Bloggers share lots of advice

In my early days as a journalism trainer, I made my mark by compiling helpful handouts. I thought I had a lot of good ideas on the topics I trained on and I compiled tip sheets that people told me they found helpful.

That approach (and sharing those handouts liberally online at No Train, No Gain) built my reputation in the journalism training field more than anything I did. So when I decided to do a blogging workshop this week, my first inclination was to develop a handout with all my tips and advice on blogging. I could have done that and almost did, but two things held me back:

• I’m not that experienced at blogging and still learning a lot myself. I feared that my own advice might be too shallow and obvious (though I’m amazed at how often people express gratitude for advice that I consider obvious, so I will include some of mine).

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Gazette disaster coverage featured at seminar

Journalists who covered Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 Eastern Iowa floods and the Parkersburg tornado will share their experience at a seminar in Davenport next month.

The Mid-America Press Institute‘s “Covering natural disasters” seminar starts Friday, April 17, at the Radisson Quad City Plaza Hotel in Davenport.

Mizell Stewart III, editor of the Evansville (Ind.) Courier & Press, who helped the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., cover the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, will be the keynote speaker on April 17. David Purdy, a former Sun Herald photographer, will be one of the speakers on the final day, April 19.

I will be one of three Gazette journalists who will talk on Saturday, April 18, about what we learned in covering last year’s floods. I will lead an exercise on disaster coverage in the digital age. Mary Sharp, who led our breaking coverage and the flood team that cotinues to cover issues relating to disaster coverage, will discuss the continuing watchdog responsibility. Zack Kucharski, leader of the Gazette Communications data team, will discuss IowaFloodStories and other databases we developed in our flood coverage.

James Wilkerson of the Des Moines Register will join Zack to discuss databases, including the Register’s Parkersburg tornado map. Nancy Newhoff of the Waterloo Courier will discuss coverage of both the tornado and the flooding, which hit her coverage area less than three weeks apart.

Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma, will close the seminar April 19 with a discussion of how journalists can deal with the personal toll of disaster coverage.

Other speakers will be The Gazette’s Cecelia Hanley (discussing coverage of a tornado when she was in Evansville), Mark Ridolfi of the Quad City Times, Christine Martin of the Southwest Indiana Disaster Resistant Community Corp., and Dee Bruemmer and Col. Robert Sinkler of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Register by email, phone (217-273-5812) or fax the flier below (217-581-2923). Registration is $50 for members ($40 for the second person from a member paper) and $75 ($65 for the second person) for non-members. Make your hotel reservation at 563-322-2200 by this Friday, April 3.

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