Training and pizza (not necessarily in that order of importance)

The Society of Professional Journalists is renewing its annual continuing education skills classes this month and next. 

SPJ does a fine job with these seminars, which are free for members and cheap for everyone else (you can come out ahead just on the free pizza alone). Classes include how to use social media as a reporting tool, by Monica Guzman of SeattlePI.com; business reporting, by top editors at the Puget Sound Business Journal; freelancing as a business and how to pitch, by Michelle Goodman and Diane Mapes, two nationally known writers; and various multimedia and online reporting classes. 

I'll be teaching one of the classes, on Web-based reporting, on Oct. 19 at the Seattle Times auditorium.

Details, schedule and RSVPs at the Western Washington chapter's page.