Journalism 360 at SXSW and Challenge Updates

We just got back from an incredible few days in Austin, filled with tacos, Shiner Bock, brisket and innovation. Yum.

Last week Journalism 360 officially launched at SXSW and hosted its first event — a day with the Knight Foundation featuring projects from leaders in immersive storytelling, a discussion on ethics and new platforms with USC Professor Robert Hernandez, a talk on photogrammetry, demos of both new content and headsets, and of course, a networking party filled with representatives of emerging technology companies and media experts from around the world.

The lightning talks brought together topics as far apart as the mass migration of African wildlife in search of food and water and the horrific shootings last year at the Orlando Pulse nightclub. Ulrico Grech-Cumbo came all the way to Austin from Johannesburg, South Africa, to share his advice after working on a short documentary about the Great Migration.

Jessica Lauretti of RYOT discussed her craziest first day of work ever — working with the Huffington Post team to create a 360 experience around the Orlando nightclub shooting.

J360 ambassador Sarah Hill shared some of her research around how the brain responds to VR content, and Jean-Yves Chainon discussed his work with Al Jazeera English and how people are actually engaging with VR on social media.

Throughout the week of the conference, VR and immersive storytelling remained a theme on various panels. Ethics questions, like whether drones should be more heavily regulated, were discussed, as well as the proliferation of fake news and whether 360 cameras help or hurt our level of transparency.

All this is to say it’s clear that we have a lot more to unpack in the immersive storytelling space, and we can’t wait to see ideas from this community coming into the Journalism 360 Challenge. We’re midway to the application deadline and starting to see some incredibly innovative ideas. Please join us over the next couple of weeks, either in person or online, to learn more about the program and to share your thoughts so far. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me at j360@journalists.org if you have questions.

Join us for a virtual hangout on Wednesday, March 22, at 1 p.m. EDT:

Or on Monday, March 27:

Please share your thoughts and questions using #journalism360.