Since it started three years ago, News University had enrolled more than 51,000 journalists from around the world in its free online classes and low-cost Webinars, according to an October 2007 report.

Classes include Math for Journalists, Covering Climate Change, Telling Stories with Sound, Beat Basics and Beyond, and Get Me Rewrite: The Craft of Revision. A new free two-hour class called Beyond the Inverted Pyramid: Creating Alternative Story Forms, is currently in beta testing.

Writers who’ve taken News U. classes swear by them. Dan Ferber, an award-winning freelance writer based in Indianapolis, says a class in foreign reporting was invaluable in helping him prepare for his first international reporting trip. “The material was well organized, they made some creative use of the web, and the advice was spot on,” he says.