Professional Standards

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Aims of this section

Many of the areas we cover in this section are developing rapidly

Because of that you'll see a number of new, web-exclusive chapters added to this section.

Those chapters seek to consolidate new learning and experience, and will be added to the next print edition of MMJ. But, for now, you can only read them here.

We've also been running many masterclasses that are designed to update you on all you need to know, as it is developing.

You'll find those masterclasses linked to at all appropriate points on the website

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Keep abreast of what's happening in the masterclasses section by subscribing to our Twitter feed, follow us on Facebook, subscribe to the newsletter, load our app onto your smartphone.or use any of the other methods of keeping in touch that you'll find in the Newbies section.

 

In the book version of this chapter:

In the book version of this section you will find detailed tuition designed to bring you up to the standard expected of a newly qualified multimedia journalist as defined by the Joint Journalism Training Forum (JJTF). This is a collaborative venture by the three main UK training and accrediting bodies.

If you are on a course accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists, then the aim is to take you to the standard required to pass the core reporting and portfolio units in the NCTJ’s preliminary qualification, the Diploma in Journalism – you have to work for 18 months or so on a publication before you can take their National Certificate Examination (NCE) and be fully qualified in their terms.

You wil also find a good deal of material that addresses other NCTJ units, including video journalism for online and production journalism.

In the online version of this chapter:

Here on the web version you will find all the support material referenced in the book, plus a good deal of additional resources.

These resources are designed to complement the book and to help bring you up to professional standards in:

  • Features writing – general features, interviews, reviews, columns and comment pieces for print and online publication
  • News writing – with the focus on writing to exam formats
  • Creating in-depth special areas for websites
  • Advanced online research methods – getting the most out of Google and also using more specialised alternatives to it
  • Sub-editing news and features for print and online
  • Search engine optimisation. 

We will look at hyper-local and other versions of geographically tagged journalism, including:

  • How to geotag content
  • Using maps as the basis of multimedia storytelling
  • Creating multimedia mashups with the use of Google Maps, Apture and other free software.

We also cover advanced still picture editing using software, including Picnik and Photosynth, and identifying picture sources.

Editing and presenting online news bulletins and longer magazine-style web programming will also be covered.

 
Investigative Journalism