Online Journalism Blog

The digital video revolution

• A versatile form of journalism

1. Two journalists, one goal
2. Perfection not necessary

Plan your video and go

• Use different approaches for different projects
• Try storyboarding
• Mix your shots
• Build five-shot sequences

1. Close-up on the hands
2. Close-up on the face
3. Wide shot
4. Over-the-shoulder shot
5. Creative shot

Voice in video:

• Learn effective video interviewing
• Use a stand-up, even if you don’t want to

1. Content
2. Write a script and warm up
3. Be stable, breathe easy
4. Don’t be afraid to talk with your hands
5. Control your story with voice-overs

Gear up and get out there:

• Array of camera choices
• Video camera shopping questions

1. What media type?
2. Do I need high def?
3. What software will I be using to edit this footage?
4. What accessories do I need? (Tapes and batteries, microphones, tripod, headphones, lighting)

Shooting good video:

• Focus
• Zoom
• Exposure

Aim for solid, not spectacular clips

• Be selective in shooting
• Avoid panning and zooming
• Hold your shots
• Be silent when you shoot
• Framing and composing

Get good audio:

• Built-in mic
• Wireless mic
• Shotgun mic

Working with digital  video files:

• Keep it short
• Choose your editing software
• Practice visual storytelling

Publishing video online:

• Do your own compression
• Seek viral video distribution

Audio journalism — a microphone, recorder and free software (plus a computer and internet, of course) are the only tools needed to create an audio form of journalism.

Why is audio journalism important?

It has characteristics that cannot be matched by other forms of media such as:

• Presence
• Emotions
• Atmosphere

How do news organizations use audio?

• Reporter overview
• Podcasts
• Audio slideshows
• Breaking news

The basics of audio journalism:

• Interviews and voice-overs
• Natural or environmental sound
• Imported sound clips, including music

Get started with audio:

• Recording interviews

1. Choose your location
2. Gather natural sound
3. Prepare your subject
4. Watch what you say
5. Try delayed recording
6. Mark the best spots

• Doing voice-overs

1. Write a script
2. Warm up
3. Find operative words
4. Keep it conversational

You can use a digital recorder, your computer or an external microphone to help.

Editing digital audio:

• Understand digital formats
• Get ready to edit
• Editing with audacity
• Try advanced editing techniques (fade, cross-fading, established music, segue, transition)

Track all that you publish

Productivity is a key factor for managers when tracking a reporters’ ability to break news,  publish at a good rate, and gain an audience.

What to track:

• Total news stories per day
• News stories by topic or section
• Total blog posts per day
• Blog posts by specific blog
• Slide shows per week
• Video stories per week
• Podcasts or other audio stories
• News updates
• Breaking news e-mail alerts
• SMS or other mobile news alerts
• E-mail newsletters that are not sent automatically
• Twitter, Facebook or other social network posts
• User-generated content

A web-based spreadsheet is the best way to track all of these.

Track your audience

• Use web analytics software

Wed analytics: The software and mechanisms to track web site traffic

Identify key data points

• Pageviews
• Visits and unique visitors compared
• Engagement and referrers

Search engine optimization

• Spiders and robots
• Indexing
• Queries

Use SEO to grow your audience

• Content is king
• Linking is queen

Make sure your links make sense

• Title tags
• HTML meta tags

Make good headlines better

1. Keywords, keywords, keywords
2. Use conversational language
3. Don’t be afraid to inject a little attitude

Target specific social media distribution channels

• Blogs
• Flickr, YouTube, etc.
• Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.
• Digg, reddit, Fark, StumbleUpon, etc.

“The speed of communications is wonderful to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.”

News is distributed, as Edward Murrow stated above, by conversation.

Here are some steps to achieve that:

• Making conversation

News as a conversation has transformed journalism. Most significantly, it has transformed the way a journalist and their communities cover a beat. The more social a journalist is with people, the more sources a journalist can mine.

• Conversing through comments

Most online news stories contain a comments link. They can be very helpful with hearing feedback from the readers. But sometimes, those comments can just be downright rude and ugly.

• Conversing through social networking

Although the internet is still relatively new and social networking even newer, it is an obviously important tool to communicate on the internet today. Jobs for companies needing to manage its social networks are being created constantly. Conversing through social networks is of large importance in contacting people.

Why the news conversation is important

Readers always a want to help make a difference in the news i any way possible. I believe that’s why they post comments — to get a reply from other readers and maybe even from the author. Through conversing (especially within social networks) readers can give tips, links, posts, or additional information regarding a certain topic.

Build and manage a community online

• Make news participatory
• Journalists must get involved
• Develop sources through social networks
• Collaborate with your community

Keep conversations accurate and ethical

• Set guidelines for participants
• Monitor offensive postings
• Know your legal responsibilities
• Correct errors

For a final thought: Social networking is journalism!

Audio journalism — Why is it important?

Audio can build a more textured, layered experience for the audience.

As a writer/reporter, you must make the audience feel a part of what you are covering. Show. Don’t tell.

