The current financial crisis has been tricky for even veteran business writers. How do you explain difficult concepts like collateralized debt obligations or the London interbank lending rate in language that the now-famous Joe the Plumber will understand?

It’s not easy. But it is possible, as a handful of writers have shown, including some with no previous business reporting experience.

I’ve written before about not needing to be serious to write about serious topics, like the hip hop YouTube video that humorously but succinctly explained the Large Hadron Collider.

Lately, the piece on the financial crisis that I keep hearing people talk about for its elegantly simple take on the whole mess is one that first aired last May on the radio show This American Life called The Giant Pool of Money. Alex Blumberg, a producer at This American Life, and Adam Davidson, a National Public Radio business reporter, got together to explain the connection between fancy new forms of debt like collateralized debt obligations and people losing their homes because they couldn’t pay their mortgages.

It was an instant, and timely, hit. The New York Times has written about the story and the pair, who now have a blog and podcast devoted to writing about the crisis called Planet Money.

Making it easy for readers to understand hard stuff is the kind of thing that’s taught in Journalism 101. But after spending years on a beat you sometimes lose sight of who your readers are and what their grasp of the information is, or isn’t. Roy Peter Clark, a writing instructor with the Poynter Institute, reminded writers of that point in his Writing Tools column this week. He also referred to a column he penned back in 2001 explaining how to make stories on even the driest or most complex subjects “engaging and comprehensive.” Some of his advice:

Tell it to a friend. When you tell your story to a single person, your voice changes and your language becomes more simple and direct.

Think graphics. Informational graphics are reaching new levels of excellence in American newspapers. Our ability to explain complex issues in words and then illustrate them in pictures provides valuable reinforcement for the reader.

Read the entire column here.

Most freelancers I know have a print background and little to no training using video to tell stories, myself included. But as the media business goes online, video is showing up on more news and magazine Websites. It seems like a good idea to at least learn the basics of using video to report stories, so you can offer the additional material in pitches, or accept assignments that include it.

Here’s an option for getting that training. The Poynter Institute and News University are running a Webinar called Reporting With Video: Basics for Print Journalists on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2 to 3 p.m. Eastern time. The Webinar costs $24.95.

The instructor is Regina McCombs, a Poynter faculty member. Before joining Poynter, McCombs worked as a multimedia producer at StarTribune.com in Minneapolis, and news photographer and field producer at KARE-TV in Minneapolis.

The one-hour Webinar will cover video storytelling basics, including basic techniques, how to structure a video story, editing principles and how to add sound. The Webinar will include live audio and slideshow presentation in which participants can post questions and respond to poll questions posed by the host.

To participate, you need a broadband Internet connection, Flash plug-in, version 8.0 or higher, firewall that allows port 1935 or 443, monitor with 1024 or higher resolution, speakers, Windows XP or Vista or Mac OS.

For more information or questions, contact Poynter at webinars@newsu.org.

My favorite place for keeping tabs on what’s happening in the news industry just got a makeover. Poynter Online, the Web home of the Poynter Institute, the non-profit journalism education and policy institute, is previewing a new look that makes it easier to navigate through the wealth of material available there.

The new front page has tabs for quick access to some of the site’s most popular columns and blogs, including Romenesko, a daily briefing on who’s in, who’s out and who’s saying what at the nation’s top newspapers, magazines and news blogs.

One new addition is Poynter Groups. Call it a social network, call it a message board. Whatever you call it, it’s a space for working journalists – staffers and freelancers – to dish about their jobs and craft.

Poynter has held seminars and other types of classes for journalists for over 30 years. The institute has collected its online education resources and put them in one place, appropriately called Training.

The site also has separate sections for jobs and an online store.