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To request further information on any of the training courses listed below, please click the individual course titles.


Editing Training Courses

Our editorial craft training sessions allow editors and section editors to take time out from the day-to-day pressures of putting out a publication. They focus on skills and techniques that allow them to improve their products.


Broadcast Media Training (1 day course)

The Broadcast Media course is ideal for any journalist who may be asked to represent their magazine or website on radio or television.

Through practical exercises, participants will gain confidence when talking to TV and radio journalists and make sure that they get the best messages across.

Course content:

  • What do journalists want from you?
  • Message development
  • Prioritising and mastering the story
  • Overcoming microphone nerves
  • The importance of style as well as content
  • Addressing your audience
  • Managing difficult questions

Column Writing Training (1 day course)

The Column Writing course is ideal for all journalists who need to write think pieces, personal opinion pieces and editorial comments.

Columns play an important role in magazines by providing a personal touch, a change of pace and provocation for the reader. This course session helps journalists to develop their personal voices and opinions for their publications.

Course content:

  • Using columns in the publication
  • The classic structures of columns: adopting and amending them
  • Personal style in the column or leader
  • Developing reader empathy

Leader Writing Training (1 day course)

The Leader Writing course is ideal for anyone who writes leaders for their publications.

Readers read to help form opinions: leaders play an essential part in setting the tone of a publication and in setting the agenda for the audience. This practical workshop highlights successful and unsuccessful techniques.

Course content:

  • The role of the leader in expressing opinions and forming views
  • Different types of leaders
  • Style
  • Structure
  • Language

Commissioning Training (1 day course)

The Commissioning course is ideal for journalists who need to get someone else to provide copy for their magazine or website.

Getting the piece that you want is not always easy. This training course gives journalists a systematic approach to commissioning, as well as a chance to focus on why commissioning is not always successful.

Course content:

  • Working out what you want
  • Articulating standards
  • Communicating effectively
  • What needs to go in a written commission
  • Dealing with writers and their copy

Creating Pace Through Effective Flatplanning Training (1 day course)

The Flatplanning course is ideal for journalists who have responsibility for planning or flatplanning a publication.

Successful magazines maintain reader interest from the cover to the final page. This flatplanning course examines the elements that keep readers reading.

Course content:

  • Creating pace within your own publication
  • Style and tone
  • Words and pictures - getting the balance right
  • Visual stops and breathing spaces
  • Creating a flatplan
  • Working in sections
  • Managing the flatplan through the production cycle

Evaluating and Developing Your Publication Training (1 day course)

The Evaluating and Developing your Publication course is ideal for editors and publishers who want to refresh their products.

Periodically, it is a good idea to take a look at your magazine or website through fresh eyes. Sections that were appropriate a year ago may not serve a useful purpose now. In this training session editors will be guided to evaluate their publications and come up with a plan for change.

Course content:

  • Analysing the current situation; looking at the reader; the competition; the product
  • Developing a reader profile
  • Assessing the competition
  • Identifying strengths and weaknesses
  • Developing a unique editorial feature
  • Planning for change

Eyecatchers Training (1 day course)

The Eyecatchers course is ideal for subs and sections editors who want an opportunity to focus on sharpening up the pages of their magazines and websites.

Headlines, standfirsts and picture captions are the only things that some readers ever look at. But they are frequently done at the last minute. This session will provide practical experience in improving eyecatchers.

Course content:

  • Selling the story to your reader
  • Finding the key words for news headlines
  • Supporting the main head with straps and tags
  • Lateral thinking for features heads
  • Selling the feature with standfirsts
  • Making pull quotes work
  • Avoiding the obvious in captions c

Features Editing Training (1 day course)

The Features Editing course is ideal for journalists with at least two years' experience and new features editors.

A successful features editor manages to combine creativity with good organisation and people management skills. This features editing course provides the opportunity to focus on all three aspects of the role.

Course content:

  • Coming up with winning features: the recipe for success
  • Reaching the reader
  • Commissioning - getting all the essentials in without putting the journalist in a straitjacket
  • Who to choose: the things you should consider
  • Editing: how to get the best out of copy
  • What to do with writers who don't meet the brief

Turn 1500 Words into 500 (1 day course)

The Turn 1500 Words into 500 course is ideal for writers who have to produce concise, snappy copy - or anyone who has to edit copy down to a much shorter length.

In this age of handbag-sized magazines, pacey news pages and writing for the web, learning to make a long, droney feature into a bonsai version of the original is both imperative and challenging. This training course will show how to cut a feature down to size - without losing quality of content or wit.

Course content:

  • Working out the message: what is important, and what's not?
  • Engaging the reader: the beauty of the snappy head and 'sell'
  • Writing a killer intro
  • No-brainer ways to lose surplus words
  • The joy of the bullet-point
  • Wrapping it up

How to Get a Section or Supplement Out - and Like It (1 day course)

The How to get a Section or Supplement Out course is ideal for section or supplement editors.

This highly practical workshop will show journalists how to get a better grip on how they organise their sections, so they don't end up working late or stressing their colleagues.

Course content:

  • Creating a schedule for your magazine or website
  • Potential problems and how to avoid them
  • Dealing with people
  • Easing bottlenecks
  • How to avoid running late

Secrets of Great Covers (½ day course)

The Secrets of Great Covers course is ideal for journalists (particularly editors, deputies and art editors) who are responsible for putting their cover together.

Course content:

  • What makes a great magazine cover?
  • Sales - is there a secret of skimming off the newsstand?
  • The big mistake!
  • What can we learn from our rivals - and each other?
  • The perfect cover - how to make it happen every month

News Editing Training (1 day course)

News editors with less than two years' experience, deputies or senior journalists who may move up to news editing.

Running a news team effectively means combining news handling with people management. This news editing session gives delegates practical training in all aspects of the role.

Course content:

  • Combining the roles of editor and manager
  • Planning the news cycle
  • Improving news writing
  • Effective briefing
  • Getting the most from your news team
  • Handling the news
  • Bringing pieces together

How to Foster your Team's Creativity (½ day course))

The How to Foster your Team's Creativity course is ideal for journalists (particularly editors and deputies).

This course will drum home the fact that creativity and planning go hand in hand and you can't have the former without the latter.

Course content:

  • Why journalists don't plan
  • Why SMART goals are effective
  • Why a team is more creative than a bunch of people working on the same magazine
  • Things that help creativity
  • Improving communication

Using the Post-Mortem Review as a Competitive Tool (1 day course)

The Post-Mortem Review course is ideal for editors and section editors who want to use post-mortem reviews to raise standards and the quality of their magazine or website.

Creating the best product for readers demands continuous development and a steady eye on quality and standards. This training session shows delegates how to use the regular post-mortem meeting as a practical tool in the editorial cycle.

Course content:

  • The role of post-mortem reviews
  • Why they work when used properly
  • Why they don't work when not used properly
  • Who should take part
  • How to run them
  • How to get the benefits from them

Delegates will examine the role of post-mortem reviews; role play them; and develop plans for implementing the cycle of post-mortem reviews appropriate for their publication or website.

Section Editing Training (1 day course)

The Section Editing course is ideal for journalists who currently edit a section of a magazine or website, or are about to do so.

Each section within a publication must pull its weight. This section editing course prompts section editors to evaluate their sections to see if they have the same look, feel and tone as the rest of the publication or website, and to find ways in which they can be improved.

Course content:

  • Why readers read the section
  • Successful liaison with the editor and other section editors
  • Identifying common themes and issues
  • Generating ideas
  • Deadline management
  • Effective commissioning
  • Managing a strong freelance stable