Back when I was working for TOL in Prague, we did a lot of online training of young journalists in countries like Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. It was rewarding and educational for me as well, since I (stupidly) did not take advantage of UM's wonderful School of Journalism during my years in Missoula. Ironically, I ended up meeting and becoming friends with the former dean of the J-School at UM in Prague, further compounding my regret over the missed opportunity. Oh well.
What makes me think of all of this is a situation involving journalistic ethics that has come up over the past couple of days. I don't want to go into specifics, and I don't think I've actually done anything wrong, but it reminds me that there are areas of journalism and, less specifically, freelance writing as a profession, that are still a mystery to me, even after years of staff experience as a publication editor (and as a sometimes journalism trainer, no less!) and nearing two years of modestly successful self-employment as a writer.
I try to call on the lessons I learned in the sort of bootcamp journalism practiced at TOL, but let's face it, the ethics are not really comparable. Want to know how to handle the request of a writer for anonymity in Turkmenistan due to legitimate fears of persecution? Worried about the best way to transliterate from Cyrillic to avoid expressing a political opinion about the nature of Ukraine? I can help you with that. But once I get down to the more mundane and practical, I'm adrift. What about working for someone you've written about in the past and are likely to write about again in the future? Can I do that and still be "ethical"? What about finding corporate clients among businesses I've covered journalistically? Is that kosher? I'm sure there must be a big message board somewhere I could discuss this with other freelancers, but I haven't found a good, active one yet. In the meantime, I often feel like I'm just muddling along, hoping that any mistakes I make won't be big ones.
Oh, alma mater? If you held some summer workshops on Journalism for Default Practitioners of Journalism, I would be the first to sign up. Think about it.