Photo by Lukáš Patkaň

Calling all aspiring ghosts.: Ellen Neuborne of Gotham Ghostwriters, says, “We hope you can join us for the free workshop we are co-hosting Tuesday night with the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) on how to get into the ghostwriting game.”

Participants in Manhattan will be meeting at the NYU Journalism Institute, 20 Cooper Square (at East 5th Street), on the 7th Floor.

The discussion will start at 6 p.m. and run until 7:30. Snacks and drinks will be served.

For those of you who would like to watch online, ASJA will be livestreaming the workshop on asja.org.

Here’s a reminder: Apply by April 15 at 11:59 PDT to receive a multimedia editing fellowship from the Maynard Institute at the Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevado-Reno.

Be part of an immersion program that will teach you the range of multimedia skills: video, audio, blogging, slideshows, tagging, databases, maps, HTML, producing stories using mobile, Web strategy, social networking and content management systems, and how they all connect.

At the Maynard Institute’s Multimedia Editing Program, classes are in-depth and hands-on and taught by leading practitioners.

Tuition for this month-long program is $6,000 and includes all sessions, housing and some meals.

If you are a journalist who works for a U.S.-based newspaper with a circulation of 50,000 or below, you are eligible to apply for one of 12 fellowships to attend the program. The fellowships are funded by a grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. Independent journalists are also encouraged to apply.

If you do not qualify for the fellowship you are welcome to apply for regular admission to the program and must cover your own tuition.

For four decades the Maynard Institute has trained journalists of color to:

• Become savvy editors, in print and now online
• Improve copy editing & headline writing skills
• Become effective supervisors

This program has produced effective newsroom leaders of all races who promote team work, introduce & manage change, and improve the quality of journalism.

Maynard equips participants to help their news organizations build a robust online presence and strengthen the print product.

Like all Maynard programs, the Multimedia Editing Program is open to people of all races.

The program runs from June 1 to 30, 2011 @ the Reynolds School of Journalism – University of Nevada, Reno.

Participants will have time for practice, critique and improvement, giving them a working knowledge that can be applied immediately.

Apply today and upgrade your career.

Contact Evelyn Hsu, program director, at Ehsu@maynardije.org. Or Elisabeth Pinio, manager for outreach, at 510-891-9202 or epinio@maynardije.org.

Call for Applications!

All-Expenses-Paid Mini Fellowship at USC Annenberg with $2,000-$10,000 Reporting Grant

When: July 24-29, 2011

Where: Los Angeles

Deadline to Apply: May 2, 2011

In this era of tight newsroom budgets and declining freelance fees, it’s often hard to find the resources to undertake an ambitious reporting project. The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships offer reporting grants of $2,000 to $10,000 to help you execute that big project that you’ve been carrying around on your “To Do” list.

Based at USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism, The National Health Journalism Fellowships and the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism are open to print, broadcast, and online journalists from around the country. Both newsroom staffers and freelancers may apply. Students are ineligible.

Both National Fellows and Hunt grantees spend a week in Los Angeles exploring the intersection between community health, health policy, and the nation’s growing ethnic diversity, as well as the role that factors such as race, ethnicity, pollution, violence, and transportation, land-use, and food policy play in prospects for good health.

You’ll come away from the experience with a multitude of story ideas and sources, new insights into what community influences contribute to personal health, and funds to pursue a substantive health-related reporting project. National Fellows receive meals, travel, and lodging plus a $2,000 stipend upon publication or broadcast of a major fellowship project on a domestic health issue. Dennis Hunt Fund grantees receive reporting grants of $2,500 to $10,000 (instead of the $2,000 stipend) upon publication or broadcast of a substantive project on a domestic community health issue. The Hunt Fund will support projects that examine the effects of a specific factor or confluence of factors on a community’s health, such as poverty, health disparities, pollution, violence, land use, urban development, access to health care, and access to healthy food. Click here to help you decide which option is right for you.

The stipends and grants can be used to defray reporting and publishing-related costs such as travel, website development, database acquisition and analysis, translation services, and a journalist’s otherwise uncompensated time.

To encourage collaboration between mainstream and ethnic media, preference will be given to applicants who propose a joint project for use by both media outlets. Applicants must join ReportingonHealth.org.

For more information, email Martha Shirk at Cahealth@usc.edu. (To improve your prospects for success, we strongly recommend that you discuss your project idea with us in advance.)

By Mike Cassidy
Mercury News

Are you there God? It’s me, twitter.com/mikecassidy.

