From The Center for Investigative Reporting, the News Lab at Google and TWG

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Changing the News

TechRaking London: Changing the News is a full-day event on Wednesday, March 25, hosted by The Center for Investigative Reporting and the News Lab at Google, where attendees will work to create innovative approaches to reporting, engaging and designing solutions for telling the story of climate change, to empower communities in new and surprising ways.

What makes climate change such a daunting topic to address? Is it the complexity of the problem and the resulting confusion? Is it the enormity of the scale that scares policymakers away from aggressive action? Is it the deep entanglement our global economy has with carbon that promotes inertia? Is the conversation already worn out, leading people to despair over reaching agreement on decisive action? Is the subject too polarized for some or monotone for others to distinguish itself in the mobile media multiverse in which we live?

Climate change might be too big for its own good. We need to explore new approaches to framing its scale and scope in a way that stimulates understanding, interest and an impetus to action for citizens and media consumers. Teams will work to design a solution to the challenge of helping audiences untangle the disparate and daunting issues knotted into climate change. This challenge is about understanding scale and urgency in ways that won’t disempower or tune out people.

Sometimes religion, sometimes science; sometimes journalists, sometimes business; even sometimes elected officials – these have been the catalysts for massive leaps in human organization and achievement. Who will be the unexpected allies and heroes this time? What role will journalists, scientists, designers and technologists be called upon to serve as we wrestle with climate change? Which communities will be the sparks for moving us forward? Find out at TechRaking London.

About CIR
The Center for Investigative Reporting empowers the public through groundbreaking storytelling that sparks action, improves lives and protects our democracy. Reveal – the website, public radio program, podcast and social media platform – is where CIR publishes its multiplatform reporting. Devoted to holding powerful interests accountable to the public trust, CIR creatively employs cutting-edge technology and innovative storytelling to reveal injustice, spark change at all levels of society and influence public dialogue on critical issues. It produces high-impact reporting across print, video, TV, radio and online platforms and is the recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, winner of a 2013 Emmy Award and a 2013 George Foster Peabody Award, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2012 (for local reporting) and 2013 (for public service). Learn more at revealnews.org. Find and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

About Google
Our mission at the News Lab at Google is to collaborate with journalists and entrepreneurs to build the future of media with Google. We’re excited to be working with CIR on this series of TechRaking events throughout 2015.

About TWG
We’re the team of digital product designers that helped bring WikiWash to life for TechRaking Toronto in 2014. Partnering with CIR for that event, we learned that we share a mission of supporting visionary teams to create remarkable products. We’re proud to be contributing design and development support for TechRaking events around the world in 2015. You can find out more about us at twg.ca or by following us on Twitter: @twg.

Agenda
8-9 a.m.: Registration and ideation

9-9:15 a.m.: Welcome and kickoff

9:15-10:15 a.m.: Panel 1: Communities + Communication + Climate

Community formation and curation is evolving rapidly, but is it fast enough to create new networks for engaging and addressing climate change? This panel will explore positive trends and delicate challenges journalists, advocates and policymakers face in bringing new voices and solutions to the story. Examples will include important case studies, campaigns and insights with real-world applications and no-nonsense results.

10:15-10:30 a.m.: Break

10:30-11:30 a.m.: Panel 2: Covering the Change

How will newsrooms focus and push their coverage of climate change in ways that will captivate the public, activate the imagination and push toward solutions? We will ask them! This panel will explore what’s working, what’s not and what we need to do to serve communities in a meaningful and inspiring way.

11:30 a.m.-noon: Break to get lunch

Noon-1 p.m.: Keynote and design sprint kickoff

1-1:30 p.m.: Team formation

1:30-4:30 p.m.: Design sprints

4:30-5:30 p.m.: Final presentations and judging

5:30 p.m.: Winning team announced

5:30-7:00 p.m.: Happy hour

Registration and More Information
Interested in joining us for TechRaking London? Contact CIR’s director of events, Kristin Belden