News University, the e-learning program run by Poynter Institute, is creating a series of writing webinars and wants input from the freelance community on what they should cover.

Any writer who takes the survey will receive a 50 percent discount on any News U. writing webinar when the program launches next year – how’s that for a sweet deal?

Howard Finberg, Poynter’s director of interactive learning, reached out to WordCount to help promote participation in the survey among the freelance community, saying “This is an attempt to reach independent writers with quality training.”

I was more than happy to oblige. With more journalists working as free agents, whether by circumstance or choice, it benefits everyone when they’re as up to speed on the latest research, reporting and writing techniques as staff reporters and editors.

If you’re interested in participating in the News U. survey, you’ll find it here. Once you’ve completed the survey, you’ll receive a promo code you can use to receive a discount on the webinars when they’re available.

But wait – as they say in the TV commercials – there’s more. Finberg is also offering $10 off a News U. class on fighting writers block that takes place on Thursday, Sept. 16, at 2 p.m. Eastern. The class, which regularly costs $24.95, will be taught by Roy Peter Clark, Poynter’s vice president and senior scholar. To receive the discount, use promo code: PWRDHLP10.

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.

This has sparked a tremendous debate within the newspaper business. While one side argues that there’s no way something as connected to local language, geography, history and cultural knowledge can be handled from half a world away, the other side maintains that companies have successfully outsourced all types of business operations to India, there’s no reason newspapers can’t do the same by using highly competent Indian business partners, and people who think otherwise are being xenophobic.

In his weekly column on Poynter Online, noted Poynter writing coach Roy Peter Clark puts himself squarely in the anti-outsourcing camp. In the column, From Rim Editor to Ram the Editor, St. Petersburg, Florida, based Clark claims that while Indian editors may be very good at what they do, copy editors need to be part of the local fabric of the community to do their jobs well. He writes:

I need copy editors to know that Eva Longoria is not the wife of Tampa Bay Rays baseball phenom Evan Longoria. I need them to know that a Florida cracker is not something you eat, and that it may or may not be offensive to some readers. I need a Rhode Island copy editor to know that you don’t dig for clams; you dig for quahogs, a word of Indian origin — American Indian. I need copy editors who know that Jim Morrison of The Doors went to St. Pete Junior College, that beat writer Jack Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Fla., but is buried in Lowell, Mass. I want them to know that Lakewood High School is different from Lakewood Ranch High School. I want them to know that 54th Avenue North in St. Petersburg is 108 blocks north of 54th Avenue South.

Clark’s column is based in part on a recent interview he did on a radio show called The Takeaway on WNYC in New York City with hosts John Hockenberry and Adaora Udoji. Listen to the entire broadcast here.