14 Useful Online Tools Every Journalist Needs – 2020 Guide

Journalism is a responsible profession, because the whole media world depends on those people who research, make interviews, and publish their stories in newspapers and websites. They work hard to keep us informed of everything that is happening in the world. But, sometimes it’s difficult for journalists to stay organized with all the information they need to use to write the story.

Every journalist needs to keep their notes highly organized, also the phonebook and contact information of their sources. There are a lot of useful tools every journalist can use to keep the job organized, so they can write interesting and attractive content and stories and publish them, so everyone can read it.

Here are some of them:

1. Online translation

When you need to translate something so you can have a clear image of what is happening in some country, and you don’t have a piece of advanced knowledge in that language, online translation tools are great. You can’t expect that they will translate the text perfectly, but you will have some vision of what are they talking about and you can use them as a source to quote.

Source: usejournal

2. Simple image editor

You don’t need to be a Photoshop expert to edit your photos and images you use to illustrate your content. Sometimes you only need to resize the picture or change the color scale. A lot of popular online editors also have an option to create collages, that is pretty effective when you use them on your news website.

3. Bulk resize tool

When you need to resize a bunch of photos and images so you can publish a gallery, it’s always good to make the same size. It’s boring to resize them one by one, and it also takes a lot of time. So, one of the best options is to resize the whole batch by once, using some of the resizing tools and use the photos on your website.

Source: searchenginejournal

4. Speech to text tools

Journalists often use their dictation machine (often referred to as Dictaphone) to record the speech. Earlier, they needed to listen to the speech and write down the text. But, transcription tools like Transcribear can convert your video or audio file to text almost perfectly, and the journalist only needs to check it and see if it’s correct. This saves a lot of time and it’s practical and useful, and every journalist needs this tool, especially those who make interviews.

5. Proofreading software

It’s normal to make writing mistakes and very often you can’t find them by yourself. That is why you need to use some proofreading tool, so it can automatically fix the mistakes and suggest better word combination. These tools often check the writing clear and can be used as a plagiarism checker. Don’t publish your article without proofreading.

Source: icij

6. Simple video editor

People love videos and you shouldn’t be an expert in video editing so you can create them. There are a lot of mobile apps you can download and use to make a short video, edit it, put a music layer, or enter subtitles. Mobile journalism is taking over the world and you need to embrace it and learn how to make unique and interesting videos for your website.

7. Google dataset search

This is an advanced search engine powered by Google that collects all the sources that journalists need to investigate their stories and use legitimate sources to quote in their articles.

Source: creativeboom

8. Social media publishing tools

A lot of relevant media use social media tools to publish their content on Facebook, Twitter, and every other commercial social platform. You can do that “step by step”, or you can use some simple publishing tool so you can schedule the posts and get analytics insights data at the end of the month.

9. Social media optimizing tool

You can install extensions on your browser so they can optimize your content for social media publications. That also allows you to see how many people saw it and clicked on it. This data will also help you determine your general public and make long-term strategies.

Source: searchenginejournal

10. Fact checker

Journalists need to check the facts so they can avoid fake news, that is a real problem today. Even Facebook is trying to fight against them, by integrating fact-checking tools. Every professional journalist needs to check the information two or three times before they publish their article.

11. Website data analytics

Every media company needs to follow the data analytics, so they can see which topics bring them more traffic and to understand better the visitors’ behavior. Data analytics is also an important tool so you can track the readers’ activity and find a better publishing strategy.

Source: articulatemarketing

12. Polls and surveys

These are not exactly tools, but plugins that allow you to create polls and surveys on your website. Visitors can vote on some important question and you can use the data to analyze some important topics you need to write or publish soon.

13. SEO tools

When you need to optimize some article so it can rank better on Google, you need to optimize the content too, following the keyword trends, using relevant photos and illustrations and using inbound and outbound links, so they can lead people to stay on their website.

Source: medium

14. Title optimization

A good title is an essential thing every journalist needs to consider. If you have a catchy, but not clickbait title, you can expect a lot of visits and clicks. Sometimes you can optimize the title so it can bring more unique visits to your website.

Today’s journalism is not only about writing and publishing investigative stories. Journalists today need to have a lot of knowledge and skills in social media and web trends. They need to write interesting and engaging content that will rank good on search engines. Use these tools so you can increase the traffic on your website, by creating great content and taking care that everything looks excellent when published.