AccessFest24 Expected Sessions

FOI and public records

• 50 FOIAs in 50 minutes
• Filing a better FOIA request

Engaging the community

• Making your reporting accessible to communities with limited English
• Earn trust with diverse audiences by investing IRL

Networking for:

• Students and professionals
• Journalists of color
• LGBTQ+ journalists
• International journalists
• Educators
• Mid-career journalists

Disability and accessibility 

• Understanding and supporting journalists with ADHD, OCD, mental health disorders and disabilities
• Accessibility basics you can start right now
• Disability is part of every beat
• Understanding and supporting journalists with ADHD, OCD, mental health disorders and disabilities

Newsroom culture and leadership

• Managing trauma and troubles in the newsroom
• Beyond the diversity committee: your DEIB journey isn’t over yet
• Your hiring process doesn’t have to suck
• Bridging the inclusivity values gap: From colleges banning DEI to newsrooms trying to embrace it

Using data in your reporting

• Using R to power quick turn stories
• Crash course in gender inclusivity for data reporting

International

• Obstacles in international investigations
• Global collaborative investigations
• 10 international financial crimes journalists should understand

On the beat

• Finding stories in court records
• Covering Indigenous communities
• 20 stories that any journalist can do that show that the housing crisis can be stopped
• Centering people in your political reporting
• The year of harmful policies in higher education
• 2024 elections: Mis- and disinformation impacting Latino and Spanish-speaking communities this election cycle, and how to fact-check it
• Covering immigrant communities
• Investigating AAPI hate crimes in public schools
• Overlooked topics in education reporting
• Reporting on the realities of incarceration

Other sessions covering:

• Covering polarizing issues in de-polarizing ways
• Super awesome tools demo
• How to use national datasets for local stories
• Authenticity in investigations: Covering your own communities
• Student-led investigations
• Thriving as a freelance journalist
• How to make local journalism coverage more inclusive and diverse (when the town you cover has over 90% white population)
• Crowdsourcing ideas for DEI in data journalism
• Covid reporting still matters: The inaccuracy of "post-pandemic" frames