Poynter is collecting live coronavirus coverage training opportunities, if you have them, you can share them here. We’re updating this list daily. All times are Eastern Standard.
Remote training:
- View our full list here.
- Poynter will present On Poynt: Inform, soothe, terrify? The ethical obligations of news during a pandemic, at 2 p.m. Thursday, May 14.
- Education Writers Association will present Teacher Prep, Interrupted at 2 p.m., May 15.
- The National Press Club will present Writing Through: The Power of Details, at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 19.
- From May 4 through May 30, the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas will present the free online course Journalism in a pandemic: Covering COVID-19 now and in the future.
- Poynter is now offering free chats with our experts.
- Poynter also offering virtual and e-learning opportunities.
- ACES webinars are now free through July 31.
- ONA is creating community circles, matching 10 to 20 people for virtual discussions.
- The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is hosting weekly webinars on mental health in both English and Spanish.
- Check out this Covering COVID-19 Media Briefing Webinar from SciLine, and this one on Social Isolation, Mental Health and COVID-19.
Funding opportunities
- The Center for Health Journalism’s 2020 National Fellowship will offer training, grants and mentorship to journalists covering COVID-19.
- The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information created 10 fellowships of up to $2,500 for professional journalists “experiencing financial hardship due to COVID-19.” Fellows will create narrative projects “that address, and identify solutions to, persistent problems that interfere with the public’s ability to get information about the workings of government.” Applications close May 15.
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The Chicago Headline Club and Chicago Headline Club Foundation are offering $50,000 in grants to laid-off, unemployed and under-employed journalists. The grants of up to $500 each are available to journalists in Chicago. You can find out how to apply here.
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New Mexico Local News Fund has small grants of up to $750 for journalists impacted by COVID-19.
- Format created The Photographer Fund with grants of up to $500 for photojournalists impacted by COVID-19.
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The Fund for Investigative Journalism has emergency grants of up to $10,000 for “U.S.-based freelance investigative journalists working on stories on the coronavirus that break new ground and expose wrongdoing in the public or private sector.”
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Pen America has a Writers Emergency Fund with grants between $500 and $1000 “based on applications that demonstrate an inability to meet an acute financial need, especially one resulting from the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.”
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The News and Observer created this guidebook for getting grant funding for journalism and this spreadsheet with a directory of journalism grants in 2020.
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Reporters from ProPublica put together a microloans for journalists program.
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Poynter has collected details on a number of funds raising money for furloughed and laid off journalists.
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Fourth Estate has relaunched JournSpark “hoping to foster and support at-risk news businesses during the crisis by providing free web hosting, online business support, and software, el news to work seamlessly from home without interruption.”
- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce shared this on how to access stimulus funding for your small business.
- Local Media Association just launched the COVID-19 Local News Fund, “democratizing tax-deductible donations to local news organizations through our 501(c)(3) foundation. This program is available for independent and family-owned media companies only.”
- International Women’s Media Foundation has created the Journalism Relief Fund. The Fund will offer up to $2,000 “to women-identifying journalists in dire straits — journalists who have faced significant financial hardship, lost work, were recently laid off or who urgently need assistance to avoid severe, irreversible outcomes.”
- National Geographic has a COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists, which will be offering between $1,000 and $8,000 for “local coverage of the preparation, response, and impact of this global pandemic as seen through evidence-based reporting.”
- The Pulitzer Center is looking for grant proposals from newsrooms working together to cover the coronavirus.
Tools and guidance
- Investigative Editing Corps is now focused on supporting in-depth COVID-19 reporting. You can learn more here.
- The Thomson Reuters Foundation created the COVID-19 Crisis Reporting Hub.
- Google News Initiative has free tools and training for journalists covering the coronavirus.
- OpenNews wrote about Ways to Uphold Your Diversity and Inclusivity Values During COVID-19.
- OpenNews wrote about How journalists can rethink our relationship with work during a pandemic
- RJI reports that journalists can now follow coronavirus legislation with Open States. “The free resource pulls in legislation, so journalists can easily track and monitor legislation in one spot.”
- Stanford and Google News Initiative created an embeddable COVID-19 map for local journalists.
- The Maynard Institute best practices for covering gender and COVID-19.
- Gather gathered this collection of resources for covering the coronavirus.
- Gray Television has a COVID-19 Tracker, updating with test results around the country.
- The Associated Press made its county-level data sets public.
- The Maynard Institute put together these best practices for inclusive COVID-19 coverage.
- Sign up for Mandy Hofmockel’s newsletter, Journalism Jobs and a Photo of my Dog.
- And here’s a spreadsheet with open journalism jobs.
- Here’s a guide to financial assistance for freelancers.
- The Everyday Projects created this safety and ethics guide for visual journalists.
- Global Investigative Journalism Network has tips on data, angles and sources for investigative journalists.
- You can rewatch this IRE webinar on fighting for open records during the COVID-19 crisis.
- And here’s a tip sheet from IRE on fighting for public records.
- Check out NPPA’s resource guide.
- The National Press Club put together this guidance on your legal rights while covering this story
- Reporters Without Borders has started tracking the coronavirus’ impact on press freedom.
- Free Press has this advice on reporting on this pandemic and the digital divide.
- API has seven ways to get your reporting on COVID-19 to the people who need it.
- Do you have a COVID-19 data story you’d like to have peer-reviewed? Open News has created this great way to check each other’s work.
- Sign up for the Center for Cooperative Media’s weekly email, The Local Connection, which includes great ways to localize national stories.
- INN has tips for managing coronavirus reporting risks and a robust list of resources for nonprofit newsrooms covering COVID-19.
- Reynolds Journalism Institute has a good read about what all this can teach us about Solutions Journalism.
- The Solutions Journalism Network has this collected these coronavirus stories any newsroom can republish or re-air.
- The Carter Center has these mental health resources for journalists.
- The American Press Institute collected this list of tools, content and funding.
- SciLine has quotable statements from experts, tips for covering the pandemic, a state-by-state embeddable infographic showing cases and a set of links to other credible sources.
- You’ll find answers to many questions you might have now about covering the coronavirus and the right to public access and information from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Kristen Hare covers the transformation of local news for Poynter.org and writes a weekly newsletter on the transformation of local news. Want to be part of the conversation? You can subscribe here. Kristen can be reached at khare@poynter.org or on Twitter at @kristenhare.
This article was originally published on April 3, 2020.
This collection of resources is made possible with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