Maybe it’s no surprise that we’ve reached the point where, rather than looking to the heavens to find God, we’re looking to the cloud. It’s where we live now, with iPods, iPads, Android gizmos, social networks. The town square, complete with steepled church, has become a digital rectangle that we carry in our pockets.

I’ve been thinking about this since the recent excitement over “Confession: A Roman Catholic App,” an iPhone application that offers Catholics a nifty way to prepare for the sacrament of confession.

Never mind that any Catholic could use help. When I was a kid, I constantly worried that I didn’t have enough sins to recite to the priest. So, I’d make up a few extras, and essentially lie to a priest, which of course meant another transgression and another trip to confession.

As of last week, the app, which provides a digital inventory of bad acts, was the sixth-most-popular in Apple’s lifestyle category, which in a bit of iLife synergy puts it right behind the iKamasutra.

Some of the buzz around the confession app was due to the fact that it was sanctioned by a Catholic bishop — a sign the church was ready to meet congregants in the century in which they are residing. It also held the delicious juxtaposition of modern technology aiding in an ancient rite. And it provided plenty of material for snickering….

Read the entire story on SiliconValley. com.

The Knight Digital Media Center, which is associated the UC-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, has opened the

KDMC instructor Jeremy Rue (right) talks about video and audio recording with 2010 multimedia workshop fellows Cindy Shultz and Tom Paulson

application process for its next round of free week-long digital media workshops for working and independent journalists.

The program teaches multimedia storytelling, including how to capture and edit video, photos and audio. There is a workshop on Web publishing for independent journalists and another on Web 2.0 training for journalists. Another one covers interactive, computer-assisted census reporting.

To apply, or to find complete details about these free workshops, go to the Knight Digital Media Center site.

These are fellowships and you must be accepted to attend. Capacity is limited, but it’s certainly worth applying. All sessions are on the University of California-Berkeley campus. The Knight Digital Media Center pays for lodging, meals and the use of equipment. If you are accepted for a workshop, you pick up the travel expenses.

Click here to apply. You have to register first, but you can take your time with the application, returning multiple times to complete it.

Workshop dates and deadlines are as follows:

• Dec. 12-17, 2010: Interactive Census Workshop (Deadline: Oct. 17, 2010)

• Jan. 9-14, 2011: Multimedia Reporting and Convergence Workshop (Deadline: Nov. 19, 2010)

• Feb. 14-18, 2011: Web 2.0 Training for Journalists Workshop (Deadline: Dec. 10, 2010)

• March 21-25, 2011: Web Publishing for Independent Journalists Workshop (Deadline: Jan. 28, 2011)

• May 15-20-, 2011: Multimedia Reporting and Convergence Workshop (Deadline: March 18, 2011)

• June 13-17, 2011: Web 2.0 Training for Journalists Workshop (Deadline: April 15, 2011)

It’s important to note that the absolute deadline for applications, for all of these workshops, is 11:59 p.m. PST.

If you have any questions, go to Frequently Asked Questions or contact Alisha Diego Klatt, program specialist, at kdmcinfo@journalism.berkeley.edu or (510) 642-3892.

Now for more detail on each workshop:

Web Publishing for Independent Journalists Workshop

This is a perfect workshop for journalists who hope to get into online ventures. It will provide tools and hands-on training. Topics include blogging, video production and editing, Photoshop, data-driven maps and data visualization. The course will cover branding, ad sales, strategy for using social media and search engine optimization (SEO) — the secret to making your site come up near the top of a search in Google or any other search engine.

The career path for many of today’s journalists is merging with entrepreneurship. Journalists who once covered topical, feature and investigative news for established newspapers are becoming independent publishers of specialty blogs and hyperlocal community news sites. These sites fulfill an important role in the emerging news and information landscape.

Powerful and user-friendly Web publishing tools make creating quality online news sites easy and affordable. These new tools are allowing individual journalists and community journalism to flourish as part of the evolving news eco-system.

Multimedia Reporting and Convergence Workshop

These are intense, multimedia training courses for mid-career journalists. Topics range from storyboarding to incorporating multimedia into storytelling. Those who attend will learn audio/video recording and editing, flash graphics, digital photography, Photoshop and web design concepts. Guest speakers will explore the future of journalism, the role of technology, and the importance of audience engagement. Fellows will learn through hands-on projects to produce multimedia stories using all of the tools covered in the workshop.

