Professional Freelance Travel Journalist Course

Whether you love to travel, watch the news, spend your days watching documentaries galore, or you are serious about a journalism career that respects truth, renowned freelance investigative, digital, and travel Journalist, author, designer, professional marketer and sales expert, documentarian, historian, genealogist, and teacher, Andrea McGurran, shares her personal experiences of past, modern, and 21st-century journalism that will both astound you and guide you.

This course teaches you the true meaning of travel journalism as the umbrella of all forms of journalism, and how to survive in the world of investigative and other forms of journalism. Andrea teaches you valuable techniques and skills that enable you to draw on the powerful responsibility that being a journalist can give you. If contributing to the truth about the world around you is important, this is a serious course that goes beyond over almost 4 decades of intensive personal contributions, to give you the insider view and understanding of how to be a journalist in the 21st century. Andrea’s amazing history and vast knowledge of the media, publishing, travel, tourism, and marketing industries combined, molds together masterfully with information-rich, exciting and career-building assignments, which present a once in a lifetime chance to learn from one of the world’s renowned and memorable journalism professionals.

Andrea firmly believes in responsible journalism, as the life-blood of modern democracy, and has made truth, ethics, and professional research the pillars of a vast career in magazine and book publishing, the news industry, business journalism, sales and marketing, and the biggest area of travel journalism industry that is the corporate world. Andrea exposes the rot that has begun the downfall of the newspaper and traditional media outlets worldwide, showing what it really takes to survive, make a career, and earn a livable living, freelancing in a lifetime of evolving media, from the Cold War 80's to the rise of globalized mass terrorism through 2019.

Andrea's background over four decades - not limited to:

1. One of the global founders of online magazines, before the Dot.Com Crash

2. Created, ran, and contributed to 3 top online magazines (news (9-11 to middle of 2nd Afghanistan War), cooking, history, etc.) with Webseed Publishers (US),

3. Journalism - business, news, travel, culinary, political, home and garden, etc.

4. Ghost author - ghostwritten/designed multiple books and e-books (history, cooking, sports, travel guides, philosophy dictionary, etc.) for varied clients

5. Author - cookbook and science fiction novel

6. Content writer - Forex, general business, political lobbying, SEO, recipes, product reviews, travel, DIY, how-to, history, etc.

7. Resume writer - multiple resumes and job hunting articles for professionals

8. Website creation (HTML, CSS, SEO, etc.), design, contributions, and IT management - news magazine, history magazine, cooking magazine, varied professional websites, and FOREX websites

9. Marketing and investment senior management - corporate and government level brochure writing and sales negotiator (military, mining, aerospace, oil and gas, etc.) ($multi-millions)

10. Professional fundraising - major event advertising and banners; fundraising for major charities ($multi-millions) (Old-Timers' Hockey Challenge shows, History of Rock 'n' Roll show, etc.); and B2B charity management

11. Event coordinator and management - major events (military-related, non-profit, etc.)

12. Academic essays and dissertations - globalization, world history, faith and history, world terrorism, etc.

13. Filmmaker - history documentaries

14. Publisher - varied books

15. Publishing consultant - publishing/media services directory; direct sales from cold leads (exceeding % achieved as standard in Silicon Valley)

Being a world industry leader, Andrea clearly clarifies the true reasons for the collapse of the traditional modern media, the rise of ‘fake news’, the demise of traditional investigative journalism, and the dangerous impact and influences that the changes in the media from the 1980's to 2019 has had not only on world politics but democracy itself. Andrea shows decisive methods for ensuring that democracy does not itself become a redundant part of history. She recognizes the vital need for a push for changes in 21st-century media to rebuild a respect for impartiality in storytelling, and truth in modern reporting, whilst reviving the tried and true attributes of mid-20th-century journalism – respect of privacy and law, general ethics, and respect for national security. She believes that the sudden lack of funding from governments for the media has been in part due to the trail of misinformation being bandied around by poorly trained journalists and that the educational venue shift to post-secondary institutionalized journalism has taken away the true purpose and structure of journalism. These alone, she shows, are responsible for the decline of public faith in modern reporting.

