“Poynter” Items

Training Needs of Journalists: Poynter NewsU Survey

As we geared up development of Poynter’s e-learning project, the lack of information about journalists and online training was very evident.  While there were many studies about what journalists said they wanted in terms of training, there was scant evidence about how an online training program would be received.  I pushed hard to do a training needs assessment and by early 2004 we published the “Training: It Matters More Than Ever” report.

Many of the conclusions aren’t surprising, even 10 years later.

What stands between journalist and more training?

* Time
* Money
* Accessibility

What was surprising was the acceptance of e-learning as a potential for journalism training.  While only 18 percent of survey respondents had any experience with online training, more than 70 percent were interested in participating in e-learning.

“It validates our belief in e-learning,” Finberg says [in the report]. “It’s the research evidence that the concept we came up with is valid.  The real challenge will be in the execution…”

Bob Andelman wrote the report. He also wrote a story for Poynter Online.

How NewsU Makes E-Learning Courses

Among the challenges facing Poynter’s e-learning project, NewsU, was the problem of explaining why e-learning could be an effective way to train journalists and the approach we use to make training that works.  Here’s what I wrote in a blog post about the project:

Our concept is simple. If you make the training tightly focused, you’ll help journalists learn. If you make the training engaging, you’ll help them learn. If you deliver training that is relevant, you’ll help them learn and do a better job.

This ran about five months after our launch.

While I wrote many journalists had “good instincts when it comes to teaching,” I also made this point:

To be effective at e-learning, you need to clearly understand WHAT you want to teach and HOW you want to teach.

 

NewsU’s First Annual Report: Infrastructure

With great sums of money comes great responsibilities to explain how the funding is used.  That’s the way it works when it comes to foundations.  So, Poynter NewsU sent along its first “annual report” to the Knight Foundation in June 2004, a little more than 15 months after receiving our first funding.

  • Conducted a survey of journalists [2,500 responded out of 12,000 sent] to better understand the potential interest in e-learning, the types of courses that would valuable and the technical capacity of those interested in online training.
  • Developed and presented the “meet NewsU” presentation to various journalism groups, including the National Council of Journalism Organizations, the Knight Foundation Chairs in journalism, and a meeting of the foundations that support journalism activities.
  • Built staff of two Interactive Learning Producers and hired a recent college graduate to fill a one year internship position.
  • Explored more than 10 learning management systems (LMS) intended to handle course development, asset management, course listings and registration, course delivery, class communications, and student testing and tracking.
  • Installed a LMS offered by eCollege on a trial basis in order to better understand NewsU’s technical needs. This trial period also provided NewsU an opportunity to beta test two faculty-led online courses offered to members of AAJA.

An interesting note in the report stated “more than 275 users have registered with NewsU, prior to the offering of any e-learning courses or any advertising or marketing effort. These are journalists who discovered NewsU on their own and have told us to keep them aware of course offerings.”

Developing the First NewsU Platform, LMS

Poynter’s e-learning site was originally built upon two different platforms.  The first was a Web-based content system that used Microsoft technology.  That linked to a learning management system created by eCollege.

In July 2003 Robin Sloan and I spec’d out what we wanted in this ‘unholy marriage” of systems and sent it to DataGlyphics, a local development and hosting shop in St. Petersburg, FL.  DataG was also the home of Poynter Online at that time.

From this we learned what not to do [no marriage of cats and dogs 🙂 ?]. It wouldn’t be our last development efforts.  Here are the overall guidance we gave to get started:

NewsU Site Structure. lst Phase

What does this first version of NewsU do?

It begins the process of building a database of users. It acts as a gateway to the eCollege
learning management system that we’ll be using to build courses initially. It provides a
comprehensive database (“the NewsU database”) of training opportunities for journalists
on- and offline.

From this little acorn…

Poynter’s E-Learning Future. The First Memo

You have to start someplace when you are looking a big project.

I had joined The Poynter Institute in 2002 as its “Presidential Scholar.”  One of my tasks was to explore e-learning and how the Institute might use that method of teaching.  I wrote a memo (of course) with a number of areas that should be explored and a desire to make sure everyone saw the scope of such a project and shared some of the same language:

The biggest challenge to exploring any topic is for the stakeholders to develop a common understanding of the scope of a project. Some of Poynter’s faculty and staff might envision e-l,earning as an opportunity to accomplish Poynter’s mission with remote teaching. For others, distance learning could provide a chance to extend the Poynter’s experience beyond the confines of on-site seminars. Still others might see such a program as an opportunity to use collaborative or groupware tools to increase the effectiveness of discussion leaders and other off-site faculty. Each vision is important and each could overlap with the others.

