New course for arts journalists will combine theatre and journalism teaching techniques

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A new journalism training project will open its doors this summer offering an alternative, fast-track course for aspiring arts journalists.

Curio Media's 10-week arts journalism course from 28 June to 3 September will centre around Edinburgh's annual programme of arts festivals, which climaxes with the month-long Fringe and International festivals in August.

Described as "alternative training for media mavericks", the course includes five weeks of intensive training, guest speakers and industry experts and five weeks of practical work experience, theatre director EJ Trivett, who will lead the course with co-director and experienced web editor Mark Johnstone, told Journalism.co.uk.

In the second half of the course, attendees will run curiofestival.com , Curio's news site for the festivals, taking it in turns to handle reviewing, sub-editing, multimedia production and interacting with readers online.

Practical tasks to help students learn how to use new pieces of kit will include being sent to a secret location, being handed tools and a story idea and tasked with making it a live, multimedia package for the site. At the end of the course, attendees will have a portfolio of work on the festival site and be able to work as a mobile journalist with a massive toolkit, said Trivett.

Basic journalism skills are covered, but the course, which has 30 places and is the first run by Curio Media , is intended for journalists looking to move into arts journalism or to develop this specialism.

"We want to try to lift the course out from the classroom and away from Powerpoint slides with experiential learning. There will be a strong element of critical thinking and looking at the state of the industry too," said Trivett.

The course will fuse journalistic training with theatre training techniques to help journalists build their confidence and brand: "We know it's competitive out there and we know that we are in a recession. We're not pretending that's not happening, but what we're saying is if you want to breaking this industry and have a career in it, you have to be a characterful journalist."

While the course costs £2,495, Trivett said this cost will cover entry to all Festival events and shows required by the programme and is necessary to fund five weeks of full-day teaching and leading industry speakers.