Site picks best WordPress themes for journalists

While this blog often discusses website design for television stations, we haven’t really touched upon website design for the journalists working at those stations.

A personal website can be a great way to not only share your work with the world but also help advance your career through a well-presented portfolio. Many journalists also use their websites to connect with readers and viewers through blogs or other content.

The Blog 10,000 Words recently added two interesting posts that outline seven free and seven paid WordPress themes suited for journalists.

The themes were selected based on their ability to showcase a journalist’s work, with perhaps a bit more focus on visual work.

WordPress is, as we’ve discussed before, an open source (i.e. free) Web-based software package that can be easily deployed on most Web hosting solutions. Themes, like the ones mentioned in these two posts, control how the site looks visually and are available in both free and paid varieties. Meanwhile, a backend interface provides functionality similar to commercial content management systems that allow you to post and edit pages as well as examples of your work, blog entries and news updates without having to hand-code each page.

Many themes also have built-in ways to easily customize things such as your name, headers and color schemes. Or, with a little knowledge of HTML and CSS, you can apply modifications to a theme to make it more your own.

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We should mention that many “paid” WordPress themes are actually quite affordable — often in the $20 to $50 range.

The advantage of using pre-made themes are that the design has already been taken care of, including basic WordPress integration and the more advanced features such as slideshows.

With the job market being as volatile as it is, getting a portfolio website set up is never a bad idea and making use of a program like WordPress and themes like these isn’t a bad way to start.