Web 2.0 Training for Journalists Workshop

This training takes participants through the progression of reporting news for multiple digital platforms, starting with quick text posts and moving through photos and video and finally ending with a full multimedia presentation. The workshop provides hands-on training using Twitter and Facebook for reporting and driving web traffic, creating data-driven map mashups, dynamically updating a blog for breaking news, publishing photo galleries and audio slideshows, producing videos and editing videos using Final Cut Pro. Participants will leave with new tools for reporting and with new insights on how to serve new and emerging audiences.

The Interactive Census Workshop

This customized visual storytelling workshop is designed to train journalists in new ways to process data from the 2010 Census. They will illustrate the information using visualization and mapping tools to create a clearer, more meaningful picture of the complex statistics gathered in the national survey. Fellows will brainstorm with industry experts.

In this intensive six-day workshop, participants will learn to create cutting-edge interactive graphics. The skills and tools will benefit your newsroom or your independent journalism career long after the census.

You will learn to:

• Tell stories with interactive GIS maps
• Clean and prepare U.S. Census data
• Create beautiful and effective interactive charts
• Build close connections with 19 other great visual storytellers

This is an advanced workshop. Ideally, applicants will have some basic experience with at least one of the following:

• Computer Assisted Reporting
• News graphics
• News design
• Website production

If you cannot attend a workshop there is another solution. The Knight Center makes video recordings of major speakers and sometimes a bit of the lab work in all of these workshops. Some of these are available free online on the Knight Digital Media Center website. Some sessions are available as streaming or archived webcasts.

Displaced Journalists’ partner Knowledgewebb is planning another free webinar. “Getting Started: Mobile Reporting and Publishing” is the topic, and it’s scheduled for this Wednesday, Aug. 25 at 2 p.m. EDT.

You don’t need to be a member of Knowledgewebb to participate in the webinar. However, if you haven’t considered joining, remember that our partnership with Knowledgewebb gives you a 30 percent discount on the yearly membership fee. Knowledgewebb helps you master the skills you need to succeed in today’s digital media environment. We partnered with Knowledgewebb because it is some of the best training around at an extremely fair price. To get the discount, join using our Displaced Journalists partner code: DISPLACED.

The webinar, which runs from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. (EDT), will teach you how to produce and publish rich multimedia stories, interactive slideshows, even audio broadcasts in real time on your iPhone, Blackberry, Palm or Android.

If you participated in “10 Steps to a Tech-Savvy You,” an Aug. 5 webinar celebrating our partnership with Knowledgewebb, you already know how much you can learn in one hour. As always, attendees will receive notes, worksheets and a list of recommended tools.

This free webinar is sponsored by another Knowledgewebb media partner: Freelance Success.

You must have pre-registered and received a confirmation message from Knowledgewebb to participate in this session. Click here to register. There are only 500 virtual “seats” available and they fill up quickly, so go to Knowledgewebb.net and register soon. The webinar is just two days from today.

If you didn’t catch Thursday’s Knowledgewebb webinar “10 Steps to a Tech Savvy You,” you will find it through Aug. 20 posted here.

All of the notes and links are up there, too, so you can grab those if you didn’t take notes during the webinar.

More than 300 of us were online for the webinar — sponsored by Displaced Journalists in celebration of our partnership with the premier digital media training provider. Aside from the 10 steps — and critical websites, social networks and gear — to help you become more tech savvy, Knowledgewebb CEO Amy Webb gave us all a primer on how to manage information overload. It all follows the Knowledgewebb tagline: Don’t sweat the tech!

While you’re on the Knowledgewebb site, check out the offerings. If you reach the KW site through Displaced Journalists, you get 30 percent off the price of a year of unlimited training in digital media tools and entrepreneurial skills. Just go to the Knowledgewebb site and use the discount code: DISPLACED.

Learn and enjoy. — Susan Older

]]> http://displacedjournalists.com/2010/08/07/missed-the-dpj-sponsored-knowledgewebb-webinar/feed/ 0 http://displacedjournalists.com/2010/07/21/knowledgewebb-partners-with-displaced-journalists-to-provide-top-notch-affordable-digital-media-training/ http://displacedjournalists.com/2010/07/21/knowledgewebb-partners-with-displaced-journalists-to-provide-top-notch-affordable-digital-media-training/#comments Wed, 21 Jul 2010 04:58:16 +0000 Susan Older http://displacedjournalists.com/?p=363 By Amy Webb CEO, Knowledgewebb Knowledgewebb is pleased to partner with Displaced Journalists to offer community members a deep discount on its annual membership dues. Knowledgewebb offers hands-on training, self-directed courses, ongoing webinars and more for professionals working in publishing and small-business communications. Need pointers on how to edit an audio podcast? Want to brush [...]]]>

By Amy Webb
CEO, Knowledgewebb

Knowledgewebb is pleased to partner with Displaced Journalists to offer community members a deep discount on its annual membership dues. Knowledgewebb offers hands-on training, self-directed courses, ongoing webinars and more for professionals working in publishing and small-business communications.

