Each week, PBS MediaShift will list upcoming online trainings and courses for journalists and media people — with a focus on digital training. We’ll include our new DigitalEd courses, as well as those from Mediabistro, NewsU, KDMC and others. If we’re missing anything, please let us know at mediashift [at] pbs [dot] org.
FEATURED TRAINING
THREAD at Yale
June 7-10, 2015
New Haven, Connecticut
THREAD at Yale will gather storytellers from print, radio, and other media to learn from masters in the field and from each other. “It’s time that storytellers had a gathering that respected the new reality, by disrespecting the old boundaries,” explains the director of THREAD at Yale.
Sign up for the newsletter to hear from mentors from outlets including This American Life and the New Yorker and meet confirmed participants ranging from playwrights to cookbook authors to foreign correspondents.
APRIL 2015
DigitalEd: How to Become a Mobile Ninja in the Field
This one-hour live course, sponsored by PBS MediaShift in partnership with the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute and BigMarker, is designed to show you how to use various mobile tools while reporting to quickly generate interesting direct-to-social content – without taking away reporting time. The course is taught by Judd Slivka of the Missouri School of Journalism.
Date and time: April 29, 2015, 1 pm ET
Place: online
Price: $39
Multimedia Journalism
In this class, you’ll learn how to organize your story into a complete multimedia package, shoot video for the web, make an audiovisual slideshow, determine where to get free and/or cheap online software to create an at-home studio and build a multimedia portfolio on a blog.
Date and time: April 30-May 28, 2015, Discussions Thursdays 9-10 pm ET, 4 sessions
Place: online
Price: $385
How News Organizations Can Make the Most of Snapchat
Let’s start with the basics: what Snapchat is, how to use it and how to create a Snapchat Story. From there, let’s talk Snapchat strategy: what kind of place will Snapchat occupy in your newsroom? What makes a project a Snapchat project as opposed to an Instagram, Tumblr or other social media project? What makes a Snapchat Story successful, and how do you replicate that success in new and interesting ways that translate back to boost your newsroom and engage with your audience in a different way? And why do you sink time into something that vanishes? We’ll parse the ins and outs of bringing Snapchat into a newsroom, including examining opportunities for user-generated content and further reporting on the medium.
Date and time: Thursday, April 30, 2015 at 2:00 pm ET
Place: online
Price: $29.95
MAY 2015
Opinion Writing
Learn how the most persuasive writers in media — from David Brooks to George Will — craft concise and compelling arguments on an array of issues. Whether you’re writing an op-ed for the New York Times, a blog post for the Huffington Post, or a magazine piece for The Atlantic, this class teaches a proven formula for getting your writing into print. Students will learn how to develop topic expertise, craft compelling arguments and pitch media effectively.
Date and time: May 6-June 3, 2015; Discussions Wednesdays 9-10 pm ET, 4 sessions
Place: online
Price: $470
DigitalEd: How to Create and Monetize an Entrepreneurial Journalism Venture
During this one-hour training, you will learn how to craft an entrepreneurial framework for your own journalism venture, and find ways to potentially earn money from it. The course will help you to identify needs and opportunities in your area, develop scalable solutions to those problems and implement them. This training is presented in partnership with the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.
Date and time: May 6, 2015, 1 pm EST
Place: online
Price: $39
Instagram Marketing
In this class, you’ll learn how to craft an Instagram marketing strategy that will allow you to stand out and gain new followers, tell a coherent brand story that resonates with your target market and use Instagram to stimulate sales and other objectives.
Date and time: May 12-26, 2015; Discussions Tuesdays 8-9pm ET, 2 sessions
Place: online
Price: $275
DigitalEd: Is There Life After News? How to Transition from News to Business
Whether by choice or necessity, many journalists are moving out of news and into the larger world of business. While some enter entirely different areas such as law, health care, the environment or real estate, most transition to communications-related fields such as marketing, PR and social media. This training gives an overview of the many types of opportunities and sectors now open to them, including some they may not have considered. Just as there are many types of journalists – general assignment, investigative, business, political, arts, etc. – there are many ways to enter business.
Date and time: May 13, 2015, 1 pm EST
Place: online
Price: $39
The Art of the Interview: Master Class With Jacqui Banaszynski
In this class, you’ll learn how to craft an Instagram marketing strategy that will allow you to stand out and gain new followers, tell a coherent brand story that resonates with your target market and use Instagram to stimulate sales and other objectives.
Date and time: Friday, May 15, 2015, at 10:30 am ET
Place: online and in-person at the Poynter Institute
Price: $99
Introduction to Multimedia Storytelling
Over the course of five days, participants will learn the basics of visual storytelling concepts through video production and post-production with Adobe Premiere CS6 (for Mac). Participants will leave with concrete skills and a better understanding of the technologies that are transforming the news business. Equipped with the professional production tools, participants will learn the fundamentals of video production, including shooting techniques, sound collecting, interview techniques, lighting, field production tips, story planning and scripting. Under the guidance of the instructor and teaching assistants in our Mac lab, participants will learn to edit video and audio. Topics covered include: log and transfer, file management, editing sequences, audio mixing, importing assets (video, audio and photos), advanced editing techniques, and exporting finished videos. Columbia furnishes all gear — HD video cameras, lighting kits, tripod, mics and editing lab — required for this course.
