Course Overview
- Title:
- Reporting Global Issues Locally
- Type:
- Self-Directed Course
- Time Estimate:
- This course takes about an hour to complete.
About Self-Directed Courses
In a self-directed course, you can start and stop whenever you like, progressing entirely at your own pace and going back as many times as you want to review the material.
This course was created to help you shrink the world and bring it to your readers, your viewers, your listeners.
Every day, reporters and editors in small- and medium-sized newsrooms miss opportunities for great stories because they don't know how to take ownership of major international news.
Most big international stories have ripples that reach even the smallest of communities. "Reporting Global Issues Locally" will show you how to find the local angle in the broadest of international stories.
For instance, you don't have to go to China to report on the recall of toys made there - they are sold at your local toy store. You don't have to go to go overseas to report on job losses - you have companies in your area that outsource jobs to other countries.
The key is coming up with story ideas and then figuring out how to do the research and find the statistics that help you bring these stories home.
This course will help you do all of that. It's packed with tips and links to Web sites that provide a wealth of information.
What Will I Learn:
This course will help you:
- Understand -- and explain to your audience -- the ways in which world events affect even the smallest of communities.
- Generate quality story ideas on topics that have a global reach.
- Find and cultivate helpful sources in your communities that can help you bring global issues to a local level.
- Report international news in ways that create meaningful connections to your audience.
- Learn where to look for information. You'll find many tips and links to Web sites that you can save for future use.
Who should take this course:
Journalists and students of journalism who already possess basic reporting skills but want to hone those skills and learn to tell international stories to a local audience.
Training Partner:
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been making grants since 1967 to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world.
Technical Requirements:
For this course you will need to have at least version 8.0 of the Flash plugin installed. For the best experience, we suggest that:
- PC users use Internet Explorer or Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox
- Mac users use Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox or Safari
- You set your monitor resolution to 1024 x 768 or higher
- You use a high-speed connection