APA to offer web-based training tool for community journalists; Earn Your Press Pass launches in Feb.

By Wesley Brown

A new online, on-demand journalism accelerator program is launching soon in Arkansas. According to APA Executive Director Ashley Kemp Wimberley, it will provide member newspapers with realworld tools to better serve and cover their local communities.

The Earn Your Press Pass course was developed in September by Kansas Publishing Ventures in conjunction with the Kansas Press Association Besides in Arkansas, it is now being offered by state press associations in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Texas, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

“Arkansas has a legacy of great small-town journalism and journalists. This is just the online training we need to continue that tradition, and we are excited to be able to offer it as a benefit to APA members,” said Wimberley.

EYPP aims to provide staff with solid reading and writing skills with basic journalism training. Topics include newspaper basics, industry jargon, interviewing and reporting skills, sourcing considerations, news judgment, headline and cutline writing, AP Style, copy editing and basic photography.

According to KPV Publishers

Joey Young and Lindsey Young, the impetus for the widely adopted web- journalism project began with the executive committee of the KPA board of directors. While serving as the KPA board president at the height of the pandemic in 2020, Joey Young said one of the panel’s initiatives was to develop training for rural newspapers in Kansas having difficulty recruiting new talent to

Kansas is home to two of the nation’s highly regarded journalism schools – Kansas University in Lawrence and Kansas State University in Manhattan. But the local news publisher said the online course was