Building the Skills Journalism Needs Next
ONA's strategic plan sets a clear north star: helping journalism not just survive change, but thrive through it. That means equipping journalism professionals at every level with adaptive leadership capabilities, strategic foresight, and the kind of collaborative community that makes navigating disruption easier. Two upcoming courses put that mission into practice, one for the leaders managing through change, and one for the journalists creating the content audiences actually want to watch.
Adaptive Leadership Skills for First-Time Managers
Congratulations! You've been promoted to a people management role. You have a new title, new team, and new responsibilities. Now what?
This course is designed for new managers in their first two years in a management role, but it's also a good resource for more seasoned managers looking for a leadership reset and a return to basics. It's not your typical leadership program with stale business tropes and theory. It's built to help you create collaborative, resilient teams ready to adapt to whatever the journalism field throws at them next, including:
- Handling difficult conversations
- Developing resilience in the face of constant change
- Assessing and maximizing your own leadership style and understanding how it impacts your relationships with your team, peers and bosses
- Building and maintaining trust
- Creating collaborative and productive team environments, where everyone can do their best work
- Going from peer to boss
Sessions are interactive and guide you through crafting a leadership strategy designed just for you. You'll leave with a personal mission statement as a leader, a set of goals and a roadmap for your next challenge, and a network of other managers in the same position to lean on going forward.
Logistics: Virtual, two-hour sessions every Tuesday starting Aug. 4 for four weeks via Zoom (full schedule here). Registration is capped for group discussion, first-come, first-served.
Lead Trainer: Kathy Lu (she/her), founder of Audiencibility, coordinator of ONA's Women's Leadership Accelerator, and adjunct at Poynter Institute, brings more than two decades of journalism leadership experience to the course.
Learn more and register for Adaptive Leadership Skills for First-Time Managers
Social Video for Journalists
Audiences keep moving, and social video has become one of the most reliable ways to meet them where they are. This in-depth course is designed for journalists and editors who want to build real skills in social video to reach receptive audiences and deliver impactful journalism.
Over six practical, interactive modules, you'll:
- Curate your voice for video
- Write scripts for social audiences
- Dive deep into lighting, camera, and mic specs
- Learn how to edit engaging content
- Understand platform habits
- Unlock the audience feedback loop
You'll work on a video project throughout the course, both in live sessions and through homework, and submit it at the end for feedback from an instructor.
This course is for you if:
- You're brand-new to social video and want to reach new audiences
- You're looking to up-skill or move into a social video role and need a crash course and a starter portfolio
- You have some video experience but want to make more engaging content for social platforms
- You're already a creator who wants to sharpen your skills with experts who do this work daily
Logistics: Virtual, six consecutive Mondays starting July 27, 2026, 90 minutes per session. Registration closes Monday, July 20, or when spots fill, whichever comes first. Limited group size for more interactivity and individual project reviews.
Why these two, why now
ONA is evolving from a general professional development organization into a year-round hub for adaptive leadership in journalism, and these two courses sit right at the center of that shift. Adaptive Leadership Skills for First-Time Managers is a direct expression of our Learning & Leadership focus, building the skills professionals need to lead through industry transformation, whether they manage three people or thirty. Social Video for Journalists reflects our commitment to Foresight & Intelligence, helping journalists understand where audiences are headed and building the skills to meet them there.
Both courses also deliver something the curriculum alone can't: connection. Every participant gets access to a private Slack community and a network of peers facing the same challenges, the kind of strategic collaboration that's central to our Communities & Networks work and to the broader ecosystem ONA is building.
Whether you're stepping into management for the first time or stepping in front of a camera for the first time, these courses are designed to help you do what our whole strategic plan is built around: not just survive change, but thrive through it.
Learn more and register for Social Video for Journalists
Learn more and register for Adaptive Leadership Skills for First-Time Managers