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Three Professional Web Journalism Tips for Students

November 20, 2007 10:38 AM Posted by mac

Steve Buttry from the American Press Institute has an interesting column on the online/digital skills established journalists should address. I thought I'd take a few of Buttry's points and re-examine them from a student journalist perspective:

Point 1: "Become a content creator"

This is the single most important thing any burgeoning journalist can do. Find a topic you're interested in and pursue every online avenue. These include:

  • Start a "beat blog" and set a posting schedule (daily or weekly -- don't even think about monthly). See how long you can stick to the schedule. You'll discover the rhythms of your beat and the inherent pressures that come with deadlines and content responsibilities. Plus, you'll hone your writing skills around a topic that inspires you.

  • Find other blogs covering the same topic. Subscribe to their RSS feeds and post comments. (If you don't know what RSS is, stop what you're doing and read this. All journalists need RSS.)

  • Find online discussions revolving around your beat. Read/absorb/participate as much as possible.

  • Subscribe to relevant magazines. Bloggers tend to limit themselves to the digital domain, but I've found plenty of ideas and story topics in the paper 'verse.
Point 2: "Update your thinking. Learning to think for multiple platforms, constant deadlines and different approaches is as important as any skills you need to develop."

Amen to that! Good journalists should be able to:

  1. Tell stories in multiple formats.

  2. Choose the formats that best suit a story.
These skills don't require expertise in multiple formats, but you do need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of print, broadcast and Web material.

Point 3: "Find a class in your community. Investigate the possibilities of a class in multimedia skills at a local university or even an adult education program ..."

Better yet -- use an elective to take a production or multimedia course at your own college. I did this with a computer course as an undergrad at the University of Richmond. That course proved vital to my future career because it's where I learned HTML (which led to me putting my school paper online ... which led to my first job as a Web editor ... etc., etc., etc.).

That's a lot more good advice -- for students and pros alike -- in Buttry's column.


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