Tools to catch you up on the latest in newsletters, improve your word choice, find diverse illustrations, and ... the return of Soundslides?! Email not displaying correctly?
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Your weekly, bite-sized dose of tools, tips and ideas for digital journalism. Kindly supported by the American Press Institute ([link removed]) and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. ([link removed])

Hello! What do you want to see from Try This! — Tools for Journalism in 2021? A return to a normal schedule? More writers? Fewer? More focus on a specific type of tool? Hit reply and let us know. Now ... on with the show.

Welcome! I’m Jeremy Caplan ([link removed]) , sharing some tools and resources for winter 2021. I’m a former Time Magazine reporter, now director of teaching and learning for CUNY’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. I write about the most useful tools I find in a free weekly newsletter called Wonder Tools ([link removed]) . Sign up here ([link removed]) .

Now that winter is halfway done, sharpen your 2021 toolkit with these new resources.

Broaden how you think about your readers, viewers and listeners by exploring the great collection of guides and workbooks on Collaborative Journalism ([link removed]) , created by the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University and Project Facet.
(Screenshot, Black Illustrations)

Add more diverse images to your work by using Black Illustrations ([link removed]) , which has hundreds of diverse images for your publishing projects. Or download diverse illustrations here ([link removed]) for free.

For age-positive representations of people over 50, the Centre for Aging Better has a collection of photos ([link removed]) and soon icons ([link removed]) (h/t to Howard Lake ([link removed]) ).
(Screenshot, Humaaans)

Blush.design ([link removed]) also has a growing library of free illustrations that includes diverse representations, including a gorgeous, diverse collection from Humaaans.com ([link removed]) .

For additional free diverse illustration sources, visit Free Illustrations ([link removed]) .

Spend less time on email by adopting the three.sentenc.es ([link removed]) philosophy.
(Screenshot, Lose The Very)
Sharpen your word choice with Lose the Very ([link removed]) .
(Screenshot, This Word Does Not Exist)

Play with words from This Word Does Not Exist ([link removed]) , a descendant of Sniglets ([link removed]) .

Add a musical touch to your message with Typatone ([link removed]) , turning words into sounds.

ExploreTypewriting Ink ([link removed]) , which types out your message on a recipient’s screen.

Crop your photos for any platform for free, efficiently, with AI, by using Croppola ([link removed]) .

Liberate yourself from Twitter’s character limit by creating a thread from a paragraph with Chirr App ([link removed]) . It lets you type or paste in text and then neatly splits it up into a series of tweets. Typefully ([link removed]) is a similar new service.

If you’re tired of typing, use your ears and voice on Clubhouse ([link removed]) , the buzzy audio-first social platform where journalists have increasingly been joining the likes of drop-ins Oprah, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Here’s a quick beginners guide ([link removed]) and another how-to guide ([link removed]) to help you catch up.

If you’re looking for an alternative new platform where you can add your voice — apply by Feb. 15 to participate in the new Creator Incubator ([link removed]) from Voice.com, which includes stipends as well as networking and mentoring benefits.

If you’re a journalist from Europe, the Middle East or Africa, apply by Feb. 17 ([link removed]) for the free Product Immersion for Small Newsrooms program, an intensive training by News Catalyst and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in partnership with the Google News Initiative.

Anyone globally can apply by Feb. 20 for the year-long Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership ([link removed]) at the Newmark J-School.

If you’re focused on making money for your publication, apply ([link removed]) to test out a new product from Google that aims to make it easier to implement reader revenue models.

Protect yourself from online trolling and other craziness with a new course ([link removed]) about online privacy for journalists from the International Women’s Media Foundation. Also available in Spanish ([link removed]) .

On March 4, visit the fourth Jamlab Demo Day ([link removed]) online and meet the founders of the seven media enterprises from Angola, Eswatini, Madagascar, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe that were part of the 2020 Media Lab Accelerator Program.

If you’re reporting on vaccine distribution, use the Vaccine Education Toolkit ([link removed]) — developed by the National Association of Broadcasters in conjunction with the Reynolds Journalism Institute — for data, b-roll, diverse export sources and a collection of other resources.

For more help making sense of COVID-19 data, learn how to analyze and report on the data with the COVID-19 Data Dispatch’s upcoming workshop series ([link removed]) .

If you’re curious about journalism history, check out the new 100-year-plus archive ([link removed]) of Editor and Publisher on the Internet Archive. Background here ([link removed]) and here ([link removed]) .

Sign up ([link removed]) to get more posts like the one you’re reading on Thursdays in your inbox.
If you’re deep into newsletters, catch up with the flurry of stuff that’s emerged in 2021.

Letterhead ([link removed]) has a new newsletter creation tool for publishers, with a nifty revenue calculator ([link removed]) so you can see how much you could make with your own newsletter.

For independents, Letterdrop ([link removed]) launched a new free newsletter service that plugs into existing platforms like Wordpress, Weblow, Zapier and Slack.

For more private missives, Letterloop ([link removed]) has a new service to help curate family-and-friends updates.

If you’re a curator at heart, the newly-free, Twitter-acquired Revue ([link removed]) makes curation easy by pulling in streams for you to add to your newsletter from accounts you already have, like Pocket, Instapaper, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Medium and RSS feeds.

Amazon’s cloud is even in the game now through Sendy ([link removed]) , a low-cost newsletter service for high-volume senders that are OK with some DIY.
(Screenshot, Letterstack)

Check out Letterstack ([link removed]) for a collection of newsletter resources and tactics

Subscribe to Newsletter Crew ([link removed]) ’s newsletter or podcast for case studies.

To dive in deep, register for a free monthlong online course ([link removed]) , Newsletter Strategies for Journalists: How to Create, Grow & Monetize Newsletters, hosted by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin.

If you’re just aiming to clean up your own messy newsletter queue, here’s my recent post ([link removed]) with lots of tips and tools for that, including Slick Inbox ([link removed]) , Stoop Inbox ([link removed]) , and Silent Inbox ([link removed]) . And here’s my growing Twitter list ([link removed]) of newsletter tools.
If you’re exploring other new ways to publish, here are some other platforms to check out.

Happs ([link removed]) is a new way for journalists to create professional-quality broadcasts with a cloud-based broadcast studio. You can publish to your social media accounts as well as to Happs News, a hub for micro-broadcasters. Think of it as a kind of Substack for video journalists.

Happs facilitates cash payments to broadcasters who attract viewers with recurring sponsorships and one-time monetary awards for notable videos. Here’s a 1-minute video trailer ([link removed]) , and a 13-minute how-to video ([link removed]) explaining how the Broadcast Studio for Google Chrome works, and how it integrates with the mobile apps for iOS and Android.
(Screenshot, Soundslides)
Remember Soundslides ([link removed]) ? The slick, simple tool for slideshows is back with version 3.
(Screenshot, Camayak)

For those managing writers or other contributors, Camayak ([link removed]) now has a completely free plan that lets you sign up without a credit card for unlimited writer accounts. The service lets people pitch, claim and submit assignments. It’s a bit of content management system mixed with a system for managing projects and writers to streamline editorial workflows. Another option to explore is PubPub ([link removed]) , which describes itself as a nonprofit open-source, privacy-respecting, all-in-one collaborative publishing platform for communities small and large.

Sign up for my free Wonder Tools newsletter ([link removed]) to get useful tools and resources like the ones above regularly in your inbox. Your confirmation note, when you sign up ([link removed]) , will include a 2021 list of the most useful sites and apps I’ve been exploring lately. You’ll also get a list of good newsletters about journalism. Subscribe here. ([link removed])

Thanks for reading! Wishing health and comfort to you and your loved ones.
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