Online Journalism News

Press Association boosts multimedia training

The Press Association will be expanding its journalism training division to reflect the growing demand for multimedia content, following the appointment of Tony Johnston as the agency's head of editorial training.

PA provides text-based news, photos and video for news publishers around the UK and its customers are increasingly demanding digital products for online, SMS and WAP-based services.

As well as traditional news organisations, its clients now include AOL, Yahoo! and 3 Mobile.

PA employs around 500 journalists and Mr Johnston's role will involve re-training journalists to work for digital formats. He will also promote courses offered by the Editorial Centre, a recent addition to the PA Group that trains journalists across the UK including staff at the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and Irish News.

"To stay ahead, journalists will need to be as comfortable breaking news on the web, telling stories in video and putting out news alerts on SMS, as they are in their current roles in either print or broadcast," Mr Johnston told journalism.co.uk.

"It is becoming one of the most important issues facing the industry."

PA has been expanding its video news services in the past year. A team of London-based broadcast journalists produce news, entertainment, sport, business and weather bulletins specifically for online and mobile platforms.

In June, PA announced a partnership with Sun Online to provide video entertainment and news bulletins.

"The most important development is the change taking place with the web itself and the opportunity it offers for web sites to host video," said Mr Johnston.

"As more people get broadband internet connections, sites are increasingly looking to add video to their content. This is a whole new area for print journalists and requires significant re-training."

Multimedia training covers designing and writing for the web, as well as interviewing, storytelling and producing video news.

The core skills for text-based digital journalism are the same as print, but design, headline writing and presentation can be very different and journalists also need to understand how web readers search for and aggregate their news online.

"The battle for customer's time has become increasingly challenging, and most journalists are fully aware of the need to broaden their skills," said Mr Johnston.

"Attitudes have changed - and journalists run the risk of being left behind if they don't."

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recruitment | training | video | press association | multimedia | tony johnson | multimedia training |

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