From Virtual Reality to Immersive Journalism How to implement a VR studio within your newsroom

Luiza Puiu, European Forum Alpbach

Maurizio Pesce (CC BY 2.0)

Isriya Paireepairit (CC BY-NC 2.0)

GEN Study Tour: Los Angeles & Denver, 11 – 17 September 2016 The Global Editors Network will take you on a tour to learn how virtual reality and immersive technologies can be implemented in your newsroom. Together we will explore how to generate engagement and build a deeper emotional connection with your audience through these new and innovative formats. This study tour will be focused on practical implementation of virtual reality within your newsroom and will introduce you to the people at the forefront of these technologies. We will be trying different headsets and meeting hardware and software manufacturers – particularly those who are creating and distributing different types of VR content.

was recently purchased by the Huffington Post. Their editors will explain – and showcase – how immersive journalism can attract and engage young audiences. We will visit the technology leaders that are driving the virtual reality wave and seeing their newest peripherals in action, such as Facebook’s Oculus Rift and Samsung’s Gear VR. The tour will end with a visit to the annual conference of the Online News Association in Denver, where you can meet industry leaders and experts from all over the United States to network, share ideas, and attend exhibits and hands-on demos.

We will meet virtual reality storytelling experts from the Los Angeles Times, Vice, and the newcomer Ryot, which

Schedule overview Sunday 11 September Monday 12 September Tuesday 13 September Wednesday 14 September Thursday 15 September Friday 16 September Saturday 17 September

Arrival and welcome dinner, Los Angeles Ryot, Los Angeles Times, YouTube Vice, GoPro, Samsung, Facebook NextVR, 8i, startups Los Angeles & ONA reception, Denver ONA conference, Denver ONA conference & Flights back

www.globaleditorsnetwork.org/programmes/study-tours

Schedule Sunday September 11 Los Angeles Exact locations & schedule TBC

Monday September 12 Los Angeles Exact locations & schedule TBC

All morning and afternoon Arrival at hotel in Beverly Hills or Century City. 7pm Meeting at hotel lobby. 7:30pm Welcome dinner to meet fellow participants and discuss the study tour.

8:30am Breakfast 10:15am Meet at hotel lobby for shuttle. 11:30am, Jaunt VR Meeting with Jaunt’s David Anderman, chief business officer, and Miles Perkins, VP of marketing and communications. Jaunt VR has run projects with Elle, Yahoo!, among others. Ringier, Axel Springer, and Disney see investment opportunities within Jaunt. 12:45pm Working lunch. Special guest TBC. 2:00pm–3:00pm, University of Southern California (USC) campus Dive into the future of VR and wearables for news with Robert Hernandez, an ONA board member and professor of journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. 3:30pm, University of Southern California (USC) campus A tour of the VR, filmmaking, and journalism facilities of USC. 5:00pm, Ryot Since 2012, Ryot has made a big splash and a name for itself with its emphasis on immersive forms of journalism and storytelling with 360 video and virtual reality. 6:30pm Dinner. Special guest TBC. 8:00pm Shuttle back to hotel.

Tuesday September 13 Los Angeles Exact locations & schedule TBC

Time & location TBC Working breakfast with Vrse and Milk VR. 9:00am Meeting at hotel lobby for shuttle. 9:30am, the Los Angeles Times This venerable newspaper of reference of Los Angeles has been experimenting with new storytelling tools and visual journalism. They will share how its approach is evolving in regards to the latest advancements in virtual reality and immersive journalism. 11:30am, Next VR NextVR enables the transmission of live, long-form virtual reality content in broadcast quality. NextVR has been live streaming sports games in partnership with Fox Sports and the NFL. 1:30pm, Samsung Working lunch with Chris Jo, senior director at Samsung Software Services and Gilles Raymond, CEO of News Republic. 4:00pm, Facebook The social networking giant has made no secret about its ambitions for virtual reality. Facebook executives will share their vision for a world in which virtual reality, augmented reality, 360 video and live streaming are used as commonly as our mobile phones. 7:00pm Dinner with Jigar Mehta, VP of digital operations at Fusion & Michael Shagoury, Editorial Lead at AJ+.

