Additional training

[ChrisMaza]

People mock certain companies for their "digital first" approach and if they are forgetting to produce quality journalism to go along with all the bells and whistles, they deserve it.
But lately a few jobs that I've tried for I haven't gotten because while I have the experience in the writing/reporting aspect, I've lacked knowledge of things such as Java, HTML, streaming video, etc.
Any suggestions on what avenue I should take to get this kind of training? I have friends with experience in those fields who have offered to set up tutorials for me, but I'm not even sure if there are certifications employers are looking for in this regard or what? Are there specific programs I should be looking into or is the fact someone says they have the knowledge enough?
Thanks.

 

[Stitch]

Community college classes. Most papers just want to know you can handle a Flip camera and can edit video in iMovie.

 

[lone star scribe]

Stitch is right on. Several of my laid-off co-workers enrolled at community colleges to learn HTML, powerpoint, web design, etc. Some states even have tuition waivers if you've been laid off. And when you're done, you get a certificate of completion, so it's a good addition to your resume/cover letter/application.

 

[Stitch]

If you can design and program with Flash, look for a better job than newspapers.

 

[ETN814]

Chris,

You can easily teach yourself these things. Most places don't want you to be able to code an entire website from scratch, just be able to insert simple elements into a blog post. It's far less intimidating than you think.

 

[SF_Express]

Chris,

You can easily teach yourself these things. Most places don't want you to be able to code an entire website from scratch, just be able to insert simple elements into a blog post. It's far less intimidating than you think.

I agree with this -- if you know how to report and edit, the other will take care of itself -- but experience in such things will give you a little edge in a race among equals, so any additional training you can get is also helpful.

 

[I Should Coco]

All good points, Chris. I think if you show you're skilled at getting quality information, a newspaper can fairly easily show you the ropes as far as presenting it in a multimedia format.

----------------------------

Related question, from this quasi-luddite:

I'm trying to help a colleague of mine who's looking to move on. One of the jobs she's interested in has this in the J-Jobs ad: "Send a CV, cover letter and your
five best published articles to ..."

Maybe I'm an idiot, but what is a "CV" in this instance?

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

Curriculum vitae

 

[Stitch]

All good points, Chris. I think if you show you're skilled at getting quality information, a newspaper can fairly easily show you the ropes as far as presenting it in a multimedia format.

----------------------------

Related question, from this quasi-luddite:

I'm trying to help a colleague of mine who's looking to move on. One of the jobs she's interested in has this in the J-Jobs ad: "Send a CV, cover letter and your
five best published articles to ..."

Maybe I'm an idiot, but what is a "CV" in this instance?

Is this for a Canadian or U.K. publication? A curriculum vitae is different in the U.S. than it is elsewhere, where it's a resume. A CV is mainly used in academia in the States.

 

[I Should Coco]

All good points, Chris. I think if you show you're skilled at getting quality information, a newspaper can fairly easily show you the ropes as far as presenting it in a multimedia format.

----------------------------

Related question, from this quasi-luddite:

I'm trying to help a colleague of mine who's looking to move on. One of the jobs she's interested in has this in the J-Jobs ad: "Send a CV, cover letter and your
five best published articles to ..."

Maybe I'm an idiot, but what is a "CV" in this instance?

Is this for a Canadian or U.K. publication? A curriculum vitae is different in the U.S. than it is elsewhere, where it's a resume. A CV is mainly used in academia in the States.

It's an "alternative newspaper" in the state of Washington.

I was guessing either they meant to type "CD" or it was an alternate version of a resume.

Thanks guys.

 

[Stitch]

All good points, Chris. I think if you show you're skilled at getting quality information, a newspaper can fairly easily show you the ropes as far as presenting it in a multimedia format.

----------------------------

Related question, from this quasi-luddite:

I'm trying to help a colleague of mine who's looking to move on. One of the jobs she's interested in has this in the J-Jobs ad: "Send a CV, cover letter and your
five best published articles to ..."

