Three things a new online journalist sho...

Conference News re:wired brought news professionals together to look at success stories in niche markets. We heard from some great voices in the online journalism field – people who really understand how to cater for their market. I’ve picked out three points to look at in detail, they’re of particular relevance to new journalists: targeting your content to a niche market using technology to help you why being ‘good enough’ isn’t good enough. 1. Target your content to a niche market “Trust is central to it working” – Simon Perry, Ventnor Blog ...

How do you break a national news story?...

For a journalist, breaking a national news story is the ultimate coup. For some it comes early in their career and others after many years of work. On election night 2010, one student at the Department of Journalism at the University of Sheffield discovered a story. Through a combination of speed, contacts and Twitter we made her story go national – and this is how we did it. Let me set the scene The journalism postgraduates at Sheffield University work together for one week in the second semester to produce news output of the highest standard possible. I help the...

Education of the nation...

What skills do graduates going into online journalism need these days? I’ve been asking around and I’d like you to join in the debate: email me or post a comment with your answers on the following: What skills are essential for up-and-coming online journalists/web writers? E.g. writing, image manipulation What should they be able to do by the time they come for an interview? E.g. re-write a press release, upload into a CMS Do they need HTML? Dreamweaver? Is metadata and tagging still important? How much awareness do they need about the web? E.g. content...