Our next meetup will center around Hyperlocal in Your ‘Hood and it will take place on Wednesday, April 27 at 6:00 p.m. (Please note the time change!)

Hyperlocal has different meanings for different people. It could be Patch, your local newspaper’s specialized site, or a highly focused blog. Whether you call it hyperlocal news, hyperlocal content, online neighborhood sites, community scaled sites, or a myriad of other names, it is changing the definition and process of journalism. What makes a successful hyperlocal site? Can large newspapers produce successful hyperlocal sites? What is the role of professional journalists, unpaid bloggers and photographers in this new newsroom?
Join us for a lively panel discussion featuring Brian Farnham, editor in chief of Patch; Led Black, editor in chief, Uptown Collective, Mary Ann Giordano, Metro Editor, New York Times, and moderator Brooke Kroeger, director of NYU’s Arthur L Carter Institute of Journalism are confirmed; additional panelists will be announced shortly.

Our Meetup will take place at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, 20 Cooper Square. We are grateful to the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and their staff for hosting our event.

Follow @ONANYC and use this hashtag: #ONANYC when tweeting about our events. We encourage you to take photos and videos and share them on Meetup!

Please visit http://journalists.org/ to find out more about the Online News Association and to become a member!

The Online News Association, the world’s largest membership organization of digital journalists, invites applications for the 2011 MJ Bear Fellowships for early-career digital journalists, in honor of founding member MJ Bear.

For this inaugural year, the search committee will select three promising, up-and-coming digital journalists—two in the United States or Canada and one internationally, in partnership with MSN International—who are just beginning to make their voices heard in the industry.

Selected Fellows will be paired with a digital news leader as a mentor; receive an expense-paid trip to the Online News Association Conference & Awards Banquet (ONA11), Sept. 22-24, in Boston, where they’ll have a chance to share their fresh perspectives; and a free, one-year ONA membership.

The goal of the Fellowship, in Bear’s own words, is “to promote the voices of young professionals working in or training to work in the field of online news by presenting programs at ONA’s annual conference, or in other venues. The programs will be designed to explore and showcase innovations, developments and new ideas in the field.”

Applicants must be working journalists between the ages of 23 and 30 and fluent in English. They will be asked to describe their recent concepts, experiments or projects that move digital journalism forward or resulted in valuable lessons or outcomes, and also provide a recommendation and a personal statement.

“We see the Fellowship program as a great way to help the next generation of journalists innovate and succeed in the industry,” said ONA Board President Christine Montgomery, Managing Editor, PBS.org. “We’re looking for young people as eager to lead as they are to learn, who have demonstrated their commitment to pushing the boundaries in creating digital news.”

Bear, whose wide-ranging career took her to pivotal roles at Microsoft’s MSN Portals and MSN International, NPR and American University, was renowned for her kindness and digital know-how. She played a vital role in ONA’s history as a member of the original Board of Directors, helping to incorporate the organization in 1999 and serving on the Education, Fundraising, Conference and Legal Affairs committees until 2003.

So far, friends of MJ Bear and ONA have contributed nearly $40,000 to the fellowship fund. The MJ Bear Fellowship Committee will continue planning both short- and long-term goals to realize the letter and spirit of her wishes, and to build fundraising campaigns to expand the fellowships and shape the future of young journalists.

Tax-deductible donations to the MJ Bear Fellowship Fund can be made at journalists.org.

AOL‘s Tim Armstrong and NPR‘s Vivian Schiller are headlining in a discussion about reinventing media companies. I have often pointed to NPR as a brand that has worked strategically to reposition itself in a quickly changing media environment, and for all the naysaying about AOL’s ability to rebound, I have to admit I’m rather intrigued by the new management and new approach they seem to be taking. I wouldn’t count them out just yet. As I often tell people who ask me what I think about this legacy company’s or that legacy company’s chance for success, the only companies that are obsolete are the ones sitting on their hands waiting for the answers to appear. As long as companies embrace reinvention and innovation, there’s hope.

ONA has created a waiting list for those still eager to attend. Check out the lineup for yourself. If you can’t make this year’s conference, look for the ONA’s regional events and meetups.

If you have suggestions for events in your town, send an e-mail to director@journalists.org. If you’re in the New York area and want to help plan ONA events, let me know.

(Disclaimer: I am a former ONA board member and conference chair and did some early work helping the conference committee this year. I also help coordinate New York area events.)