Written by Akansha Gupta:

Libby Brittan, a representative of Facebook News Products and Partnership, spoke to journalism students about using social media to integrate journalism and technology and reach out to more readers.  She described her role within the company as “an advocate for media within Facebook.”  However, majority of her presentation centered on using social media to reach out to new readers and to integrate journalism and technology.

She went into detail on Instant Articles, a Facebook product built to improve “what it feels like to read a news article online”. Focused on improving speed and super rich animations and big text for mobile screens, Instant Articles has made it easier to read newspaper articles on phones. She touched upon Live Video and new Instagram Stories as well.

Afterwards, she had a quick question and answer session where she answered questions about being editor-in-chief of her high-school newspaper, Broadview, her time at Barnard College’s Columbia Spectator and her decision to get in the space between journalism and technology.

As somebody who spent a lot of time teaching journalists to incorporate technology into their reporting, she urged students to “think of journalism as a truly digital thing”.

She concluded her presentation by underscoring the importance of high-school journalists. “In many ways, we look to you to see how people want to consume news in the future,” she said.