Three characteristics of audio journalism that are also important:

1. Presence — On location, a reporter can literally bring readers to the story. The simple fact of being there boosts credibility and interest.
2. Emotions — Tone of voice, expressions, intonations and pauses — in the words of either the reporter or the sources–can enhance the message.
3. Atmosphere — Natural sound helps pull the listener in close. Weather sounds, crowd sounds, machine noises are all forms of natural sound in the particular setting.

How news organizations use audio:

• Reporter overview — Newspapers post quick, simple audio overviews that accompany reporters’ articles.
• Podcasts — Regular episodes on a selected subject help build an audience. They can be time-consuming and difficult to establish in the beginning.
• Audio slide shows — Photojournalists have discovered the power of adding audio to their images to help tell a richer, more enhancing story.
• Breaking news — A reporter can now file a quick audio report from anywhere by mobile phone to be published on the Web.

Getting started with audio:

Plan and prepare your voice contribution and the rest should come much easier.

• Interviews

1. Choose your location
2. Gather natural sound
3. Prepare your subject
4. Watch what you say
5. Try delayed recording
6. Mark the best spots

• Doing voice-overs:

1. Write a script
2. Warm up
3. Find operative words
4. Keep it conversational

To get started with audio journalism, you must get a digital recorder. Here are some tips on what type to choose at different price ranges:

Under $100:

• Olympus WS-400S

$150-$200

• H2 and H4 Handy recorder

$250-$500

• Olympus LS-10

Once this is all taken care of, the next thing to do is vodcasting.

Video + podcasting = vodcasting!

For starters, why are photographs so important?

Here’s a quick list of reasons why a digital camera can be better than a film camera:

1. You can take as many pictures as you want without having to worry about the amount of film remaining.
2. You can immediately see if you captured the image you wanted or not.
3. You can upload images to the web and share them right away.
4. You avoid having to purchase film and don’t spend money printing photos you don’t want.
5. Photos can be easily maintained on the computer, including cropping and toning images.

Now, for a quick introduction into photography:

Ownership, copyright and fair use.

• Plain and simple — even though you can download and publish someone else’s photos, do not do it!
• Don’t steal anyone else’s work. Ask before you take.

Digital Camera Basics.

There are two kinds of digital cameras:

1. Point-and-shoot camera (all-in-one camera) — more compact, easier to use, and more affordable
2. DSLR camera — captures better photographs because its image sensor is 10 times larger, more complex, usually costs two to three times more than a point-and-shoot camera

Main Function of a digital camera.

• Camera modes
• Zoom
• Flash
• View/delete

Lighting is very important when taking pictures. Photos can be taken, essentially, in one of three ways:

1. With natural light only
2. With a flash as the primary light source (in a low-light situation)
3. With a mixture of flash and natural light

Mug shots are the most likely assignment for journalists who are not photographers. Here’s what to make sure you do when shooting mug shots:

• Avoid extreme sunlight
• Try to photograph with overcast skies
• Use a flash as a last resort

Working with digital photographs:

Edit your take.

Manage digital photos on your computer.

Edit digital photos on your computer.

Soccer stud Cristiano Ronaldo crashed his beautiful $289,000 Ferrari 599 inside the Manchester Tunnel back in ’09 and guess which camera crew was there to cover this story first!

None.

It was a Nokia N95 cell phone that first captured the footage.

According to the text, three quarters of all children own at least one cell phone between the ages of 7 and 15. Wow.

“Advances in mobile technology, both devices and services, make it easier than ever before to cover a news event on location.”

All you need is a tool to capture the footage and a way to connect to the internet in order to publish it.

Choose your story:

The simplicity of covering a story with such a small amount of equipment (camera, phone, etc.) makes life easy for a reporter in today’s world, but it’s important when covering a story that the journalism should come first and the technology second.

Some things to think about when choosing a story:

• Will the audience benefit if we take them there?
• Will the journalism be better done if it’s on location and with urgency?
• Can this assignment be effectively communicated in small chunks over time?
• Will sound reporting or video footage, turned around quickly, help people understand the story?

There are two ends of the spectrum as a reporter:

Gearhead: A dedicated reporter whose job is get out and about to report from the field all day, every day. They are telling multimedia stories and publishing them any chance they get.

Light packer: A more traditional journalist, someone who occasionally needs to report immediately. This person needs just enough equipment to get the job done.

Depending on the type of reporter you are, each one needs a different amount/type of equipment.

Gearheads need:

1. Laptop computer
2. Internet connection
3. Camera
4. Video camera
5. Tripod
6. Audio recorder
7. Headphones
8. Microphone
9. Cell phone

Light packers need:

1. Smartphone…That’s it!

There are also an increasing amount of ways to publish your information, including:

• Mobile microblogging
• Live blogging
• Mobile video
• Mobile multimedia
• Mobile crowdsourcing

Times are changing. So should the way you get your story out to the public if you want it to reach them as quickly as possible.

“It’s like you’re in this big room with a bunch of people you like, and you’re yelling at the crowd and the crowd is listening and talking back to you.”

