WASHINGTON—If you are looking for e-learning opportunities to enhance your leadership skills, turn to Advice for the Newly Named News Director, an interactive online course designed to prepare news directors for the first few months on the job. The course is available free as a part of a joint initiative of the Radio and Television News Director’s Foundation (RTNDF) and the Poynter Institute’s News University (NewsU).

The course is based on RTNDF’s popular handbook, INCOMING! Advice for the Newly Named News Director written by Deborah Potter, executive director, NewsLab.

Like the handbook, the course presents skills and information to help first-time and transitioning news managers become more comfortable and confident in their new roles. Available at www.newsu.org, Advice for the Newly Named News Director allows you to:

• Create your own two-month action plan with the tips you collect throughout the course.
• Test your leadership skills with the “Getting to Know Your Newsroom” challenge. In this maze game, you’ll race against the clock to meet your staff, manage your time and gauge your effectiveness as a new manager.
• Sit in the hot spot and learn how well you can manage a disaster as a news director.

“The news business is notorious for promoting well-qualified journalists into leadership positions with no formal training,“ Potter says. “This course is designed to give newly-named news directors a head start, whether they’re first-timers or veterans moving to a new station. You’ll learn how to assess a newsroom’s culture, get to know the staff and create an action plan for your first few months on the job.”

This course is sponsored by a grant from the McCormick Tribune Foundation to RTNDF’s News Leadership Project, which aims to provide local news managers with specialized leadership training. “RTNDF believes that developing your leadership skills will not only help your staff be more productive, cohesive and positive, but also will ultimately help you succeed in your own career as a news manager,” says Kathleen Graham, vice president of programs for RTNDF.

“Poynter is excited to work with RTNDF on courses like this one, which help expand our broadcast curriculum on NewsU,” says Howard I. Finberg, director of interactive learning.

RTNDF provides training programs, seminars, scholarship support and research in areas of critical concern to electronic news professionals and their audiences. The foundation’s work is supported by contributions from foundations, corporations, members of the Radio-Television News Directors Association and other individuals. For more information about RTNDF, visit www.rtndf.org.

News University (www.newsu.org) offers newsroom training to journalists and journalism students through its interactive e-learning program and links to other journalism education and training opportunities via its blog, Access (www.access.newsu.org). The program is a project of The Poynter Institute and is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. It currently has more than 59,000 registered users and offers more than 50 self-directed training modules for print, broadcast and online journalists and journalism students. Most of NewsU’s modules are free.

The McCormick Tribune Foundation is a nonprofit organization committed to making life better for our children, communities and country. Through its charitable grantmaking programs, Cantigny Park and Golf, Cantigny First Division Foundation and the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, the Foundation positively impacts people’s lives and stays true to its mission of advancing the ideals of a free, democratic society. The Foundation is an independent nonprofit, separate from the Tribune Co. For more information, please visit www.McCormickTribune.org.

The Knight Foundation’s Digital Media and News in the Public Interest initiative seeks to advance the best values of journalism through the rapidly developing electronic media, especially the World Wide Web. Goals are to encourage that quality journalism be practiced in all media; help seed and lead the development of new tools, products, approaches and learning to help quality news reach all audiences; and engage in partnerships that maintain and strengthen news that good citizens need to run their government and their lives. For more information, please visit www.knightfdn.org.