Free digital workforce training
Would your station like to maximize newsroom employees’ digital media skills and get training on the latest on the most popular new media digital software suites at no cost?
“It sounds too good to be true, but it’s not,” Michael Fabac, news director at KXAN-TV Austin.
“They will even come to your station to do it.”
The Austin School of Film has partnered with Texas State Technical College and the Texas Workforce Commission Skills Training Fund to provide free digital training to any qualified Texas employer, anywhere in the state.
Fabac serves on the ASoF board.
Training is available in technologies ranging from video broadcast and editing to web design, animation and production.
Class curriculum includes:
- Avid editing
- Apple Final Cut editing
- Web & Graphic design
- Adobe Photoshop, Flash, Premier
- Digital photography
Curriculums can be developed at the station or group level.
- Are you a Texas-based company or do you have a branch location in Texas?
- What are your training goals?
- What is your training timeline?
- How many employees do you think might participate in the training program?
- Would you prefer training to be held at your location, or in a classroom?
There has been much discussion in the broadcast trade media about the Federal Trade Commission’s new advertising
guidelines and what they will mean for media outlets.
Most of the discussion has centered on the impact of station advertising, but newsrooms could also be affected.
The guidelines are meant to apply to those who are paid to promote products, not those who are engaged in journalism.
Analysts at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said drawing a line between the two is often difficult, and ultimately will have to be decided by the courts if the FTC chooses to prosecute a blogger who is engaged in journalism.
Bloggers who receive free merchandise must now disclose it on their blog; manufacturers who distribute free merchandise have the duty to inform bloggers they must disclose it.
That could mean any station employees who routinely do product reviews as part of station coverage.
A Texas appellate court recently
dismissed a defamation suit filed by a cameraman against a college newspaper he thought wrongfully suggested that he had tipped off David Koresh's Branch Davidian compound about an impending federal raid in 1993.
The
Waco Herald-Tribune reported the court’s actions
here.
Governor Rick Perry's office is fighting the release of information about how it reviewed a 2004 execution.
The office argues that staff comments and analyses of the report aren't public record.
At issue is whether or not Perry reviewed, or if his staff discussed, a report concerning the arson investigation upon which the conviction of a Corsicana man was hinged.
Cameron Todd Willingham, 36, was convicted of setting the fire that killed his three young children in the family's home.
The Texas State Fire Marshal's Office ruled the incident arson started by an accelerant but a report sent to Perry by an Austin-based arson expert said investigators "made errors" and relied on discredited techniques.
Gerald Hurst, who holds a doctorate in chemistry from Cambridge University, wrote the missive sent to Perry.
The Obama administration has proposed substantial changes to the pending federal shield bill that would weaken its protections against compelling journalists to testify in the interest of national security.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reports the administration told Congress that the federal shield bill being considered in the Senate should include a new, broad exception in cases involving government leaks that would cause “significant” harm to national security.
