Journalism Resources – News University
The online tool that has taught me most about journalism in the new millennium is, without a doubt, News University.
The News U training program is a project of The Poynter Institute and features more than 65 online courses – most of them FREE! Anyone can enroll and start taking classes immediately. There’s no time limits for completing a course – you simply move through the module at your own pace.
Classes range from how to write better headlines for the web, how to be a more efficient writer, how to incorporate multimedia options for print, web and mobile delivery and more than I could possibly list here.
Best of all, these courses utilize some of the top Flash programming I’ve ever seen: animations, video, photos, newspaper clippings, boxes of info that appear when you click and all kinds of dynamic stuff. A student simply clicks through and reads small segments of info or watches an animation or otherwise chooses their adventure.
One module had me sitting face to face with a fictitious local mayor I was interviewing, when “my cell phone” rang and appeared on screen. The cell phone featured a video chat with “my editor” who gave me instant pointers on what to do. It was a trip! I’d taken a few college courses online before, but nothing like this. This was a lot like the real deal, but with tons of assistance. The real virtual deal I suppose. Perhaps this is what it would feel like to interview our Mayor in 2nd Life.
News University
Highly Recommended Courses in Multimedia/Online Journalism at News U:
Multimedia Reporting: Covering Breaking News – this course totally revolutionized how I think about online journalism and where it intersects with citizen journalism. It shows how local coverage of Hurricane Katrina led to better rescue efforts during the first few days the waters rose. EVERYONE interested in the future of journalism must check this out.
Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Online Publishers – I haven’t taken this one yet, but it’s next on my list. I think we may have viewed some of the exercises from this class in our Feature Writing class last week when we were discussing libel and defamation on blogs (and how to avoid it, natch).
Reporting Across Platforms – AND – Five Steps to Multimedia Storytelling – 2 classes that discuss different platforms and how to record and present different types of media. I’ve taken both and both are great. Neither one walks you through any particular device or software. They just explain what types of stories work best in which kinds of media, how to supplement a story with different media and how to capture and deliver that message.
I can’t embed a course here for you to see, so you’ll just have to click over to the News University website. But, one thing I learned in the excellent classes on multimedia and online journalism, is always try to incorporate photos and video to help illustrate your point. So, to that end, I’ll leave you with this video of Kurt Vonnegut being interviewed in Second Life:
Interesting thoughts on this one.