This handout goes with a session that Karen Workman of The New York Times taught at the Orlando NewsTrain on May 15-16, 2015, called: "Think like an entrepreneur: take charge of your career." It is a list of free and low-cost training for journalists, including an app, in-person and online training, plus a link for finding fellowships. These are resources for not just surviving the next round of layoffs but to thriving amidst the creative destruction gripping the news business.

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Free and low-cost training for journalists
Linda Austin | @LindaAustin_ | laustin.newstrain@gmail.com
Android App
StoryMaker teaches citizen journalists in the developing world how to use their smartphones to
produce journalism: https://storymaker.cc/
Both online and in-person
Investigative Reporters and Editors offers fellowships for its conferences, workshops and boot
camps: http://bit.ly/1POVOvW It has free videos online: http://bit.ly/1ELbJti and podcasts on
iTunes: http://apple.co/1GzBytU It offers Total Newsroom Training in investigative journalism to
newsrooms that successfully apply for it: http://bit.ly/1DvprcO With a $70 ($25 for students) IRE
annual membership, access 3,500 tipsheets and 25,000 investigative stories http://bit.ly/1ExZ5vW
Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism offers free in-person
training, self-guided training, e-books, and podcasts: businessjournalism.org
kdmcBerkeley has free online tutorials in digital journalism: http://bit.ly/1z7VdkC It has paid,
multi-day workshops in multimedia storytelling, video, social media, data visualization and digital
publishing: http://bit.ly/1DEPEXC
Knowledgewebb.net offers free online self-directed training in digital subjects, as well as paid
customized training: http://www.knowledgewebb.net/online-lessons
The Poynter Institute’s NewsU.org has both free and paid online courses on a wide range of
topics from digital tools to better writing and newsroom leadership. Paid courses range from $29.95
for an hourlong webinar to $449 for a multi-week online group seminar. The Poynter Institute
offers paid workshops on many topics, as well as customized training: http://bit.ly/1GqVlJv
SPJ training offers in-person training for groups of 20-25 for $500 a day in mobile newsgathering,
social media, multimedia and fundamentals. It has daylong JournCamp workshops for $40
(members) and $60 (non-members). Members ($75/year) can access online videos and recorded
webinars on multimedia, social media, FOIA, freelancing, data visualization and personal branding:
http://www.spj.org/training.asp
Tableau offers free online and in-person training in how to use its free software to create data
visualizations, including interactive charts. http://www.tableau.com/learn/training
Fellowships
IJNET.org compiles journalism fellowships: http://bit.ly/1EePGYA It usually provides a list of those
with upcoming deadlines each month on its journalism education blog: http://bit.ly/1dmHuNb Or
search its opportunities for fellowships, workshops, online courses and media jobs worldwide:
https://ijnet.org/opportunities

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In-Person
APME’s NewsTrain offers four workshops a year, usually on digital skills, in cities around the
United States and Canada for $75: http://bit.ly/NewsTrain Diversity scholarships are available to
cover the registration fee. Slides and handouts from past workshops are at
http://slideshare.net/newstrain
Code with Me uses volunteers to offer two-day coding workshops for journalists for $85:
http://codewithme.us/
Mid-America Press Institute offers low-cost ($25-30) one-day workshops on various topics,
including watchdog reporting, management and sports. https://mpinews.wordpress.com/
National Press Foundation offers all-expenses-paid, multi-day workshops on topics such as
retirement, food, medicine and business. http://nationalpress.org/programs-and-resources/
ONACamps are free, intensive, digital journalism workshops from the Online News Association.
http://journalists.org/ona-local/onacamps/
ONA-Poynter Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media is a free 4 ½- day program
that includes “guidance on the business of journalism, individual leadership style, navigating
newsroom culture, entrepreneurship.” Applications for 2016 open soon. http://bit.ly/1AkGwWW
Online
American Press Institute offers free, online, self-directed courses in partnership with NewsU.org.
They include mobile strategy and audience analytics: http://pressinstitute.newsu.org/api-home
Australian Broadcasting Corp. offers tips and video tutorials to help citizen journalists tell their
stories. Topics include photography, video, social media, writing and storytelling.
http://ab.co/1BK0NEA
Code Academy teaches programing languages, including HTML & CSS, Javascript, jQuery, Python,
Ruby and PHP, for free: http://www.codecademy.com/
CUNY Graduate School of Journalism features its faculty in free online, self-directed courses in
Web scraping, entrepreneurial journalism, writing, spreadsheets and animated GIFs:
https://www.digitaljschool.com/school/catalog/
Data Driven Journalism has how-to articles and tutorials from the European Journalism Centre:
http://datadrivenjournalism.net/resources Offered a 2014 MOOC on introductory data journalism.
DigitalEd offers one-hour live webinars for $39. Its partners are PBS MediaShift, the Donald W.
Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri and BigMarker conferencing. The
DigitalEd announcement on April 1, 2015, said: “Topics will range from measuring impact of stories;
shooting mobile video; increasing audience engagement; and creating an entrepreneurial venture.
Eventually DigitalEd will include multi-week courses as well with certificates offered….MediaShift is
also developing free sponsor-supported training.” http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/digitaled/

