Presented jointly by iFOCOS and NY:MIEG

Thursday, November 13th, 7:30am – 9:30am

Register Now

• We Media Community and NY:MIEG Members: $30
• Nonmembers: $50

The 2008 campaign was the first in a new era of American politics, and the impact will be felt well beyond November. Online video, cell phones, blogs, and social-networking sites (among other things) created a whole new landscape, allowing ordinary people to create and spread information without any help from the campaigns. Politics was turned on its head. The 2008 campaign was covered by the media in a completely different way than ever before as well — there were more channels, more voices, and more competition between the ‘traditional’ media and the citizen media. There is little doubt that citizens will pay closer attention, and be more intimately involved in the work of the next President than ever before. But what will happen to the media? How does technology, and the changing ways in which people get and share information today impact the role of the media in covering the work of the next President of the United States?

In addition to the event, iFOCOS will provide a complimentary pre-release white paper: How does technology, and the changing ways in which people get and share information today impact the role of the media in covering the work of the next President of the United States? This report will be distributed exclusively to event attendees and will be distributed more widely at a later date.

Panel Members:

Brian Reich has spent his entire professional life working with campaigns and political organizations, helping direct dozens of campaigns across the country. During the 1996 cycle, Brian was the youngest campaign manager in the nation, leading a U.S. Congress challenger-race in Connecticut. More recently, Reich served as Vice President Gore’s briefing director in the White House and during his 2000 presidential campaign.

Amanda Michel is Director of OffTheBus. Amanda started in politics during the 2003-2004 campaign cycle, working as the National Director of Generation Dean and then creating and managing the MediaCorps program for the Kerry-Edwards campaign. Along with several other Kerry-Edwards coworkers she helped co-found the New Organizing Institute in the wake of the 2004 election. Since then she’s taken her online organizing skills to media, working at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and on Assignment Zero, a Wired and NewAssignment.net collaboration.

Rachel Sterne founded GroundReport.com as a powerful news platform that democratizes the media. Today GroundReport has over 2,600 global contributors who cover the world from the ground up, earning a fair share of ad revenues for their work. Prior to founding GroundReport, Rachel worked in Business Development at file-sharing software company LimeWire and as a Political Reporter on the Security Council for the US Mission to the United Nations. Her experience witnessing political inertia at the UN in the face of the devastating Darfur crisis inspired her to launch a tool that would empower people to share their stories and discover what’s really going on in the world.

Michael Oreskes is Managing Editor for U.S. News for The Associated Press and oversees all U.S. news from state bureaus to national political coverage for both U.S. and world audiences. Former roles include executive editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris and deputy managing editor of The New York Times, supervising television and Internet content. During this period, he won three Emmy awards and a DuPont award for documentary television.

MODERATOR: Ellis Henican is a staff columnist for Newsday and joined Fox News Channel (FNC) as a political contributor in 1999. Henican joined Newsday in 1985 as a general assignment reporter and was eventually assigned the subway column, leading the paper to a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Union Square train wreck. Henican’s work has also been recognized with the Meyer Berger Award for distinguished writing about New York City, and the National Clarion Award for column writing. His articles have been published in various national magazines including The New Republic and Cosmopolitan. Henican is also a daily commentator on the Bloomberg Radio Network. A native of Virginia, Henican received a Bachelor’s degree from Hampshire College and a Master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

INRODUCTION: Dale Peskin is the Co-Founder and managing director of iFOCOS, the media think tank and futures lab that organizes the We Media conferences, awards and media innovation community (www.wemediacommunity.org). He’s also a partner in The 726 Group, a publishing company and foresight network that helps global companies and institutions see, understand and respond to complex change. Mr. Peskin was previously the executive director of New Directions for News and a vice president of Belo, the Dallas-based media company, where he launched the company’s initiatives in new media and media convergence. At Belo, Dale served as editor of Dallasnews.com and as an assistant managing editor of The Dallas Morning News. He was a founding officer of Belo Interactive, Belo’s network of news Web sites.

is a media think tank and futures lab committed to harnessing the power of media, communication and human ingenuity for the common good. iFOCOS helps individuals and organizations worldwide understand and use expanding media and communications technologies both to innovate in business and to make the world better through media.

is a place for executives in Media and Entertainment to meet with peers, share ideas and develop friendships with the goal of assisting each other in reaching the next level or their personal goals.

Special Thanks to our corporate sponsor Samsung for use of their facilities and audio/video equipment