Maybe I'm an idiot, but what is a "CV" in this instance?

Is this for a Canadian or U.K. publication? A curriculum vitae is different in the U.S. than it is elsewhere, where it's a resume. A CV is mainly used in academia in the States.

It's an "alternative newspaper" in the state of Washington.

I was guessing either they meant to type "CD" or it was an alternate version of a resume.

Thanks guys.

I'm guessing the editor or whoever wrote the ad is pretentious.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

Seconded.

 

[waterytart]

Being finicky here but, in an occupation where you're expected to provide examples of your work, not just an employment history, CV may be the right term.

 

[Stitch]

Being finicky here but, in an occupation where you're expected to provide examples of your work, not just an employment history, CV may be the right term.

Who lists what articles are in their clips package on their resume?

 

[TwoGloves]

Chris,

You can easily teach yourself these things. Most places don't want you to be able to code an entire website from scratch, just be able to insert simple elements into a blog post. It's far less intimidating than you think.

Flip is a piece of cake. Taught myself and it helped me keep my job when we just had a bunch of layoffs. Although the company is going to hold training now to make sure everyone knows how to do it. That said, I haven't used iMovie. I hope they show us that since we're getting all new equipment.

 

[waterytart]

Being finicky here but, in an occupation where you're expected to provide examples of your work, not just an employment history, CV may be the right term.

Who lists what articles are in their clips package on their resume?

That's my point. One of the ways a CV can differ from a resume is by having work samples attached.

 

[MonsterLobster]

Visual QuickStart guides: This company's books are hands down the best I've come across. I have the HTML/CSS, Flash 9, Dreamweaver and InDesign editions on my desk and reference them for every problem. Better yet, they're written to walk you through basically from scratch. The HTML5/CSS one is the perfect place to start if you want to learn what they are, how they're used and then have it walk you through with really simple and illustrated examples. It would help if you have access to an HTML-editing program like Dreamweaver, but you can just register for a free website account somewhere and experiment with that book and the raw code you can generate. Most of the Visual QuickStart books range from $20-30, and you can probably find plenty of used ones at college bookstores if you're near any.

In terms of video, it's probably cheaper and easier to pick up than most people imagine. I've got a $110 Kodak Playsport ZX5 HD digital camera that's the size of my cell phone (and is waterproof and shockproof, to boot), a $20 SD memory card for it and a $60 copy of Sony Vegas. There are some pretty extensive and simple tutorial channels on YouTube for Vegas, and once you master that there are some awesome free tutorial sites for video graphics/effects programs such as Adobe AfterEffects (videocopilot.net is superb). I also used to work in a market where I frequently ran into reporters from the local TV stations and I picked their brains for lots of tips on how to shoot quick sports segments. If you're looking to pay for some good tutorials check out lynda.com, which has some really great tutorials for video, HTML, video-editing programs and more. I think it's $25 or so a month for access to all of the courses. I've downloaded a few and thought they were among the best I've seen.

I took a couple of web design classes and a video class in college, and both of those gave me a nice base in those areas, but I didn't learn any technical information there that wasn't taught in those Visual QuickStart books or didn't see in the online tutorials I mentioned.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

But 'tart:

"Send a CV, cover letter and your
five best published articles to ..."

 

[waterytart]

Poor wording, indeed, though you could argue that the applicant needs to know how many clips the CV should contain.

 

[Versatile]

If you can design and program with Flash, look for a better job than newspapers.

Don't learn Flash. Don't bother. It's soon to be a dead language. http://apple.copydesk.org/2011/11/09/flash-finally-dies-19-months-after-it-was-mortally-wounded-by-apple/

Take a community college class on Web design. No one's expecting you to be able to do awesome graphics work in HTML5 unless you're a graphic artist, designer or (in very extreme cases, perhaps) online editor. But you should understand how to use basic HTML coding, various blog and content hosts (WordPress is becoming increasingly more standard) and a simple camcorder or flipcam.