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For Journalism offers free, online courses in data journalism and tech subjects for journalists:
http://forjournalism.com/
Institute for Nonprofit News offers free online courses on the business side of the news business,
including in time management. http://newstraining.org
ICFJanywhere.org is the online training site for the International Center for Journalists. Its free
courses, which are both instructor-led and self-taught, include digital journalism, investigative
reporting and coverage of labor reporting, religion and business.
LinkedIn regularly offers a free 45-minute webinar to teach journalists how to use the site.
Attendees qualify for an upgraded membership: http://linkd.in/1uN5dL7
Lynda.com has online video tutorials on technology. Free preview, then subscription is required.
MOOCs from Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas: Its Massively Open Online
Courses are free; other online courses charge a small fee. Topics have included investigative reporting,
ethics, digital journalism, election reporting, conflict coverage and computer-assisted reporting:
http://journalismcourses.org/
MediaBistro has online courses in a variety of topics from copy editing to social media and ranging
in price from $179 for a self-paced course to $3,200 for a 12-course certificate: http://bit.ly/1HI7cHh
MediaCollege.com “is a free educational website for all forms of electronic media. We have
hundreds of exclusive tutorials covering video & television production, audio work, photography,
graphics, web design and more.”
Media Helping Media offers more than 100 free online training modules in basic and advanced
journalism, investigative journalism, media strategy, editorial ethics and other topics:
http://mediahelpingmedia.org/
MobileVideoDIY “showcases tutorials, best practices, apps and gear to teach you how to be
a mobile video journalist.” Free at http://mobilevideodiy.com/
MulinBlog offers free online journalism courses: http://bit.ly/1b83jOY
NPR Training has a Tumblr with storytelling tips: http://nprstorytelling.tumblr.com/tags. It also
offers free webinars. Follow @nprtraining for details. NPR Digital Services also offers tips and
webinars: http://digitalservices.npr.org/topic/editorial
Online Media Campus offers live and archived 60-minute webinars for $35 each. More than 20
programs are offered annually on writing, technology, social networking, management issues and
more. Partners include the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, Iowa Newspaper Foundation
and state press associations: http://www.onlinemediacampus.com/
Other MOOCS (Massively Open Online Courses) are free and sometimes have courses of interest to
journalists: Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/ | EdX: https://www.edx.org/ | Stanford:
http://stanford.io/1GqWYH0

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Robb Montgomery’s Smart Film School allows a free preview of its most popular course: Be a
video and film pro with your iPhone. Courses, designed for to be taken on your smartphone, range
from $39 to $499. http://bit.ly/1JwppK2
More online resources:
BBC Academy has free resources on journalism: http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism
Data Journalism Handbook is a free e-book from the European Journalism Centre and Open
Knowledge Foundation: http://www.datajournalismhandbook.org/
Do the stuff that scares you and other lessons from Thunderdome What happens when
your entire newsroom is laid off? Tips a year later from four survivors of the April 2014 shutdown of
Digital First Media’s Project Thunderdome: http://bit.ly/1CWx0ce by Kristen Hare for Poynter.org
EditTeach.org offers resources for editing professors, students and professionals to help strengthen
the craft of editing and support the work of editors. http://www.editteach.org
Facebook Best Practices for Journalists helps journalists set up a professional page on
Facebook, shows them how to use the platform to share news with their community and gives them
tools to help in their reporting. http://on.fb.me/1DRj3gi
Five tips for finding mentors in journalism, even if you don’t work in a newsroom
http://bit.ly/1D1Mjk3 by Jillian Keenan for Poynter.org
Global Investigative Journalism Network offers readings and tips on investigative and data
journalism. http://gijn.org/resources/
How to use Chartbuilder to make simple graphics fast http://bit.ly/1J5I6ko By Matt Waite
for Poynter.org
LinkedIn tips for journalists can be found on the newstraining.org site: http://bit.ly/1ExYqKS
Slideshare.net can be searched for presentations and handouts on journalism:
http://www.slideshare.net/ Handouts and slides from NewsTrain workshops are at
http://www.slideshare.net/NewsTrain
SPJ’s Journalist’s Toolbox has links on hundreds of topics: http://www.journaliststoolbox.org/
Twitter also offers best practices for journalists: http://bit.ly/1Jwk4m0
Verification Handbook: A definitive guide to verifying digital content for emergency
coverage, edited by Craig Silverman, is a free e-book: http://verificationhandbook.com/, as is the
Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting: http://bit.ly/1GC7oZO
Vimeo has journalism training videos: https://vimeo.com/search?q=journalism+training
YouTube has many journalism training videos, especially from the BBC College of Journalism:
https://www.youtube.com/user/bbccojovideo and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.