Online journalism is not all hard work.

This is the lead to the story and the most important facts are at the top.

Your second par is still a lead and gives more context.

Your third par is often a paraphrase of a quote to give even more context and attribute to a source (though note, this is not a hard and fast rule).

“This is your first direct quote and it’s usually a zinger,” Matt Mitchell said.

“Direct quotes always lead the paragraph.”

Mr Mitchell said online article were written in one paragraph sentences and that each paragraph had one idea.

“It’s apostrophes that drive me insane, I want students not to abuse them,” he said.

Mr Mitchell said there were some good examples of online journalism available on the landing page of today’s edition of The Age.

Monash University’s School of Journalism, Australian and Indigenous Studies was fortunate enough to have esteemed data journalist Steve Doig give a guest lecture today on the critical role data plays in journalism. Read on for more.

Professor Steve Doig is the Knight Chair in Journalism at Arizona State University, home to the Cronkite School. Professor Doig is a multi-award winning journalist including the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service winner for his report that found newly built homes were more susceptible to significant damage from Hurricane Andrew as a result of lax adherence to the state’s building code.

This event was live tweeted by me and you can read the tweets below.

The lecture was also recorded as audio and you can listen below.

Professor Doig also gave a live demonstration on how Excel can be used by journalists to identify trends and anomolies for stories. You can watch this below (recorded on an iPad so slightly dodgy, apologies).

Freelance Journalist Invoice Template

Newspaper Works released the latest circulation figures for Australian newspapers late last week. Interesting.

CirculationreleaseJanuarytoMarch20122