London Boater News launches free news writing workshops for boaters

LB News are offering free one day news writing workshops to London boaters on Sunday the 14th and 28th May at an office venue in Golden Square near Piccadilly Circus tube.

There are spaces at each workshop for 6-8 people and they will be run by two professional boater journalists/editors. The workshops will start at 10.30 am and finish around 4pm.

The news report or article are the ones you tend to find at the front of newspapers – with opinion and other feature articles at the back.
You will need a laptop. We have wifi and 240v sockets.

There will be a small amount of preparation required. The workshop will be fun but also intensive. There will be follow up by email on ongoing stories on offer. Good boaty stories will get published.

News writing is a transferrable skill and can be used to write campaign, charity and corporate reports, press releases and newsletters.

The workshops will cover:

• What is news?
• Online Boaty News – London Boater News – The Floater – KANDA - NarrowboatWorld.
• The Editors Code of Practice – speculation, opinion and facts. Exercise.
• Writing the news: Structure and the introduction paragraph. Exercise – Nursery Crimes.
• Writing the news: research/quotes/press statements. Research exercise.
• Exercise: Pretty Polly and other stories.
• A quick whizz through the legal stuff and ethics – defamation, accuracy and fact checking.
• Story ideas.

There will be lunch in there somewhere as well. There is a coffee machine. Bring your own biscuits.

Details:

Two dates available: Sunday 14th and 28th May, both 10.30am - 4pm. Venue: 11 Golden Square, London W1F 9JB.

First come first served: Apply by email to londonboaternews@gmail.com marking the subject line with ‘News Workshop’. Put your preferred date. We may try to run a weekday one at a later date if there is enough interest but we will have to find another venue.

LB News