Welcome to the age of the Next Generation Journalist: someone who is prepared make change happen in the industry, by doing, by innovating and by experimenting. They are someone who sees the internet as a huge opportunity, not a threat to journalism, and exploits the ability to create and publish content for virtually nothing to design ruthless, targeted news businesses.

As digital natives, they have at their disposal a huge number of resources to source stories, develop products and services and maintain themselves as successful freelancers. Many of these resources are featured in my e-book Next Generation Journalist: 10 New Ways to Make Money in Journalism which is available to download, but here is a sneak preview of some essential NGJ online tools.

I cannot stress enough the importance of having your own personal presence on the web. At an event for freelancers at London’s Frontline Club earlier this year, successful freelance Journalist Anne Wollenberg claimed if you don’t have a website, ‘you don’t exist’. And she’s right: when you get in touch with an editor, or a potential client, the first thing they will do is Google your name. Does your web presence reflect who you are?

Here are some great, free, resources for maximising your personal presence on the web.

1. Wordpress

Wordpress is a free to use Content Management System that makes the creation of simple blogs or full portfolio websites very easy. What makes Wordpress so powerful on top of this is its flexibility – you can customise your website into countless shapes and styles.

Once you have installed Wordpress software onto your web space, you can choose from an infinite number of free or premium Wordpress themes (see right for example). Even better, you can edit these further by playing around with the CSS code. Don’t do this without reading how CSS works – but trust me, it isn’t hard to learn.

If you don’t like Wordpress, or don’t think it suits your needs, then other popular options to try include Tumblr and Posterous.

2. All in One SEO Pack

Wordpress is made all the more powerful because of the vast range of free ‘plugins’ you can install to give your website more bite. These are quick and straightforward installations you can do via your website’s ‘dashboard’. A vital one to have is an SEO plugin which does the magic to make your website appear higher on Google’s search ranking. You tell it what the keywords of your website are and it does the rest.

3. Google Analytics for Wordpress

Google Analytics software allows website and blog owners to track how many people have visited their website and from where. This is very important, for example, if you’re launching an online magazine and you’re in Europe, but Google Analytics tells you most of your audience are in the US, you can fine tune your content to appeal to your audience more.

4. Slidedeck

This is a brilliant little plugin which creates an attractive photo slider which is so easy to use it is almost criminal. You can use it to make an attractive way to display photographs and other information.

5. WP Screen Scraper

A clever plugin that ‘scrapes’ data from another website, such as stock market quotes or football scores, and places them on your own site.

6. Mailchimp

If you are starting a news business, such as hyperlocal blog, or news website for a particular niche, here’s a tip: the money is in the mailing list. It’s the subscribers – the people who give you their email address – who hold the most value.

Mailchimp is a website which does some of the hard work for you. With both free and premium versions, it creates a ‘sign up’ box for your website, and builds a list of subscribers. You can then create mail ‘campaigns’, such as a weekly newsletter to be delivered straight to their inbox. Another popular alternative is Aweber which is used by some of the most read bloggers.

Mailchimp is also available as a plugin to Wordpress.

The internet’s caused some big problems for established news organisations sure, but for the individual journalist, especially one just starting out, or one with a fantastic idea for a new news product, this couldn’t be a more exciting time.

Tools like Wordpress, Tumblr, Mailchimp and their associated plugins mean it’s now cheaper, faster and believe it or not, easier to become a successful online publisher than it ever has been in history. So get out there, get a website, start experimenting…and don’t give up.

By Adam Westbrook, author of e-book Next Generation Journalist
   

Published: July 21, 2010