/a>, and McKenna Ewen, who works for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune<\/a>, said they were spending the night on couches at their friends\u2019 houses, since staying in a hotel would have been too expensive.<\/p>\n

To stay at the Renaissance, the conference hotel, the special ONA10 rate is $249 a night.<\/p>\n

Greg Linch, Publish2\u2019s<\/a> news innovation manager, is coordinating the 12-person stream team and said helping to live stream the conference is a fun way to attend the conference at a reduced rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a chance for them to put their skills to use,\u201d said Linch, a volunteer himself. \u201cSo, people who want to come to the conference and might not have otherwise been able to afford it\u2014we can give them the opportunity if they\u2019re willing to put their skills to work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next to the long ONA10 registration desk on Thursday afternoon stood Franco Fernandez, hawking red T-shirts designed by Jennifer Daniel. Fernandez, a Web producer at United Press International, is one of more than 100 ONA10 volunteers. Due to budget cuts at his employer, it would have been difficult to attend the conference if he had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1824,"featured_media":1483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"start_time":0,"end_time":0,"moderators":[],"hashtag":[],"soundcloud":[],"scribble":[],"viafoura":[],"youtube":[],"vimeo":[],"facebook":[],"trint":[],"slideshare":[],"livestream":[],"resources":[],"video_embed":[],"first_name":"","last_name":"","title":"","organization":"","website":"","twitter":"","_sponsor_url":"","_sponsor_tagline":"","_sponsor_level":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paaWrG-nT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1824"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}