I found out about this from an ad in my monthly newsletter from the American Society of Business Publication Editors: the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism offers free online courses “specifically geared to editors who wish to learn more about business journalism and how to cover public and private companies.”

Writing about business well is an important skill and one that’s all too rare, so we headed over there to dip into a few of their hour-long online tutorials, which address the following:

• Covering the Business of Health Care
• Covering the Business of Sports
• Business Writing
• Covering Private Companies
• Covering Financial Markets
• Using Numbers Effectively
• Understanding Financial Statements
• SEC Filings
• Covering the Economy

“Using Numbers Effectively” was a particular favorite, since it addresses several common journalistic mistakes that are personal pet peeves, including misuses of percentages and ratios, misunderstandings about margins of error in polling data, and misperceptions about probabilities.

The Reynolds Center also offers free weeklong seminars conducted wholly online. For the five days of the class, participants must:

• Spend between 1½ and 2 hours each day working on the online seminar at their convenience
• Adhere to the discussion leader’s deadlines for work to be completed and submitted
• Engage in discussion within the appropriate discussion forum concerning the readings and assignments

The next two seminars are on Intermediate Business Journalism (Nov. 17–21) and Covering Private Companies and Non-Profits (Dec. 8–12).

Posted in Writing and Editing