News Leadership 3.0

Posts tagged with: Mark S. Luckie

February 18, 2010

A new multimedia guide for journalists

Mark Luckie’s “The Digital Journalist’s Handbook” brings a lot of the wisdom from his 10000 Words blog to a bookstore near you.

(I am a longtime fan of Mark Luckie’s popular 10000 Words blog. I became an even bigger fan as I watched (online) Mark lose his job in December 2008, get up, dust himself off and keep blogging. Mark’s newly released book looks like a great resource for journalists and I asked him to write a guest post explaining who the book was for and why.)

By: Mark S. Luckie

As newsrooms everywhere cut staff and resources in the hope of maintaining financial stability, many more journalists are flocking to multimedia training workshops like those organized by the Knight Digital Media Center. It was while working as a multimedia trainer for KDMC that I first recognized that there was no offline guide for journalists who wanted to learn digital skills. Seasoned online journalists are undoubtedly familiar with the many websites that provide online resources and tutorials, but there are some journalists - as there are some readers - who prefer reading information in print.

A few years later, I started work on “http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Journalists-Handbook-Mark-Luckie/product-reviews/1450565603” title=“The Digital Journalist’s Handbook”>The Digital Journalist’s Handbook,” a guide to the tools and technologies journalists must be familiar with and use in today’s digital newsrooms.

I started writing the book after I was laid off from my multimedia producer position along with many other staff from around the newsroom. During the subsequent job-hunting process, it was very clear that most of the newsroom positions I applied for required journalists to have some technical skill or knowledge of multimedia. However, many journalists do not have access to training workshops, so I wrote the book with the intent of providing a resource to journalist who want to learn new media skills and incorporate them into their reporting.

“The Digital Journalist’s Handbook” is written so it is easy to follow and so that even the most non-technical journalist can understand, yet it contains information that both novice and veteran journalists can use. It also includes charts, diagrams, a glossary, and links to online tutorials and resources for journalists to further their education.

The book is a representation of my faith that despite the layoffs, the furloughs, the budget cuts, and the closings, journalism will still thrive. Together we can make this transition, improve our reporting, and build a sustainable future.

By Michele McLellan, 02/18/10 at 6:11 am
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