News about the activities of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas
Knight Center Launches ‘How to Write for the Web’ in PortugueseKnight Center Launches ‘How to Write for the Web’ in Portuguese
The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin has just published a Portuguese-language edition of the e-book How to Write for the Web, written by Colombian journalist Guillermo Franco and translated by Brazilian journalist Marcelo Soares.
The e-book can be downloaded in PDF format in Portuguese and Spanish for free from the Knight Center’s website: http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/como_web.php. Since its publication in December 2008, the Spanish-language edition of the book has been downloaded almost 13,000 times.
How to Write for the Web is the second skills guide for journalists that the Knight Center has published. In December 2007, the Knight Center launched electronic Spanish and Portuguese editions of the e-book Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive, A digital literacy guide for the information age, written by U.S. journalist Mark Briggs.
The Spanish, Portuguese, and English editions of that book can also be downloaded in PDF format for free from the Knight Center's website. It has been downloaded close to 17,000 times since its publication.
Franco's new e-book presents practical examples about writing for online publications, as well as research from other sources. He considers it to be more than just a manual, but rather a starting point for a more comprehensive guide about writing for the Web, with contributions from journalists throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
Translator Marcelo Soares is a founding member of the Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI), and a contributor to the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas. Soares saw the need for a Portuguese edition of the e-book.
“In Brazilian online journalism, I see much more copy and paste than actual thought on how to present news online. Not even links are used where they could add another layer of information," he says. "So, Brazilian journalism will benefit a lot from Guillermo’s book if online editors use it as food for thought. It also includes a lot of practical tips on how to do new things.”
In the introduction to his e-book Franco writes, “In the search for information about this topic on the Web and in many books and interviews that we conducted, we found all kinds of viewpoints but we favored those that were backed up by research."
"While revising the document as a whole, two names grew in importance (by the number of times they are cited): the Poynter Institute and Jakob Nielsen," says Franco. "This work pays tribute to the two of them but especially to Nielsen, who is an indispensable reference in terms of Internet usability topics and generously shares his knowledge on his website.”
Franco has 23 years of journalism experience. He has dedicated the last eight years to digital journalism and the Internet. He developed all of his career at Casa Editorial El Tiempo (CEET), owner of the El Tiempo daily newspaper and eltiempo.com, the website with the highest amount of internet traffic in Colombia.
From 2000 to 2008, Franco worked as New Media Content Manager at CEET and as the managing editor of eltiempo.com. He was responsible for the content strategy of all the websites that belong to the organization.
The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas was created by Professor Rosental Calmon Alves at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism in August 2002 thanks to a generous donation from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
In 2007, the Knight Center received a new five-year grant from the Knight Foundation to refocus its work as a digital media training center for Latin American and Caribbean journalism, and to expand its efforts to serve as an incubator for new journalism organizations.
Added Mar 20, 12:09, 2009
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