|            BY THOMSON FOUNDATION

Advanced Writing:
The art of storytelling

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This course is designed to teach advanced techniques for telling stories, with tips and insights from leading journalists. You will be shown different ways to tell a news story and receive expert advice about on-the-scene reporting.
This is the second course in our news writing series. 

Course Contents

About
Outcomes
Course Experts
Imagine you find yourself holed up in a hotel room with the world’s most famous whistleblower who wants to tell you his story. How would you write it?
It’s exactly what happened to our Pulitzer prize and Emmy award-winning course instructor, Ewen MacAskill, and in this unique course he lets you in on the secrets to great news writing. This course is the second in our news writing series and gives you the chance to learn more from Ewen’s expertise, knowledge and experience.
In the first course News Writing: The art of storytelling Ewen explained the basic techniques. If you have not yet taken the first course, we strongly recommend you complete it before attempting this one.  In this course, he’ll be teaching you advanced techniques supported by a stellar cast of some of the world’s most influential journalists.
By the end of this course you will:

  • Know the elements needed to make a good story
  • How to elevate your story using different techniques
  • How to tell a story on different platforms
  • How to write breaking and rolling news
  • Why accuracy is so important

Ewen MacAskill –
Course instructor

Emmy-award winner Ewen is a former diplomatic editor, Washington bureau chief and defence and intelligence correspondent at The Guardian. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his work on the disclosures from Edward Snowden about the activities of the American National Security Agency.

Christine Mungai –
Baraza Media Lab

Christine is the curator of the Baraza Media Lab, a Kenyan-based network which supports collaborative storytelling ideas, networking and experimenting among the country’s media practitioners. A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, Christine’s work has featured in major news outlets including CNN and Al Jazerra.

Alan Rusbridger –
Editorial leader

Alan was the editor-in-chief of The Guardian for 10 years. He is chairman of the steering committee for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford and was one of the first members of Facebook’s oversight board. He is currently the editor of Prospect, a monthly magazine, specialising in politics, economics, and current affairs.

Emmanuel Dogbevi –
Ghana Business News

Emmanuel is the managing editor of Ghana Business News. He’s an investigative journalist who was the first Ghanaian to be awarded a Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

Janine Gibson –
Financial Times

Janine is the editor of the Weekend Financial Times in the UK. She’s the former editor-in-chief of The Guardian US and spent time as the editor of the Buzzfeed UK website.

Berna Namata – Journalist and African specialist

Berna is the former east Africa programme manager for Thomson. Previously, she worked as a bureau chief in Rwanda for the Nation Media Group’s regional weekly newspaper, The East African. Berna is now programmes and partnerships manager at AMREF Health Africa UK.