www.globaleditorsnetwork.org/programmes/study-tours

Wednesday September 14 Los Angeles Exact locations & schedule TBC

Time and location TBC / Breakfast. 9:00am / Meeting at hotel lobby for shuttle. 9:30am, Vice Media Never afraid to experiment, Vice has been increasingly working on news pieces in 360 video and virtual reality. Editors will share their experience and tips on producing immersive content. 11:30am, 8i For a long time, content creators and developers had to choose between 360 video, which has high image fidelity but lacks freedom of movement, and developing 3D virtual worlds, which typically lack that degree of realism. 8i is paving the way for the combination of both worlds. 12:30–02:15pm Roundtable lunch discussions with VR entrepreneurs around the theme of immersive imaging at Cross Campus, a co-working space that houses many cutting-edge start-ups. WeVr and AppliedVR are two of the companies who will be joining us. 3:00pm Visit Ctrl.me with Adam Gibson to learn more about the use, and potential, of drones in VR including live demos. 5:00pm, GoPro / Radiant / MiniEye / 3D Printing Facility You will get to test equipment to better understand the hardware and cameras required for 360 video and virtual reality, and to learn about the upcoming evolutions in these technologies. 6:00pm Appetizers or light dinner on the ethical and legal issues surrounding VR. Speakers TBD.

Thursday September 15 Los Angeles & Denver Exact locations & schedule TBC

8:00am / Meeting at hotel lobby for shuttle. 8:30am, Emblematic Group Emblematic Group uses virtual reality to put audiences in the scenes of news and nonfiction stories. Emblematic’s Nonny de la Peña will address monetization issues and native advertisements in immersive journalism. 10:45am, YouTube YouTube will soon launch a virtual reality hub in Los Angeles. Liam Collins, head of this upcoming hub, will take us on a tour of this location and explain YouTube’s future plans. 12:30pm, Vrideo Vrideo is building a centralised, streaming, and hardware-agnostic platform for immersive video. We will meet with Alex Rosenfeld, founder & CEO, and Spencer Chadwick, head of content partnerships. Lunch Time permitting, we will have lunch at In-N-Out Burger! A healthy alternative will also be available. 2:30pm–7:00pm Flights to Denver. 8:00pm–9:00pm ONA conference reception.

Friday September 16 Denver Exact locations & schedule TBC

8:00am Working Breakfast with Dan Pacheco, Horvitz Chair in Journalism Innovation at the S.I. Newhouse School, Syracuse University. 9:30am Board shuttle for ONA Conference.

Saturday September 17 Denver Exact locations & schedule TBC

8:30am Shuttle to ONA Conference. 7:00pm ONA Awards Gala Dinner (under personal registration). Flights back to Europe.

6:00pm Return to hotel. 7:00pm Free dinner.

www.globaleditorsnetwork.org/programmes/study-tours

Practical Information Working language All presentations and discussions of the study tour will be held in English. What is included in the fee? Participants should ideally arrive on the afternoon of Sunday 11 September, in Los Angeles. The study tour will end on Saturday 17 September, in the afternoon, in Denver. The fee covers all expenses from the Sunday dinner to the Saturday lunch. This includes four-star accommodation, meals, transportation, and a flight from Los Angeles to Denver on Thursday 15 September. The fee also includes a ticket to the Online News Association (ONA) conference. The event is from Thursday, 15 September to Saturday 17 September. You have the possibility of attending all the sessions and discussion panels. (The flight to Los Angeles and the return flight from Denver are not included.) How much does it cost?

Fee for GEN Summit participants or former participants to a GEN study tour: 


Fee for first-time participants:

€5,200 ($5,750)

€6,500 ($7,150)

GEN will reimburse 50 percent of the fee if a participant cancels three weeks before the study tour. Any participant can be replaced by another member of the same media group. Who should attend? The study tour will consist of 15 participants. The study tour is geared toward editors-in-chief and group editors, senior news executives and top managers who want to understand how media organisations can take advantage of new devices in the fields of virtual reality, augmented reality and new immersive storytelling methods – from a content and business perspective.

Contacts For registration, questions or comments, please contact: Jean-Yves Chainon, Virtual Reality & 360 Video Producer [email protected] US tel: +1 808 724 6037 Bertrand Pecquerie, GEN CEO [email protected] Tel: + 33 9 67 73 06 97 More info: www.globaleditorsnetwork.org/programmes/study-tours

www.globaleditorsnetwork.org/programmes/study-tours