Digital design and production

Skills needed to package, publish and distribute to readers on any device.

News values and judgment

We tackle the fundamentals of what makes a story newsworthy, the essential practices of journalists and the shared values that differentiate journalism from other forms of content and storytelling.

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    • Conversational headlines

    Getting readers to tap your story starts ​with a headline that makes them a promise​.

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    • Using search trends to stay ahead of the curve

    Narrow parameters, create comparisons and overlays and discover what local audiences are looking for in real time.

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    • Reporting on the Census

    How to be prepared for the huge release of Census data due in mid-August.

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    • Social media production tricks

    Learn how to resize images to perfectly fit any format for a social channel using the Sprout Social Landscape image resizer.

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    • Google Collaboratory

    Google Colab runs notebooks on a virtual machine that can execute your code, connect to data in the Google cloud, and share with a collaborators.

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    • Google Earth Suite

    We explore three free tools that will help you visualize stories in a whole new way.

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    • Investigative/data skills series: Data visualization using Infogram

    Data visualization for everyone using InfoGram, an easy but powerful tool available to journalists across Gannett.

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    • Finding rights-free images online

    How to use Google Image Search, Creative Commons and Unsplash to find rights-free images online

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    • Basic Databases in Google Flourish and other tools

    A few easy tools to help you show your work: Google Flourish, Airtable and Tableizer.

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    • Investigative/data skills series: Data visualization using DataWrapper

    In part I of our two-part series, “Data visualization for everyone,” we explore DataWrapper — an easy but powerful tool available to journalists across Gannett.

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    • Google Trends for graphics and SEO

    Use this tool to track and visualize search trends on Google.

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    • Mapping 101: Google MyMaps and Carto.com

    This tool is great for smaller “day-turn” maps for routine stories such as pothole repairs, vaccination centers, etc.

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    • Google Public Data Explorer

    The Google Public Data Explorer is linked to reliable datasets that can help you build charts in minutes.

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    • Google basic search tools

    We’ll cover all kinds of search tips and tricks in this video. Make sure you have Google.com open as well as the search operators handout linked off this page.

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    • Data scraping with Google Sheets and Tabula

    In this training video and hands-on exercises, you’ll learn how to scrape data tables out of web pages.

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    • Intro to mapchecking.com

    Do you need to estimate a crowd size at a large outdoor event such as a protest, parade, concert or other ticketless event? Then MapChecking.com is the tool for you.

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    • Google Earth Engine Timelapse

    Google Earth Engine Timelapse features 37 years (1984-2020) of satellite imagery over a given area on Earth.

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