“The Multimedia Journalist”

Week 7 Reading

As multiple guest speakers in our Writing for the Media Professional have said, print journalists are now having to supplement their traditional written stories with multimedia such as videos, slideshows and podcasts. The above article details how one particular journalist is doing this, and overall, it’s pretty similar to what I’ve heard in class.

You have to be a jack of all media, but come from a strong foundation of good writing and storytelling. Master the basics, but be adaptable to new technologies. Teach yourself on the job, then teach your colleagues. Etc., etc., etc.

It’s true that consumers of media are expecting/demanding multimedia content more and more, but if the examples I’ve seen are good indicators, print media isn’t keeping up as well as they may think.

Newspapers are good at in-depth stories, moment-capturing photos, and being, well, tangible. However newspaper reporters are not good at audio and video… yet.

Corvallis, Oregon paper, The Gazette-Times is integrating multimedia into their website. The latest video is a montage of poorly-shot clips about the Oregon Humane Society, simply titled “Dog Rescue“. The audio isn’t balanced, some of the video is shaky, and overall composition and picture quality are sub-par. Theresa Hogue’s latest podcasts feature better audio, but could use some editing.

The Oregonian is (expectedly) producing better multimedia content, such as the award-winning coverage of the Kim family tragedy. However, the continuity among topics is atrocious; there’s no consistent branding or format. Hopefully this will get straightened out as the website improves.

The New York Times has a great video selection, but almost appears to be tending toward either soft news or specialized features other than hard news reports. This is probably wise, considering the content is more easily re-purposed and evergreen. However it’s kind of missing the point of the immediacy of the Internet. Reporters could be streaming video from location, or at least decreasing their turnaround time on content to take advantage of the medium.

Newspapers think they need to provide multimedia content for their readers, but I believe the truth is that unless their content is top-notch and in line with their reputation and mission statement, they might as well stop trying. No medium has to be everything, and each should figure out what it can effectively provide instead of spreading too thin.

“What if There Were an eBay for News?”

Week 6 Reading

Reporterist.com co-founder Sindya Bhanoo has created something wonderful– if it’s all it says it is. In this interview, Bhanoo describes Reporterist as a “news exchange where freelancers and editors can connect”, meaning a device for reporters to sell their stories via the Internet. This sounds great to me, except for one thing: how do editors know that reporters are reliable? I understand that eventually freelancers have reputations, but if this service is opened up to the public (like Bhanoo said it would eventually), then how can sources be trusted? Who’s doing the fact-checking?

In the Society of Professional Journalists freelance directory, freelancers provide samples of work and state previous experience.  I assume Reporterist does something similar (I tried to register, but have yet to receive a confirmation e-mail). This is fine for people who have worked as journalists in professional settings, but what about the budding citizen journalist? How seriously will publications take these people?

Bhanoo hopes Reporterist will someday be a sort of wire service– the Reuters for freelancers, if you will. This seems like a brilliant idea, but for the service to be trusted and used, there must be strict criteria for writers, implemented in a user-friendly submission interface. Bhanoo has great ideas. Let’s just hope she’s able to practically implement them.

The State of the News Media 2007

Week 3 Reading

After considering the significant changes in technology and new media over the last year, this report poses the question:

“Does the [news media] industry have a vision that is bold enough, and does it have leaders whom journalists and audiences will follow?”

I doubt it does. In April 2007 I attended the NAB conference in Las Vegas as a production intern. Through my internship I was able to hear every keynote and featured speaker, and was struck by a trend: broadcasting industry higher-ups are drastically behind the average college student when it comes to new media technology. This may not sound like a big shocker, but the general air with which these influential people spoke was one of hesitation and anxiety. The most forward-thinking speaker I can remember was Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, and even he spent a good chunk of time talking about advertising instead of content.

While American broadcasting is dragging its feet getting into “bold”, new media, it seems that print media is doing a bit better. Many (if not most) newspapers and magazines are represented online with sites that integrate newer trends such as rss feeds and mobile editions. Video is even showing up on newspaper websites, which is something the NAB should definitely be paying attention to.

“Construct Your Community’s Info-Structure” by Jan Schaffer

Week 2 Reading

Schaffer describes in her article how placeblogging is significant to journalism. How I see it, what Schaffer is really encouraging journalists to do, is to crowdsource. Through crowdsourcing, many people at many different locations can work together toward a single goal: in this case, local journalism. Relatively new technology like wikis and rss feeds, as well as increasingly cheaper consumer video/digital photography equipment are making crowdsourcing simple for those in the know. The first example of crowdsourced journalism that came to my mind was the YouNewsTV program being executed by the Portland TV station, KATU. Through this site anyone can upload news content (e.g., photos, videos, text) which is then either approved or denied by a moderator. The site touts that if KATU likes or needs user content, it can appear on air in addition to being on the website. Being a big television viewer, I noticed when KATU first promoted this program. I must admit– I was skeptical about its success from the start. TV news viewers aren’t typically the same demographic as YouTube posters and bloggers. As far as I can tell, KATU didn’t much target Internet-savvy young people, but assumed general viewers of their news and surrounding programming would be interested in generating content. I could be wrong, but I don’t think they promoted YouNewsTV on anything like Facebook or MySpace. However, a glance at the site shows that content is coming in (even if it is mostly just pretty pictures of the recent cold weather). KATU doesn’t seem to be expanding its YouNewsTV marketing campaign, so maybe this is just the kind of content they’re looking for.

KATU and other television stations are beginning to utilize the concept, but for crowdsouring to significantly contribute to journalism, journalists need to work a little harder. Blogs need to be watched and aggregated on a station page. Mobile uploads need to be easier and encouraged. Twitter could even be integrated. Schaffer’s encouragement of placeblogs is a good start, but for true crowdsourcing to be utilized, traditional media need to expand and update their newsgathering nets to function in the Web 2.0 world.

Hey, look! It’s a blog!

After putting off taking my required WIC (writing intensive course) for 4 years, I’ve finally surrendered to the inevitable and am in the course. Luckily though, it’s changed a bit since I first heard of the horrors of Writing for the Media Professional. Contrary to tradition, we aren’t just focusing on print journalism this time around. The course promises to be more inclusive of various media –especially new media– that appeal to journalists and non-journalists alike. We’re going to explore what writing for the media means in the Internet age, hence: this blog.

This site will be a vehicle for writing and sharing class assignments, as well as posting personal entries if the mood strikes. A link to the NMC 301 blog is soon to come and will feature entries from each student.

For an idea of what good journalism on the web looks like, check out the rss feeds to the right, and if you’d like to take a peak into my life, my Flickr photos are generally pretty representative.

So stay tuned and expect plenty of posts about new media. You never know; they just might be interesting.