The reference to “the Poynter experience” would echo throughout my time at the Institute. More on that later.

Mr. Media Interviews Mr. NewsU

Bob Andelman, also known as Mr. Media, does lots of interviews — celebrities from film, TV, books, music, and more.  I was one of those “more” interviews.  He did a podcast interview as Poynter News University was starting to gain traction.  It didn’t hurt that Bob and I knew each other via a connection with Bill Mitchell, who was Poynter Online editor.

Full disclosure: I hired Bob to write two whitepapers about Poynter’s e-learning work.  However, he thought what Poynter was doing with NewsU was interesting enough to do the podcast interview.  One of my favorite things about Bob’s work was the Dr. Seuss-inspired rhyme, which I recorded for NewsU. [Sadly, I’m not sure I know where that resides].  Here’s the text:

You can do it wearing a hat.
You can do it with your cat.
You can do it at night,
And you can do it when you look a fright.
You can do it when things are slow,
Or when you can’t get the creative juices to flow.
You can do it when mother’s not there,
And you can do it in your underwear.

You can read the full interview on Bob’s Mr. Media site and there’s even an audio of interview.

Sad postscript: Bob died in early 2020.  He is missed. A great deal.

Journalism Should Give Voice to the Voiceless

As part of the development of The Poynter Institute’s international strategy, I traveled to Istanbul with colleague and friend Vicki Krueger.  We launched Poynter NewsU Turkiye at a news conference.  At that event was our partner, the Media Association, and the US Consulate in Istanbul.  The Consulate is the funder for the project.  After the news conference I was interviewed by the local English-language newspaper, Sunday’s Zaman.  Here’s part of what they wrote:

According to Finberg, journalism means “providing voice to the voiceless” and is a way of helping people understand what is going on around them. “Journalists are responsible for protecting the interest of the audience, citizens,” Finberg said when asked whether the journalists have a duty to protect state interests.

Journalists in Turkey have a difficult time, as the country is undergoing political stress and strain that often pits one media organization against another.

The full interview is on the newspaper’s Website , or at least it was. Better to access it as a PDF.

Poynter NewsU Registers 100,000 Users. First Big Milestone

When I wrote the original grant request to the Knight Foundation to create an e-learning program at The Poynter Institute, I put in estimate about how many people would take courses.  It was one of my greatest lapses in predicting success, as I thought we might have 35,000 users by the end of the five-year grant.

After four years, we passed the 100,000 registered user milestone.  In March we launched a marketing campaign thanks to the efforts of Susan Crain of LTV Marketing and Vicki Krueger, my deputy. Part of that campaign involved a press release and a paper called “NewsU Servcs Global E-Learning Audiences.”

We also ran a contest to gather stories about how NewsU change the lives of its users.  My favorite was a reporter at newspaper in the northwest:

“I credit NewsU for helping me do my job better than I could on my own, giving me courage to try new things,” says Sheila Hagar, a reporter for the Walla Walla (Wash.) Union Bulletin. “I don’t feel alone when I take a class.”

One of my goals, not yet realized, was to find a way to create a community around people who took NewsU modules.  I still have hopes that this will happen.

“The idea is to create a sense of community for those who want to share and ask questions of their fellow participants,” says Howard Finberg, director of interactive learning at The Poynter Institute. “You could call it a learning network. Your training should be much more than what’s on the screen.”

NewsU Makes the Connection to Educators at AEJMC

The initial plan for News University, the e-learning site created at The Poynter Institute and funded by the Knight Foundation, was to focus on professional.  We didn’t think there we had much of a role to play in helping educators.  That turned out to be wrong.  And by the time I presented NewsU to educators at the Association of Educators of Journalism and Mass Communications [AEJMC], we knew our e-learning would be helpful in training the next generation of journalists.  Here is a tidbit from the AEJMC Reporter, which was the convention newspaper:

hif pyramid of training reach 08_03_2006
The Pyramid of Training Reach at AEJMC 2006

“Initially, NewsU was about professionals, but we wanted to reach out to the academic community,” said NewsU director Howard Finberg during a presentation Wednesday. “We did this for two reasons. First, journalism students become journalists. We want to get them early. Secondly, teachers need help.”

This presentation was one of the first public showing of my “Pyramid of Training Reach,” a device to help explain how different training methods have different audience potential and different intensity of experience.