Andrea shows how freelance travel journalism, a digital journalism giant, is the umbrella of all forms of journalism, and reviving investigative journalism. She shows how digital freelancing has become the new cottage industry of the 21st century, where fact - not fiction, not assumption, not gossip, and not rumor - can be properly delivered to the public in real-time globally within mere hours, even minutes.

Andrea has brought on board the professional assistance of her husband, whose background in the music and writing industries lend themselves beautifully to this course.  His knowledge as a professional writer, author, poet, voice talent, and musician, throws in the additional delights of the ability to get into character and gives those amusing voices that have made this course not only informative but endearing and fun. Comic-relief sure helps when studying!

Discover how modern digital travel journalism, and all its subsidiaries (news, etc.), is flourishing, from one of the world’s pioneer’s of global digital journalism

- Have a clear understanding about how 21st-century, digital travel journalism, freelance, and employed really work

- Get tried and proven steps and skills to start a journalism career today online, without the senseless costs, asked for by post-secondary institutions

- Discover how to source ideas, develop those ideas, and create those stories that will make your career and the future press shine again

- Learn to create travel articles, travel podcasts, and travel videos, and get published while you are still doing the course

- Make travel copy in all its forms, dance off the pages of the Internet, that will attract a global market and global following to your work

- Learn how to market yourself, your work, and most importantly how digital journalism is an easy place to make a living

- Discover why major traditional media and publishing are struggling to survive in the digital age

Course Overview

After being given an introduction into the modern world of 21st century journalism, a brief history, and Andrea McGurran’s professional background, you will get to the meat of the course, understanding what the media is today, its pros and cons, what the differences are between employed and freelance journalists, and how the very destructive forces that caused the demise of traditional journalism, can be altered by you to make your journalism career sing.

Andrea takes you through a course that you would normally find only in skeleton form in modern post-secondary institutions. She delivers considerably more information: the job skills; insider techniques; and tactics that only seasoned professional digital journalists, global marketers, and skilled investigative journalists of the highest levels can share. Experience speaks volumes from a professional that is very much active in the 21st digital journalism world.

As you are whisked through an amazing collection of lectures and assignments, you will see your career being molded before your eyes. Most students will go from nothing to published before the course is finished.

NOTE: THIS COURSE'S VIDEOS HAVE BEEN DELIBERATELY SET UP IN THE FORMAT AND WAY THAT THEY ARE TO SHOW STUDENTS THE POSSIBILITIES OF WHAT THEY CAN LEARN HOW TO DO FROM THIS COURSE.  THE USE OF PARTICULAR MUSIC (SPECIFIC TO PROFESSIONAL EXAMPLES PROVIDED BY ONE OR MORE OF THE CONTRIBUTORS BELOW), GRAPHICS, VIDEOS, INTROS, ETC. ARE THERE FOR A PURPOSE, WHICH IS DEVELOPED WITHIN THE COURSE.  ANIMATION IS USED DELIBERATELY AND FOR THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION.

THE SYSTEM OF RATING IS RUN BY UDEMY AND NOT THE COURSE OR INSTRUCTORS.  THE RATING SYSTEM IS ASKING YOU ABOUT THE COURSE SO FAR, NOT ANYONE ELSE'S ASSIGNMENT AND NOT ABOUT UDEMY IN GENERAL. 

THIS IS A FULL-LENGTH COURSE, WHICH ONCE YOU HAVE COMPLETED IT, WILL ENABLE YOU TO BEGIN A NEW CAREER.  THIS COURSE IS NOT A QUICKY.

Special contributions

Andrea wishes to make special mention of those who assisted, gave support, and provided photos and video footage for the creation of this course, that added an even more professional flavor to its value:

1. Lonely Planet (US)

2. Rick Steves (and production team)

3. VOA News

4. TV Senado (Brazil)

LEARN, DISCOVER, DEVELOP, CREATE, SELL, AND BUILD YOUR DIGITAL JOURNALISM CAREER TODAY!