10 Tips for Turning National Stories into Local Ones: Self-guided training

The free Webinar, “10 Tips for Turning National Stories into Great Local Ones,” was held June 21, 2011. | At the bottom of this page, you’ll find links to complete the self-guided training.

Quickly finding the ripple effects of major financial news — and some not-so-financial headlines — and making them relevant to your audience of consumers and small business operators can be among the most rewarding moments for a business journalist. In one hour, discover tips on how to localize hot national stories.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• How to brainstorm regional angles to big news by asking who loses AND who benefits from economic events.
• How to dig for local or regional ties to big news.
• How to find business angles to non-financial news.

YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Melissa Preddy writes a blog post each weekday for BusinessJournalism.org on how to get ahead of the next big business story, including how to localize breaking news and national trend stories. She served as a business writer, editor and columnist for The Detroit News from 1995 to 2008.

TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS

You can view the PowerPoints by clicking on the links below. To download and print them, you will be asked to sign up for a free account at a third-party vendor, Slideshare, or you can download them as separate PDFs.

The latest version of Adobe Flash is required to view the Webinar recordings, which will be posted as the sessions conclude. You can download that latest version of Flash for free here.

SELF-GUIDED LESSON

Take a look through the session recording and resources below. At your own pace, you can access the self-guided lesson on how to bring big, national headlines to your own community.