News University an innovative e-learning center that helps journalists through self-directed training, today unveiled the second installment of the Online News Association’s Training Project series.

Using case studies of outstanding online projects, the new course helps producers and editors learn how to strengthen their work under real-world time and budget constraints. The course was organized by the ONA and funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

ONA officials chose the three online projects featured in the NewsU course for their creative, effective handling of challenges that most Web news professionals face. The topics include covering a fast-moving disaster story, breathing life into a government story and organizing a sweeping feature story.

The course traces each project through five steps of its creation – planning, reporting, producing, marketing and assessing. As a result, the module connects learners to tools, experiences, ideas and insights that they easily can adapt to improve their own online efforts.

"Through our partnership with ONA, we continue to add courses that give journalists better tools to cover stories in today’s fast-paced world," said Howard Finberg, director, interactive learning, The Poynter Institute/NewsU. "The new ONA module increases the breadth of ways that NewsU can aid journalists in broadening their online news skill set, in their own time."

"It’s always a pleasure to work with the Poynter Institute, because they are so good at giving journalists the training they need" said Tom Regan, executive director, Online News Association. "And we think these new courses in the second module will be really useful for online journalists, whether they’ve been working in online media for years, or if they are just getting started and want some ideas about how to create useful projects."

For a first-hand look at "ONA Training Project: Module 2" and other online training courses for journalists, please visit www.newsu.org.

About News University

News University offers newsroom training to journalists and journalism students through its interactive e-learning program and links to other journalism education and training opportunities. The program is a project of The Poynter Institute funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

About The Poynter Institute

The Poynter Institute is a school for journalists, future journalists and teachers of journalism. Poynter conducts about 50 seminars annually in the areas of leadership and management, reporting and writing, broadcast, ethics and diversity, and visual journalism. The school owns the Times Publishing Co., the parent company of the St. Petersburg Times, Congressional Quarterly and other publications.

About the Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities. One of its signature programs is Journalism Initiatives. Since 1950, when Knight Foundation was created, the foundation has approved more than $250 million in journalism grants.