Category: Training

Free training: using data to make more money from freelancing

I am running a new training course, Using data to make more money from freelancing, on Thursday 1 December at Equity’s offices on Upper St Martin’s Lane in London. It is free for freelance members of the following unions: Equity, the Musicians’ Union, the National Union of Journalists and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.

As someone who has used and written about data in journalism for many years, in this course I will explore ways in which data can be used in freelance businesses to increase profitability. I will be covering techniques including risk assessment, budgeting, making best use of your time, estimating and negotiating jobs, when to sack a client and how spot trends and benefit from them.

I will be aiming to make everyone attending £100,000 richer (warning: the value of this pledge may fall as well as rise). There will be laughs, possibly tears and certainly spreadsheets.

The course, organised by the Federation of Entertainment Unions, has limited places available. Apply here by 22 November.

New City Lit training on data journalism and digital publishing

City Lit in London has posted details of two one-day training courses I will be giving this summer. An introduction to data journalism on Saturday 16 July will be an updated version of the course I gave at City Lit in January. It will include how to deal with data, research techniques, FOI requests, processing data and how to graph and map it.

On Saturday 13 August I will be delivering a new course, an introduction to digital publishing, that will cover blogging, podcasts, online video, e-books, print-on-demand publishing and promoting what you produce. Each course costs £59 or £20 for concessions.

I also run customised courses on handling data, for in-house training by media and other organisations. There’s more information on the training I offer here, or please get in touch if you would like to discuss this.

New one-day NUJ data journalism training course on 18 May

The National Union of Journalists has scheduled two new dates for my one-day course of data journalism training: Monday 18 May and Monday 9 November, both at the NUJ’s office on Gray’s Inn Road in London.

This course is aimed mainly at those already in journalism, who want practical methods that can be used immediately – and who want to know about the pitfalls as well as the benefits.

Specifically, the course will cover how to assess and improve the quality of data; how to combine it, or mash it up, without making a mess; the reality of using the Freedom of Information Act to get material; and how to turn numbers into pictures, whether graphs or maps. I will also talk about when it makes sense not to rely on data. Advanced mathematical ability is not a requirement, although common sense is always useful.

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My one-day data journalism training course on 22 September

Data plays an increasingly big part in journalism. It can conjure exclusive stories out of a slab of figures. It lets journalists take full advantage of government policies on open access and freedom of information. It can produce some really nice graphs and maps.

How the NHS staff mix has changed since 2009, based on data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre; click on graph for the Guardian article that used this

Data journalism training is now part of many post-graduate training courses, such as those run by Paul Bradshaw at Birmingham City University. But for those already in journalism, the National Union of Journalists is hosting a one-day course run by myself, which will provide a practical introduction to using data in journalism, on Monday 22 September at the NUJ’s headquarters near King’s Cross in London. You don’t have to be an NUJ member, but the course is cheaper if you are: £175 for employed NUJ members, £100 for unemployed ones, £200 for those in some affiliated unions and £275 otherwise. Continue reading “My one-day data journalism training course on 22 September”