Did you know that you can turn any article on Media Helping Media into a personalised training lesson by adopting collaborative learning.
This is extremely useful if you are new to journalism and want to improve your skills or if you have been set achievement goals by your editor.
Here’s how it works:
- Ask your editor if they could recommend a mentor from your newsroom to help you. If they can’t, try to find a senior journalist among your colleagues who would be willing to help. You are asking for just half an hour of their time at the most.
- Identify the areas where your journalism needs to improve.
- Search Media Helping Media for the topic you need help with. You might find scrolling through our site map helpful.
- Once you find an article that covers the areas in which you need to improve, send the link to your mentor.
- Study the piece making sure you understand it. Ask your mentor to read it, too.
- Write a brief analysis (300-500 words) setting out what you learnt from the article. Jot down the main points and explain how you will apply them to your work.
- Submit your analysis to your mentor.
- Arrange a meeting to discuss your findings. This can be either in person or via email.
- Agree an action plan for how you will apply what you learnt to your journalism.
- Add the new-found skills as a personal objective for your next appraisal with senior management setting out where you have improved.
Your editor will understand that collaborative learning in journalism helps strengthen teamwork and newsroom efficiency. They will appreciate the efforts you have taken to improve your skills and performance.
By following this collaborative learning process, those new to journalism can benefit from the expertise and guidance of experienced mentors within their own newsroom. They will also be able to adapt their journalism to the needs of their own communities and culture.
Whether you are just starting off in journalism and need help and advice, or you are a seasoned journalist looking to improve your skills, we have a selection of training material that we hope will meet your needs. And it’s all free to download and use.
Media Helping Media’s sections
All the content on Media Helping Media has been grouped in sections to make it easier to find articles that are of interest.
- We have a basic journalism section where you can pick up tips on how to write compelling news stories that inform and educate.
- There is an ethics section where you can learn about the principles that underpin good journalism.
- For those who want to improve their skills there is an advanced journalism section.
- And journalists who like to dig deeper to find the stories behind the news will find some useful advice in the investigative journalism section.
- If you are a journalism trainer we have more than 50 lesson outlines which you can adapt and use for teaching fledgling journalists the ropes.
- And for college and university lecturers there are 10 complete course modules which are spread over six weeks and can also be adapted for local needs.
- And, as mentioned earlier, if you want to see a list of all the content on the site, scroll down our site map, or carry out a word search to find material about a topic that interests you.
All the material is released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0, which means you are free to use it all for non-commercial purposes as long as the original source is acknowledged and any derivative of the work is shared in the same spirit.