A lesson to be learned online

Internet journalists around the world can benefit from online tutorials in digital journalism designed by the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, USA.

'Five Steps to Multimedia Journalism' was designed to support the school’s training programmes in digital journalism. The site was launched on 1 August this year and provides detailed notes on devising and producing a multimedia story for the internet, including storyboarding, preparing equipment for fieldwork and editing multimedia content.

In collaboration with the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, Berkeley operates the Western Knight Centre for Specialised Journalism, a training programme for mid-career journalists. The programme provides training in a number of areas including ethics, multiculturalism and the multimedia journalism course.

Competition for the fellowships is fierce: 60 journalists applied for just 15 places on the most recent training course. Fifty-four journalists have taken part in the multimedia training programme so far, including staff from CNN, The Tampa Tribune and The San Francisco Chronicle.

Paul Grabowicz is director of the new media centre at Berkeley and columnist for the Online Journalism Review. Print journalists must learn to adapt to web technology, says Mr Grabowicz, as more media companies experiment with multi-platform news publishing.

"The public increasingly is using broadband and multimedia, and young people in particular are looking for interactive multimedia when it comes to accessing information," he told dotJournalism.

"But most importantly I think multimedia offers an opportunity to tell a story in a more compelling and engaging way, and can be used to provide more depth and context to a story."

The web site is designed to provide tutorial support during the school’s onsite training courses, and trainees can share the information with colleagues when they return to work.

The tutorial also works as a distance-learning site for journalists and members of the public with an interest in multimedia. Traffic to the site has increased by 50 to 100 per cent each month since the launch.

Daniel Moulthrop is a freelance journalist and student of Paul Grabowicz.

"Everything Paul puts online is phenomenally helpful," he told dotJournalism.

"It allows all of his students, as well as people who know about his resources, to learn or be reminded of what they need the moment they need it.

"Paul is a great promoter of spreading knowledge and giving reporters the tools they need to do quality work."

The school will promote the site more actively from December, and is also planning to introduce new tutorials on video editing, animation, audio editing and voiceovers for broadcast.

See also:
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/multimedia
http://www.usc.edu/schools/annenberg/asc/projects/wkc

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