NUJ launches new range of professional courses
Whether you want to learn to build a website, take high-quality pictures on your smartphone, become a video-journalist, travel writer, publish a book or add PR skills to your freelance portfolio, the NUJ can help.
The union has a new programme of training courses, tutored by experts in their fields, to suit all abilities which will improve your professional skills. These one and two-day practical courses are at special rates for NUJ members. More courses, including shorthand, will begin later this year.
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: "Keeping your journalism and technical skills up to date are vital in today's fast-moving industry. Journalists increasingly have to create portfolio careers, using their journalistic skills in a range of ways. The union's competitively-priced training courses will help you to keep on top of technology changes and add new professional strings to your bow. Our tutors are all journalists with a great wealth of experience and they will ensure you finish the course with new skills to enhance your career."
Chris Wheal, chair of the NUJ's professional training committee, said: "We have the latest journalism skills taught by experts at their craft, covering everything from traditional shorthand to modern-day mobile reporting. I am signing up for several courses to update my skills."
The full selection of training opportunities – for professional and trade union training – can be found on the NUJ website
http://www.nuj.org.uk/work/training/ The NUJ can organise bespoke training for groups of members, chapels or branches when there is no specific course available to meet their needs. Contact
training@nuj.org.uk to find out more.
- Adding PR to your portfolio: this course will teach you to use your journalistic skills to deliver professional PR.
- Travel writing workshop: get an insight into what travel editors are looking for, how to find story ideas, get noticed by travel PRs and how to write engaging copy.
- Video-journalism: this one-day course will help you feel confident when your boss sends you out with a notebook and a camera. You will discover the secrets of getting the best shots and how to organise your shoot so it will be easy to edit.
- Feature writing: learn how to put together a great feature that keeps readers transfixed and editors returning for more.
- Getting started with InDesign: this one-day course will enable you to make up pages from scratch, import and format text, headlines and pictures. You will also create your own keyboard short-cuts and set up a personal library.
- Advanced InDesign – from concept to print-ready files: you will learn how to set up a publication from scratch and send it to press.
- Getting the most out of trade and business journalism: this class is aimed at existing trade writers looking to sharpen or focus their skills, generalists intending to move into business, or beginners hoping to get into one the largest and most resilient sectors of journalism.
- Build yourself a website that costs less than £50: after this two-day course you will leave with a working website and the knowledge to expand it and refine it later.
- Online journalism: learn how to curate and aggregate web content, add images, video and audio and master basic HTML coding. You will also learn to use social media to promote your web content.
- Developing Digital Photographs with Adobe Lightroom: learn what is quickly becoming the industry-standard editing software for press photographers.
- Getting More (Time, Work & Income) from Adobe Lightroom 5: this one-day advanced course shows how photographers can utilise the software to enhance their creativity and use it to increase their income.
- Press and editorial photography with basic cameras: this one-day, hands-on workshop will show you how to transform photography, using inexpensive “compact” or smartphone cameras, into high-quality images.
- Boosting your income through book publishing: this guides you step-by-step through the stages to publication, beginning with finding the right project, the best route to publication and how to market your book.
- Data Journalism: learn how data can produce off-diary stories that go unreported because most people will not or cannot do the maths; all you need to know about Freedom of Information requests; and how to combine data sets without getting egg on your face.
- Improving your English broadcasting skills: whether you are a foreign journalist looking to improve your English broadcasting skills, or a print journalist wanting to learn key tips, this course will improve your presentation style.
- Getting started as a freelance: covers the ground that freelances, and people thinking of going freelance, need to be aware of, from interacting with editors, doing deals that stick, copyright law, finance and tax and how to make sure clients pay up.
- Pitch and deal: This one-day course can help freelances market their work and negotiate better deals for themselves. It includes understanding the psychology of pitching and dealing, interacting with editors and asking for more money.
Training courses feesOne-day course: NUJ member £175; unemployed NUJ member or student £100, GFTU affiliate £200, non-member £275. Two-day course: NUJ member £300, unemployed NUJ member or student, £150, GFTU affiliate £350, non-member £400.
Getting started as a freelance and
Pitch and deal form part of the NUJ trade union training programme and are therefore discounted. NUJ member: £70; NUJ student member/unemployed member: £60; non-members/GFTU affiliate: £130.
