IMS LEARN

"Learn the skills that will enable you to tell the stories that matter in a way that will engage and inform your audience."

IMS LEARN is a platform that provides media training for aspiring journalists, journalists looking to expand their skills, and citizen journalists who want to become professional journalists. Developed by International Media Support (IMS), IMS LEARN contains videos, courses, and modules that look at how to find and tell stories that matter on multiple platforms for a variety of audiences. It is designed to support journalists in developing storytelling skills in audio, visual, and written forms and to teach journalists what makes a story important, how to gather credible information, and how to present it in the most effective way while incorporating the ethical and legal needs of professional media organisations. Training topics include, for example, basic journalistic thinking, fact-checking, safety, feature writing, interviewing techniques, mobile journalism, constructive reporting, social media, media law, ethics, and podcasting.

IMS LEARN offers training in three formats:

IMS LEARN Modules: Modules are short individual skill or topic training opportunities that are suitable for self-learning. At the time of writing, modules included the following:

• Risk Assessment: For journalists working in hostile environments or covering dangerous events, evaluating potential risk has become more important than ever. This module explores what might go wrong when reporting a story and how to get a story without becoming one.
• Physical Safety: This module addresses the safety and protection of journalists at work. Journalism can often be a risky job, especially with the rising threats to free speech in authoritarian states, the dangers of terrorism and organised crime, and the hazards of climate change.
• Psychosocial Support: This module examines the relationship between journalism and trauma, emphasising the significance of a journalist's mental well-being. It also looks at how journalists can safeguard their mental health and analyses the responsibilities of editors in supporting their teams.
• Digital Security: This module addresses the safety and security of journalists in the digital world. These risks can be related to journalist's devices such as laptops or mobile phones, with the information and files they contain, or to journalist's activity online - what stories they work on and publish or any other social media posts.
• Safety for Environmental Journalists: This learning module is for journalists who decide to investigate possible environmental crimes and takes them through the procedures that can help to minimise their risks in the planning and research stage, the actual reporting stage, and during and after publication.
• Basic Journalistic Thinking: This module presents a definition of journalism and its basic principles as they are known today. It highlights the essential rights and duties of journalists and identifies the factors that shape the biases of media outlets and journalists, from culture to ownership, funding, media laws, and newsroom routines. It also offers an explanation of how a journalistic piece is produced, from introduction to conclusion, before clarifying the basic structure of a report and emphasising the importance of identifying a story angle.
• Media Law/Ethics and Gender: This module addresses the core ethical values of journalism, legal principles governing journalistic work, and gender representations in the media and the use of gender-sensitive language.
• Fact-checking and Verification Tools: This module examines the forms of misinformation and disinformation and the factors leading to their spread on social media.
• Social Media Dissemination: This module addresses the role and effect the various social media platforms have on news production and dissemination.
• News Production: This module highlights the basic means and requirements for producing news stories by unpacking the elements of newsworthiness and revisiting the notion of a story angle. The module also distinguishes between different types of news reports and casts light on the workflow in a newsroom and the importance of news agencies.

IMS LEARN Courses: Courses are longer more detailed trainings that combine multiple modules in a specific order for one longer certificated course. For example, Risk Assessment, Physical Safety, Digital Security, and Psychosocial Support are four modules that are combined to make up the Risk and Safety Course (the only course being offered at the time of writing). Courses can be self-led or led by instructors who are experts in their field.

IMS LEARN Videos: IMS LEARN also offers a number of short video tutorials that journalists can choose to learn from at any time. They are suitable to learn a new skill or to brush up on specific skills. Topics include, for example:

• Video editing with mobile phone
• Do's and don'ts for mobile journalism
• Conflict-sensitive reporting
• Working with young people
• Constructive journalism
• Drones - how the media can use drones
• How to determine and boost website audience engagement
• How to better measure video and audio reach