I took a refresher course on digital journalism. It’s available from Reuters as part of something called the Facebook Journalism Project.

Normally these free courses come with some type of product sell. But in all fairness, this course has good content. The product mention from Facebook was refreshingly minimal. I remember last year, I took a free marketing course from Google Digital Garage and it had plenty of Google built into it.

What I liked about this course:

• They have a section on verification in reporting. It covers how you can dig into photos and videos for metadata and how you can use different tools to verify your sources.
• One part of the course talks about ensuring the safety of your sources.
• Tips are shared about video recording tools like Zoom and Google Hangouts.
• How journalists can safeguard their mental wellness.

Here’s my e-certificate! *wink

The course also stresses the power of this one question: “Is there anything else you would like to add?” — that question, at the end of your interview, gives the interviewee an opportunity to add thoughts and insights that you may have missed in your earlier questions.

If you’re interested to take the course, it’s available here. I think it takes less than two hours to complete. It obviously isn’t in-depth (Uhm, hello! I studied journalism for four years!). But it does cover useful tips and it is quite succinct at presenting them. I’m unsure until when the course will be available.