The future of journalism was the connecting theme of a version of the popular online Ted Talks series last Friday at the Poynter Institute in downtown St. Petersburg. A crowd of mostly media insiders listened to topics ranging from copyright issues and viral media to fact checking and the role of new media.
The Poynter Institute is borrowing a style of discourse from the successful Ted Talks that focus on disseminating new ideas on three varied subject matters; Technology, Entertainment and Design. The Tedx formats are independently organized but are conducted within the Ted Talks' structure. The Poynter Institute is a non-profit school of journalism that teaches through traditional class room settings as well as online webinars. Elynn Angelotti is a social media faculty member at the Poynter Institute. She said the blueprint used by Ted Talks is a good fit for Poynter’s third Tedx event.
"What they've done is provide us with a framework to create powerful engaging; much briefer talks than we typically do here at Poynter. So, it's a different tempo. It's a different style. But it's an engaging platform that helps us invite the Tampa Bay community and the larger journalism community into an event where we can realty learn from innovative thinkers.”
This article appears in Jun 20-26, 2013.