Date and time: May 18-22, 2015, 10 am-4 pm, daily
Place: Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
Price: $1,350 (10% discount for Columbia Journalism School alumni; 5% discount for previous J-School Continuing Education students and current faculty, staff, and students of Columbia University)
DigitalEd: How to Improve Audience Engagement and Digital Outreach
Join us for a one-hour training exploring audience engagement and digital outreach. You’ll learn strategies for engaging audiences and communities before, during and after the publication of a story, and how to measure the impact of your efforts. This session will also identify challenges journalists often face in engagement work, and offer resources for addressing them. This webinar is presented in partnership with the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and will be taught by Rebecca Blatt, director of the Public Insight Network Bureau at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Date and time: May 19, 2015, 1 pm EST
Place: online
Price: $39
DigitalEd: iPhone Audio Reporting 101
The days of carrying recorders, microphones, and cables and cameras are gone – the smartphone is replacing bulky audio gear. #iphonereporting, as developed and practiced by Neal Augenstein, enables journalists and professional communicators to create and share content and engage with users on a variety of platforms from the field. This training will show how to use free and inexpensive mobile apps to record and edit audio (as well as video and photos) to creatively engage with audiences. Participants will be encouraged to use a variety of storytelling apps to communicate quickly and effectively.
Date and time: May 26, 2015, 1 pm EST
Place: online
Price: $39
Online Production for Writers and Editors
In this class, you’ll learn how to navigate and create content in a basic Content Management System, such as WordPress; crop, resize, and optimize photos, create graphics and enhance static text through basic HTML/CSS; understand what makes a user-friendly website and how to create UGC contests that maximize and enhance your social presence; know which web technologies to follow and which to ignore; measure effectiveness and revenue potential through traffic and user engagement analytics.
Date and time: May 28-July 9, 2015; Discussions Thursdays 8-9pm ET, 6 sessions
Place: online
Price: $470
JUNE 2015
Mobile Media: Producing Visual Stories With the iPhone
This two-day certificate workshop provides all skills necessary for shooting quality video on your iPhone. We’ll take you through how to capture key moments from events, product launches, conferences and interviews to publishing on social networks or your website. You’ll work hands-on with experienced TV and online content producers to learn foolproof techniques for capturing professional looking videos on your iPhone.
Date and time: June 8-9, 2015, from 8:30 – 4:30 pm daily
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $825. Register before May 1, 2015 for a 10% discount.
Multimedia Storytelling Institute 2015
This intensive two-week program provides seminar style and hands-on training in essential skills for digital media production in a mobile first environment. The institute is ideal for journalists, editors, new media managers, media professionals, content marketers, communications and PR, educators and web producers, and is taught by world-class trainers, award winning multimedia journalists, storytellers and industry leaders.
Date and time: June 15-19 & June 22-26, 2015. This institute is two-weeks in length. Instruction is Monday through Friday, 8:30 am- 5:00 pm daily.
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $5,645. 10% early registration discount for registrations completed by May 15, 2015
JULY 2015
Summer Investigative Reporting Course
Over three weeks, journalists from around the world in various media platforms examine what investigative journalism is and how to conceive, research and write such stories. The process involves recognizing when something should be a long-term project, basics for launching into the story, testing and retesting the hypothesis throughout the investigation, shifting direction when the reporting dictates that the story direction change, and initial techniques to use in getting started. Workshops will be taught on retrieving data from outside sources, analyzing the data and using tools to visualize it for readers; instruction will include locating and using public records found worldwide, utilizing financial documents, interviewing techniques, structuring an investigative story, using multimedia to support projects, writing and editing a long-form narrative, and more. We will hold exercises in computer labs within Columbia’s Journalism School to practice techniques, including use of programs such as Excel. This course is not intended for beginners and requires an application process.
Date and time: July 6-24, 2015
Place: Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
Price: $7,500 (10% discount for Columbia Journalism School alumni and 5% discount for past Columbia Journalism Continuing Education students).
Data Visualization for Storytellers
Data Visualization for Storytellers is a two-day, hands-on certificate program focused on communicating complex information with visually appealing charts, graphs and maps. Participants will learn to create a clearer, more meaningful picture of complex information and publicly available data, tell stories with interactive maps, and create beautiful and effective graphs and charts.
Date and time: July 9-10, 2015, from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm daily
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $795. Early Registration Discount for registrations before July 5, 2015.
Podcasting: Telling Stories in Sound
In this two-day certificate earning course, you’ll learn the art of creating and producing distinctive audio podcasts. You’ll practice hands-on recording and editing your own podcast with direction from award winning radio journalist and podcaster, Ben Manilla.
Date and time: July 16-17, 2015 from 8:30 – 4:30 daily
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $725. Register before June 8, 2015 for a 10% discount.
Social Media For Content Creators: Brand Building, Content Strategy, Audience Engagement
This workshop offers comprehensive training on how to leverage the power of social media and storytelling to develop audiences, build trust relationships and drive engagement. Upon completion of this workshop, you will have developed an expanded strategic social media roadmap for creating engaging content across multiple platforms, have experience developing content that resonates with your audience and be knowledgeable on the latest social media tools and technologies.
Date and time: July 21-23, 2015, 8:30am – 4:30pm daily
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $1,450. Early Registration Discount of 10% before June 1, 2015.
AUGUST 2015
App Development Strategy and Marketing
As the app ecosystem continues to explode, many magazine publishers and content creators are still wrestling with app development and overall audience marketing and engagement strategies to ensure their app performs in an ever increasing competitive marketplace. This two-day certificate workshop will help you determine what app development strategy is the right fit for your organization with best practices for building and engaging your digital app audience.
Date and time: July 16-17, 2015 from 8:30 – 4:30 daily
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $865. Register before September 4, 2015 for a 10% discount.
More course listings are available at MediaShift’s DigitalEd, Poynter’s NewsU, Knight Digital Media Center Berkeley, Columbia Journalism School’s Continuing Education listings and Mediabistro.
Sonia Paul is a freelance journalist based in India, and is the editorial assistant at PBS MediaShift. She is on Twitter @sonipaul.