LearningLAB provides free to affordable instruction in multimedia storytelling, social media and community engagement strategies, and innovative journalistic practices to ethnic and community news organizations as well as grassroots nonprofit organizations, foundations and students. Armed with these vital skills and knowledge, we believe that these organizations can continue to thrive and be vibrant voices for the communities they serve.
Since its inception in 2009, Renaissance Journalism has convened three daylong conferences, each offering a diverse selection of dynamic and interactive workshops on digital journalism; social media and community engagement; website development and design; entrepreneurship and fundraising; and “hot topics,” important national issues with profound local impact, such as immigration and health care reform. Each conference has drawn about 100 people. Two were held at the state-of-the-art computer labs at San Francisco State University’s College of Extended Learning; the 2013 conference was convened in the Journalism Department at San Francisco State University.
In addition to the conferences, Renaissance Journalism has offered numerous all-day training “boot camps” where community journalists and nonprofit professionals have had the rare opportunity to learn multimedia and social media skills in a small-group setting for a nominal fee or for free.
In fall 2011, we piloted an innovative training approach that offered three bilingual training boot camps geared specifically to Latino news organizations in the San Francisco/Bay Area. The free, by-invitation-only training sessions were taught in Spanish and English and covered website development, multimedia storytelling using audio slideshows, and social media for reporting.
Click here for the latest news about our 2013 LearningLAB conference, which was held on Friday, January 11 at San Francisco State University.