PRNDI, NPR Digital Services Partner on Training, Website

A partnership launched this spring by PRNDI and NPR Digital Services promises to improve the quantity and quality of digital news training, enhance PRNDI’s presence on the web, and save our organization a lot of money. NPR Digital Services, using its Core Publisher system, has created a new website for PRNDI. If you’re reading this article, you’ve already seen it.   Besides providing more information on PRNDI’s activities, the new website will be easier for our part-time staff of professionals and volunteers to maintain.  And, it’s provided as a service to PRNDI at no charge, saving our organization about $10,000 in its first year.

NPR Digital Services will also provide additional training for these web tools specifically designed for news directors and their reporters.  They’ll come during periodic webinars hosted by PRNDI and at our annual conference.   This year in Houston, on Saturday afternoon, June 30, we offer two sessions designed specifically for our membership.  Here’s an excerpt from our conference agenda:

Session 1: How to Think Digital First in Your Newsroom Delivering news to your audience online means more than pasting some paragraphs into a box and hitting the publish button. Online has a different news cycle, and your audience has a different set of desires and needs. How can newsrooms, which already operate with stretched resources, serve this audience, too? It's a more complicated world, but you can do it and win if you work smartly. The team at NPR Digital Services will discuss ways to develop a digital mindset and a plan of action, from the morning meeting and story planning through repurposing scripts for online and developing interesting original content. They'll also share the latest information about how our audience is using mobile devices and audio. It's a mix of high-level thinking and down-to-earth practical advice you can take back to your team.

Session 2: How to be a Digital Leader in Your Newsroom We all have limited resources, and we're asked to stretch those resources even further to serve audiences on new platforms. What's the payback? Where does News belong in a station's content strategy? And what’s your role as News Director? NPR Digital Services' team argues that news is fundamentally at the core of a station's content strategy. And News Directors need to play a fundamental role in transforming their newsrooms. They'll explain why, discuss how stations large and small are moving into the digital space, share some best practices for online news and social media, and talk about the habits of the effective multi-platform news director.

Training at the conference is provided by Todd Mundt, who's Editorial Director of NPR Digital Services. He's responsible for the editorial direction of the Digital News Training, and working with stations to develop digital news and music strategies. Prior to joining NPR in April 2012, Todd was Vice President and Chief Content Officer at Louisville Public Media, as well as Manager/Program Director of 89.3 WFPL News in Louisville. His career includes positions at Iowa Public Radio, Michigan Radio and WNIJ/WNIU Rockford/DeKalb. He hosted Morning Edition at local stations for more than 20 years, and from 1998-2003 was the host of The Todd Mundt Show, produced by Michigan Radio and distributed by NPR.

And, Kim Perry, who manages Digital News Training at NPR. She headed up the 2008-10 Knight digital training initiative throughout its duration. Now she’s leading a second Knight training initiative at NPR member stations. Before coming to NPR, Perry worked at the San Diego Union-Tribune and SignOnSanDiego.com as a content producer and newsroom trainer. She’s previously reported for the Associated Press in Alaska, The Modesto Bee and Bay Area newspapers. She’s a 2006 graduate of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. 

We’re hoping it’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship.