Improve your freelancing with my May NUJ courses

I run two courses for the National Union of Journalists designed to help participants improve their freelance working lives:

First steps in freelancing, for those starting out as freelance journalists, runs next on Friday 7 May. It covers the first things you need to know about your first commission (and get paid for it), planning, tax, copyright, pitching and negotiating. The cost for NUJ members is £40, student members £30 and non-members £110.

Update: the next edition is on Friday 15 October. Continue reading “Improve your freelancing with my May NUJ courses”

Editing what’s on and off the graph

The government’s Halloween press conference was an obvious example to use in my article for Computer Weekly on the good, bad and ugly of data visualisation during the pandemic. Before one slide headed ‘England new SPI-M combined projection bed usage’, chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance actually said “this is a complicated slide”. No argument there (see below). Professor Chris Whitty charged through 10 slides in under seven minutes.

Continue reading “Editing what’s on and off the graph”

NUJ freelancing courses in February

I will be running three freelancing courses for the National Union of Journalists in February, all of them online.

First steps in freelancing, which covers what you need to know to get started as a freelance journalist, will run on Friday 12 February. The cost for NUJ members is £40, student members £30 and non-members £110. You can find out more and book here.

Winning and negotiating freelance work, which goes deeper into these areas with more role-playing exercises, next takes place on Friday 26 February. It costs £50 for NUJ members, £40 for student members and £130 for non-members, with further information and booking here. Continue reading “NUJ freelancing courses in February”

Au revoir, Ojeu

In a few hours’ time, those of us who watch UK public sector will say au revoir to one of our most generous providers of stories. From 1 January 2021, UK public sector procurement notices – announcements that an organisation is thinking about or offering to buy something, has bought it or has cancelled its plans – will no longer appear on Tenders Electronic Daily, aka TED, aka the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union, aka Ojeu. Continue reading “Au revoir, Ojeu”