Training

I’ve traveled throughout North America to deliver training sessions to groups of journalists, and I’m happy to do it more. Please get in touch if you’re interested.

Here are the areas I have most often covered:

Social media reporting: Using social media to locate hard-to-find sources, identifying witnesses in breaking news, verifying what you find, best practices for crowdsourcing.

Social media reach: Establishing the different approaches needed for each individual platform, explaining why people share stories and why people follow journalists, offering specific tips to increase retweets/followers/clicks, discussing how much time to devote to emerging sites/tools/apps.

Alternative story formats: How to kick the instinct to write a traditional story every time, identifying which stories are crying out for a different approach, why readers benefit, and how to deliver different formats in a way that isn’t dumbed down or inartful.

Breaking news: How to form a newsroom-wide plan (and wish-list) for breaking news situations, considering which corners of the digital presentation are most likely to be cut, and which ones shouldn’t be.

As I go through these presentations, I always aim to:

Leave the buzzwords behind, bolstering my case instead with examples and statistics
– Offer advice that can be applied to newsrooms of any size, recognizing the needs and limitations of smaller publications
– Make sure attendees leave with specific, actionable takeaways
– Mix basic and advanced tips, never leaving the beginners behind while giving more experienced trainees something new
– Recognize that everyone’s time and attention is limited, and “do more” is not always the right advice
– Throw in some jokes and levity so you’re not totally bored.

My training experience includes:

Associated Press Media Editors (2015-present): Through APME’s NewsTrain program, I’ve given social media and breaking news presentations to journalists in Monroe, La.; Lexington, Ky.; Lincoln, Neb.; Halifax, Canada; Norman, Okla.; and Beverly, Mass.

Lenfest Institute (2017): I taught alternative story formats to most of the journalists at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News over three days.

The New School (2014-2016): Embedded guest instructor in beginner journalism courses, with a focus on the basics of social media.

Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas (2014): I taught a five-week MOOC about social media for 6,300 journalists from 149 countries.

Guest lectures: Countless appearances in college classrooms, in person and by Skype.

And now I’ll blush as I pass on the following praise, gleamed from anonymous feedback forms of NewsTrain attendees:

“Loved Daniel Victor….Tips that were easy to put into effect immediately.”
“Extremely informative.”
“New to me and very effective/useful.”
“Smart and knowledgable…no jargon.”
“Daniel Victor killed it.”
“I have used lists and TweetDeck on and off but I will give it more of a chance after Daniel Victor’s presentations.”
“Social media — I needed a raw breakdown of the different platforms. I now have my start and am more comfortable to start experimenting.”

Those attendees rated my most recent session on social media reporting on a five-point scale, and gave me a 4.91 for content and 4.85 for presentation. (I’ve been told these are high marks.)

Once again, please get in touch if I can help.