ONA calls for donors to support redundant journalists

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The Online News Association (ONA) is continuing its drive to fund 133 memberships for out of of work journalists by May 31. The industry body has already received more than $2,300 in donations and given out 31 fully-funded annual memberships. Enough funding to cover a handful more has also been raised since these were announced, Jane McDonnell, director of the ONA, told Journalism.co.uk.

Donors are being urged to contribute $75 to help redundant journalists 'rebrand themselves and reposition themselves' for new jobs using the ONA's services. The free memberships will be available to journalists from any country.

"Big media has been the source of most journalists' practices and that's obviously changing, but what's going to replace it isn't necessarily going to be those huge monoliths," said McDonnell.

"It's going to be those small ex-journalists, community people, who have a lot of skills and knowledge. The main reason [to donate] is to keep that knowledge. People can plan technology but knowing how to do real journalism is a real skill."

Support has come from both within and outside the industry, with a significant number of donations from ex-journalists, added McDonnell.

"In this time when you put something out there asking for money, no matter what it's for, you are surprised [when you get a response]," said McDonnell.

"There's a whole world of people out there who are worrying about journalism and where it's going online. Even if people no longer practise they are very interested in making sure that the values of traditional journalism and skillsets aren't lost."

The ONA is 'uniquely placed' to help journalists boost multimedia skills and will try to create training sessions that meet members' demands, she added.

The association is also offering more free 'webinars' to members and setting up more regional training in the US.

"We understand this [online] world pretty well, even though it's moving pretty fast. Our value is to make folks feel that they are not stranded and it's not necessary to have expensive, unwieldy help," she said.

To donate to the ONA's campaign visit this link . Journalism.co.uk is also offering five free passes to next month's journalism enterprise event, JEEcamp , to redundant journalists.