Need pointers on how to edit an audio podcast? Want to brush up on Flash as a storytelling tool? Curious about augmented reality? Knowledgewebb was created as a support resource for people working in all areas of media who are trying to reinvent themselves and reinvigorate their careers.

To kick off the partnership, Knowledgewebb will conduct a free webinar at 2 p.m. EDT August 5. The online seminar “10 Steps to a Tech-Savvy You” is designed primarily for displaced journalists, stay-at-home entrepreneurs, seasoned academics, C-level corporate managers and retirees. Think of it as a digital media makeover. It will help you explore the critical websites, social networks and gear you need to survive in an increasingly digital world. Knowledgewebb will also offer a free primer on how to manage information overload. As always,  attendees will receive notes, worksheets and a list of recommended tools.

Knowledgewebb has been featured on MSNBC, FOX and NPR, as well as in Entrepreneur Magazine, as the go-to website to learn digital skills.

Space is limited and past webinars have filled up rapidly, so check out the technical details and book your reservation now. After you reserve your virtual seat, Knowledgewebb will email you a link that is unique to you. It cannot be shared with others. You must be pre-registered for this free session, with a confirmation email, in order to participate.

We have more than 200 lessons and webinars in our archives, with more added each week.

Recent additions:

• 3 Tools to Make Interactive Maps
• Your First Facebook API
• Monetizing Your Website, Part I of a series

And don’t overlook your access to our custom curriculum service, our expert answers to your questions on our forums, and a career coach as part of this dynamic community. We’re the first training site to offer a badge system, which makes learning a bit more interactive, and a lot more fun. (Hint, you’ll be rewarded with badges as well as points, which are used to earn real-world swag like Knowledgewebb gear, iPads and more throughout the year.)

Best of all, there’s never an additional fee for a course – your annual membership is an all-you-can-learn deal.

The regular price is $129, but your relationship with Displaced Journalists means you can sign up for just $89 (US) – that breaks down to .44 cents per lesson. Just use the discount code DISPLACED (all caps) in your cart.

We welcome you to our community!

By Roland Legrand, June 2, 2010

Yes, journalists should learn how to program. No, not every journalist should learn it right now — just those who want to stay in the industry for another ten years. More seriously, programming skills and knowledge enable us traditional journalists to tell better and more engaging stories.

Programming means going beyond learning some HTML. I mean real computer programming.

As a journalist, I’m fully aware of the reasons why we don’t learn programming — and I’m guilty of using many of them. I initially thought there were good reasons not to take it up:

Read more at Media Shift ….

By Ellen Neuborne

Special to Displaced Journalists

5.6.2010

I used to be a reporter. Now I’m a ghostwriter.

I get a lot of raised eyebrows when I say that. Usually, it’s followed by comments such as “Really? For anybody famous?” Or “Can you make a living at that?”

No, nobody famous. Yes, you can make a living. I’ve been doing it since 2004. I’ve ghosted 13 books and scads of other texts from opinion pieces to Power Points to blog posts. I tap into my journalism background (I was a business reporter and editor) and I specialize in what the industry calls “thought leadership” books for business professionals. Every CEO wants a book. Few have the time (or the writing chops) to produce one. That’s where I come in. Ghostwriters with backgrounds in health, science and sports are also in demand.

Ex-reporters make great ghostwriters for a number of reasons. My top 10:

1. We’re used to telling someone else’s story.

2. We’re adept at putting our own voices on hold, for off-hours projects.

3. We know how to interview and draw out a subject.

4. We think writer’s block is for sissies.

5. We make deadline.

6. We thrive on variety.

7. We like to meet interesting people and tell their stories.

8. We know nobody really reads bylines anyway.

9. We are used to high volume production.

10. We never get tired of writing for a living.

A lot of journalists are curious about ghostwriting. I know, because I get asked out to lunch about once a week by a journo who wants to “pick my brain” about breaking into the industry. I got smart about a year ago and created an online class in ghostwriting (next six-week session starts May 17th, if anyone’s interested.) But whether you sign up with me or investigate it on your own, ghostwriting is a good second act for a smart reporter.

Ellen Neuborne is a ghostwriter living in New York City. Email her at eneuborne@aol.com or visit her http://ghostwritingrevealed.blogspot.com/