Beat reporting forms the backbone of American newsrooms.
Some traditional beats, like politics and business, are journalistic staples that nonetheless need fresh ideas, information and angles.
Others, like climate change and transgender healthcare, are burgeoning issues that can raise as many questions for reporters as they do for audiences.
Journalists require background, resources, experts and data to help their audiences contextualize these and other complex issues.
That’s where Beat Academy comes in.
For the second year in a row, Poynter will offer a series of expert-led and resource-packed webinars designed to enhance journalists’ understanding of topics critical to American life.
These sessions will help journalists tackle the emerging beats they need the most help synthesizing, while considering the trends driving change in their markets. Enrollees will leave Beat Academy with tools, sources and resources that empower their storytelling and enable them to better serve their communities.
After each topic, journalists will walk away with four key areas of expertise:
- A framework to understand the complexities of each issue.
- A guide to diverse and trustworthy sources.
- A leg up on finding and using data relevant to your community.
- A robust list of story ideas specific to your audience.
Journalists new to the newsroom or deep into their careers can benefit from this program. What’s more, some topics serve as a gateway to generous grant-funded reporting opportunities and on-site field work.
For just $75, journalists gain access to our entire series of eight topics. Each topic will include one or two 90-minute webinars, where you’ll hear renowned journalists share the particulars of covering these emerging beats, including their reporting strategies. Alongside them will be experts focused on the changing dynamics in each topic area. Every subject will include valuable roadmaps that connect reporters to the hard data that matters in their market area, as well as story ideas they can start on immediately.
Attend the webinars for as many topics as you like, or only those that directly impact your work. Newsrooms can also buy seats in bulk for a significant discount — purchases of five or more spots are just $50 each.
Upcoming sessions include:
- Extremist Politics: How to report on powerful undercurrents in the 2024 elections (Feb. 1, 15)
- Auditing ARPA and IRA: How to report on Biden’s promise to communities (Feb. 29)
- Immigration in Focus: How domestic labor demand and politically driven immigrant busing expose flaws in the system (March 14; El Paso workshop June 5-7)
- Economic Realities: Understanding your local economy and telling compelling stories centered on people and families (April 4, writing session June 13)
- Transgender Coverage: Avoiding rhetoric to deliver meaningful journalism (April 18, May 2)
- Healthcare Insights: Your polling defense kit and prep for the health care issues in these elections (May 30, Sept. 26)
- Vote Watch 2024: What’s on the line for your state’s voting system? (July 11)
- Climate Change: Finding the angle in any beat (Sept. 12)
Several sessions include additional opportunities: reporting grants, an advanced workshop in the Great Lakes region and a field reporting trip to the U.S./Mexico border.
Enrollees in the extremism session can compete for one of three $10,000 reporting grants, and one of 25 spots in a free advanced workshop in the Great Lakes region in April. (Slight preference for both will be given to reporters in the Great Lake states: Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.)
ARPA/IRA/Infrastructure enrollees from the Great Lakes states can compete for one of two $10,000 reporting grants to help them cover the effect of these federal initiatives on low income or marginalized communities.
Immigration enrollees can compete for one of 20 spots on a trip to El Paso, Texas. The field reporting experience is set for June 6-10, with hotel and a travel stipend included.
Those enrolled in the sessions on transgender coverage can compete for one of three reporting grants of $10,000-$15,000.
The goal is for all participants to put what they’ve learned to work.
“Beat Academy gave some of our most promising reporters a chance to pick up new tools and sources, and connect with other journalists in their field,” said Thomas Koetting, senior manager for content at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which won a 2023 Beat Academy grant to work on a climate change reporting project. “I saw the Beat Academy’s lessons at work in the attention (reporters) paid to how communities experience climate change differently.”
All sessions are recorded for enrollees.
Funders include the Joyce Foundation, Catena Foundation, the National Institute of Health Care Management and the Gill Foundation.
Please email info@poynter.org or beatacademy@poynter.org if you have specific questions.
