Free Training Opportunity for Journalists

Technology, Innovation and Insight for Traditional Journalists

The news this week has been grim. Again.The Rocky Mountain News is no more, and I suspect that won’t be the last paper to fold in the coming months.

Here’s what I know you don’t want to hear: Many of you probably won’t land back on your feet as a working journalist at an American newspaper.

So we’re going to reprise our free training, that we offered to laid-off Gannett folks in December and January, and open it up to all the journalists who lost their jobs in Colorado, in Seattle and elsewhere. About half of what my company (Webbmedia Group) does is training. We train reporters, editors, producers, developers, teachers…hell, we even train lots of trainers…on how to adapt technology for journalism. (The other half is strategic planning and innovation. Like, which content management system should you use and how can you best implement it to accommodate mobile, the geospatial web, etc?)

So, to the recently laid-off journalists, here’s something to help: We’re going to offer an updated version of our free training session on what to do next. It will focus on emerging technology and post-mainstream journalism careers. We’ll show you some new tech trends, explain how you can combine them with what you already know, and then show you how to apply your skillset to either land a new gig or even start your own site. As before, this won’t be an hour of learning code – it’ll be instruction on how to think and understand differently.

Again, these sessions are free. You’ll also get access to tipsheets and other information. Criteria are below:

WHO: We’d prefer that you’re a newspaper refugee, but we won’t turn away working journalists or anyone working in communications. Sorry – this time, we will not take technologists, consultants, academics or students. We’re going to check, so don’t try to pull a fast one on us.

WHEN: Wednesday, March 25th at 3pm Eastern Time. The training session will last 75 minutes.

HOW/ WHERE: We’ll give registrants a call-in number and passcode ahead of the session. You’ll need a computer (one that’s online, of course) and a phone line to call into. After the session, we’ll give you access to tipsheets and other information to help you continue learning on your own.

HOW TO REGISTER: Send an email message with your full name, your email address and where you’re currently (or were recently) employed. Also tell us what kind of job you had (multimedia producer, city hall reporter for the paper, etc). For those of you who have previously participated in one of our training sessions, you’ll already know that we never do the same thing twice and that all of our sessions are completely personalized. To the extent we can, we’re going to try and do the same thing this time around – so share whatever information you’d like. The more we get, the more meaningful we can make the information for you. DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION IS MARCH 20th. NO EXCEPTIONS.

I’d like to cap the session at 200 people total, so this will be first-come, first-served. While I’d prefer that you didn’t participate in one of the previous sessions, this one will be different, so it’s okay for you to register again.

Amy L. Webb
mydigimedia.com