Microblogging is a new type of journalism with less words and more links to other web sites, videos and photos that you want to share.

Why is microblogging becoming so popular?

1. Easy publishing
2. Easy  consuming

With the quick and easy publishes, people are connected through microblogs such as Twitter. There’s only one rule you need to follow when inside the microblogging world:

Keep it short!

Twitter only allows 140 characters for the publisher to get their point across to their followers. Facebook, another microblogging service, is similar to Twitter, where one can update their status on what they are doing at that particular moment.

The only difference is that Facebook is mainly used for friends and family, while Twitter is mainly used for following your favorite bloggers, writers, celebrities, etc.

Reasons why microblogging has become so important:

• Emergence as an important tool
• Effective medium for breaking news
• Crowdsourcing and building community
• Marketing and building your brand\

It has really brought an enormous amount of importance to people’s everyday lives in order to stay up-to-date 24/7.

Post. Read. Reply. Direct Message — Tweet away!

“If you are a journalist, or becoming one, you may have already noticed this: They are raising the ante on what it takes to be a journalist.” Briggs

An additional quote was just as noticeable in my opinion:

“The hunter-gatherer model of journalism is no longer sufficient. Citizens can do their own hunting and gathering on the internet. What they need is somebody to add value to that information by processing it — digesting it, organizing it, making it usable.”

Chapter 2 talked about the new journalistic technologies and how to use them. This chapter doesn’t explain how to use them, but rather how to harness these tools to knock down barriers between journalist and reader to create a closer relationship.

Crowdsourcing was a news reporting method that was explained in the chapter and I thought it was a great invention. Here’s some info on crowdsourcing:

• it allows “enthusiastic communities to come together” and help give out info to the readers
• the info is focused solely on community-based news
• with crowdsourcing, communities can outperform large, paid companies with their extreme willingness to get the best info out about the thing(s) they are most enthusiastic about

Crowdsourcing caught my attention because I believe I am part of a website that crowdsources some of its news to the readers.

TruthAboutIt.net is a website providing detailed news and stories regarding the Washington Wizards. Being a die-hard Wizards fan, I contacted the founder of the site, asking if he would be interested in giving me a shot at writing for them. He agreed and I have been a contributing writer for the site since then. They allowed a member of the strict Washington Wizards community to come and bring his enthusiasm to provide information to the readers.

Crowsourcing was a term coined by Jeff Howe recently in 2006. Crowdsourcing is also important because it allows the readers to help choose what stories should be covered. It gives the reader a voice.

Patch.com is a community-based site covering local news that wouldn’t be seen in big-time newspapers. Just like Briggs states that crowdsourcing sites are made up of thousands of contributions, this is evident with Patch.

The site went from a small operation to a country-wide operation in just a few years thanks to those who helped give stories to be written about.

Not only does Patch allow contributors to give stories, they also have an area on the site that informs readers that if they come upon something in their town that catches their eye or is news-worthy to let the Patch editors know and they will have a writer cover that story ASAP! It is very cool stuff, but also a simple tactic:

Give the readers what they want.

“Every college journalist should have a blog.” -Mark Briggs

Well, good! Because I have one. Do you?

As Briggs talks about, blogging is a really important and unique way of developing a community with readers and publishing info in a timely manner.

I bolded those last few words because I believe that blogs are awesome at dishing out creative information that is unlike what you read in magazines and newspapers at an up-to-the-second rate. I live off blogs in a way. I get a lot of my news information by means of blogs. Why? Because they can get me what I want when I want it. And I want it NOW!

But Briggs is right when he says that “Blogs are not magic. Be warned: writing a successful blog takes dedication and determination.” That’s the truth if I ever heard it! They are time-consuming. Rather than watching my favorite sports team play on the tube right now or hanging out with friends, I’m sitting like a log in front of the computer! For you reading this! Anyway, back to Briggs:

He states that Dan Gilmor is credited with the first-ever blog in 1999 for the San Jose Mercury News, which gave way for thousands of other blogs to join in on the fun. So, allow me to take this moment to thank Mr. Gilmor. I didn’t realize this but I’m glad Briggs touched on the fact that people used the terror attacks of 9/11 to voice their thoughts, opinions and responses to what happened. He explains it as being very raw, but able to “usher a new era of interactivity between writer and reader.”

After giving the reader some blogging definitions, Briggs goes on to explain about customizing your blog’s appearance. This is really important. Who wants to read a web site with an all-white background and plain ol’ skinny black text? No one. People want things that will catch their eye and your blog’s appearance can do this, thus attracting readers when they come across your page. Hopefully the appearance of this blog catches your eye somewhat.

An important idea he talks about is being direct in your writing of a blog. Very important. I know many students (middle school, high school, college) like to lollygag around the topic they are supposed to be writing about in a homework assignment from their English teacher so that they cover the two-page minimum. Well, that’s not the case with blogs. They are fun and bloggers should have a good attitude when writing, according to Briggs. While having some fun and enjoying their time, bloggers should get right to the point for the reader’s convenience. Short sentences. Short paragraphs.

In. Out. Boom.