The crowd in Philadelphia last year for SRCCON:WORK.

This December we return to Philadelphia for SRCCON:POWER—two days to investigate how power operates in our newsrooms, in our relationships with communities, and in the algorithms and technologies that are reshaping our work. On December 13-14, we’ll bring together 125 participants for talks and hands-on sessions to enable us to better understand power as well as create strategies for how we can strengthen our collective work to make journalism more equitable.

SRCCON:POWER builds on SRCCON 2018, which included many sessions on journalism’s relationship with communities, and SRCCON:WORK, about how we support each other and collaborate within newsrooms. With SRCCON:POWER, we’ll explore the dynamics that underly these relationships as well as how power informs decisionmaking within design and development.

We’ll have more details about SRCCON:POWER in the next few weeks. Sign up for our mailing list to get updates about the call for proposals and tickets or follow @SRCCON.

The themes we’ll tackle during SRCCON:POWER are issues we see throughout our work and research. The inequitable distribution of power and the consequences for marginalized communities are why we’re developing cohort programs for emerging leaders to reshape how power functions in journalism. We’ll have more information over the coming months about programs for journalists of color and coders from local/regional publications, who are already leading change and shifting power dynamics. Our work with these cohorts will help strengthen connections between these leaders and offer supports to make this changemaking work even easier.

We’ve also seen these themes reflected in our News Nerd Survey results. This October, we’re going to share findings from deep-dive interviews, that detail more of how members of the journalism tech community organize and support one another to build skills and navigate career paths.

These themes inform all of our work for the future of OpenNews and how we can support this community in making journalism more equitable, and more able to respectfully wield the power and responsibility it holds at the intersection with technology.

In addition to SRCCON:POWER, this fall we’re going to bring the SRCCON spirit back across the pond to London for a one-day journalism tech unconference at the MozFest House on October 25. For folks in London and Europe, it’s a great chance to experience the hands-on sessions and engaging conversations that make SRCCON special, while staying a little closer to home.

We’ve got a lot of awesome stuff happening for the rest of this year and big plans for 2019. If you’d like to chat about ways we could work together or places you think OpenNews could be helpful, just let me know!