Digital design and production

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

PowerPoint 02: How to Use Shapes and Transitions to See the Story

See the Story: Microsoft trainer Bill Monroe teaches you how to use shapes, transitions, morph and more in this walkthrough of PowerPoint. Excellent details for improving your decks.

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    • Curate newsletters that win with readers

    Newsletters are a powerful tool to move readers down the subscriber funnel. Here’s how to master them.

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    • Unlock the value in evergreen stories

    Re-sharing allows us to grow subscribers through bringing forward interesting stories that retain enduring value.

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    • The art of “goosing” to extend the value of our best content

    We can improve premium stories that underperformed to help “goose” the story to get it out of the underperforming category and to assess what we could have done better.

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    • Packaging, proofing and design center workflows for the CCJ

    Making it all come together is a complex orchestra.

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    • How to move searchers through the subscriber funnel

    Using your unique content to turn visitors into subscribers.

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    • How to use heat maps

    Heat maps are a great resource to help determine the best times for publishing a story.

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    • Digital strategies and best practices

    Readers in our growth audience segments tell us these are key parts of the day when they’re seeking to engage in news.

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    • Digital optimization 101

    A playbook for getting the best readership performance from our content.

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    • A quick guide to digital 1As

    As digital planners, one of the easiest and clearest ways to think about content is in terms of a Digital 1A. Like our print 1As, our digital 1As are where we put our best content.

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    • Your handy guide to Presto in production

    The updated figures are below. The grand total is $242K, or $20K per period. It works out to $101 per paycheck for those involved.

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    • PowerPoint 01: Storytelling with PowerPoint

    Learn how to create a slide deck from a template and add basic content, speaker notes and launch your slideshow. Learn PowerPoint uses and tour the interface.

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    • Google tools for journalists

    Google Fact-Check Explorer, Google Public Data Explorer, Google Trends, Google search shortcuts/advanced search), MapChecking for crowd size estimates, PhantomBuster, VisualPing for tracking website updates and other cool tools and hacks.

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    • Cool tools for journalists

    We’ll dig into several investigative and productivity tools you can incorporate into your reporting right now. We’ll explore VisualPing.io for tracking website updates, PhantomBuster.com for scraping Google Maps, the Salo App for recording front/back camera videos on your phone, 123apps.com for file conversion and dozens of phone apps and other tools

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    • Transcription and translation in Microsoft Word

    In this session, we’ll teach you how to create transcripts of your interviews in Word on the web. We’ll explore Word’s dictation features and highlight its ability to translate between different languages.

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    • Data visualization: InfoGram 201

    Students will use datasets to build more advanced maps and single chart graphics.

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    • 10 ways to achieve equity in your storytelling

    A diverse team of journalists in DEI jobs and teams across the company compiled their insights to help.

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    • Data visualization: Canva and Venngage 201

    Students will use a set of data points and data sets to build static and interactive graphics. We also will show how Flourish interfaces with Canva, since Canva now owns it.

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    • Data visualization: Datawrapper 301

    A deep dive on building choropleth and location maps. In 75 minutes we will build three maps, based on both US and global data. We will work on a more advanced chart and focus more on adding tooltips and footnotes in the charts.

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    • Google Trends 301

    How to download data from the Google Trends store and create Flourish graphics with it. Also: Tracking midterm election issues and candidates. How can you use Trends during an election?

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    • Google MyMaps 301

    Students will build layered maps. We will show them how to work multimedia into the map. We’ll use real data they can download. Bonus: We also will show how to use PhantomBuster to scrape data OUT of Google Maps.

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    • Measure the impact of your newsroom’s best journalism

    The Detroit Free Press proves its worth to its subscribers and its community every year with its annual Community impact Report. In this 30-minute workshop, executive editor Anjanette Delgado will explain how the Freep tracks the results of its work — the real-world change that happens as a result of their journalism (law changes, government investigations, arrests, prison releases, lawsuits, settlements, amnesty, community activation, etc.) — so it can publish the comprehensive year-end report. The Community Impact Report isn’t just a celebration of what our journalism achieved. It’s a huge help in retaining existing subscribers and attracting new ones.

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    • Data visualization: Flourish 201/301

    Easily turn your data into stunning charts, maps and interactive visuals for your stories. We will unlock the advanced features and settings in Flourish that will help you animate and bring your stories to life, while remaining true to our styles and branding.

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    • Protected: Advanced sports coverage using Google Earth Pro

    There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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    • Protected: Google Finance scraping and other tools for business beats

    There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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    • Protected: Data-scraping websites, PDFs and Flourish

    There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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    • Scraping Google Maps with PhantomBuster

    PhantomBuster.com lets you scrape up to 200 locations off Google Maps and drop them into a spreadsheet with ease. It allows you to scrape by address, phone number, Instagram photos and more.

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    • Storytelling Studio and video tools

    How to access and use our dynamic, custom and high-impact storytelling tools, including the “In-Depth Framework.”

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    • Protected: Tools for covering inflation and consumer prices

    There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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    • Canva 101

    The Florida-Georgia DOT shows some of the best tips and tricks for using Canva, including Background Remover, Positioning, Text Spacing and Text Effects.

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    • Protected: Google Earth tools for your newsroom

    There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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    • Extending the reach of our video through social

    Our 2022 coverage strategy puts video closer to the center of our work, because it’s more central to our audiences’ expectations.

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    • Writing headlines that win with new audiences

    The right words aren’t just a powerful way to summarize a story — they’re the best tool we have to reach occasional readers and convert them to paying subscribers.

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    • Data-scraping web pages, PDFs and Google Finance

    How to extract data from the web and PDFs and flow them into a spreadsheet. You’ll also learn how to scrape real-time and historical stock data into Google Sheets to track specific companies or industries. Code: data

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    • Mapping tools that reveal inequalities in our communities

    This will use Census data and two new network tools: Diversity Dashboard and Pass the Mic, to see where stories land and how to cultivate follow ups with sources.

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    • How a local sports reporter found her TikTok audience

    Sports reporter Nur B. Adam uses TikTok to connect with the student athletes she covers. She’s gotten them to participate in videos, including some where they tap into the latest viral trend on the popular app.

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    • Write better headlines and captions

    Learn how the pros at the Design Center zero in on the heart of the story, using just a few words.

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    • 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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