This year, the Online News Association's annual conference and award banquet will be held Sept. 25-27 in Chicago. This main event for digital journalism draws a crowd of passionate innovators from all over the field. 

Register for ONA14

The ONA conference has sold out for seven years in a row. If you can't make it, a livestream will also be available. 

Want to suggest a session or speaker? ONA is accepting session proposals only through April 18.

At this conference, the 14th Online Journalism Awards ceremony will celebrate major and independent contributors to the field and accomplishments in multimedia storytelling. Twenty-nine awards are distributed, with categories for local and small news outlets and projects. Special emphasis is placed on practitioners who showcase a mastery of new journalism technology.

While the main focus of this conference is on major daily news organizations, the event attracts everyone -- from content producers and editors to technologists and programmers -- and many strategies and techniques applied to the big companies can apply to community-level news and engagement projects.