Advancing the Story

3G, WiFi, WiMAX, LTE or Skype.

No, those letters are not the result of fingers run amok on a keyboard, they’re all now part of the multimedia journalist’s toolkit. 

An article from TVNewsCheck does a great job of describing how wireless broadband is changing news reporting, specifically what each option can and cannot do.

The trick to using wireless broadband is understanding its capabilities. It requires “a constant juggling between how much time you have and how much quality you can submit,” said Fred Fourcher, CEO of Bitcentral, a digital media management and content distribution management vendor.

Here are some highlights from the piece.

• 3G – Good for news stories that are not time sensitive because the upload time for a large video file could stretch into hours.  On the plus side, it’s available almost everywhere, even in a moving vehicle.  In addition, companies like LiveU have technology that can combine up to six 3G feeds to increase the bandwidth and upload speed.
• Wifi – Faster and potentially cheaper than 3G, but not always available.  Wifi can be tricky to use for a live shot since there’s often a lot of competition for bandwidth.
• 4G/WiMAX/LTE - coming soon, the article calls this “wireless nirvana.”  In theory, upload time is supposed to be up to five times faster than 3G.  The idea is that you could take a camera enabled with WiMax and use it to broadcast live.  But WiMax is public like Wifi, and without a dedicated link, it could be risky for a live shot.

For more on these technologies, LTE and Skype, check out the full article.

Filed under: 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | No Comments »

The best advice I’ve seen lately on how to do better interviews can be summed up in those two words: Pay attention. That may be easier said than done if you’re shooting your own video, but it’s critically important. Once the interview begins, you can’t be worrying about white balance or focus. Don’t mess with them once you’re rolling so you can pay attention to what really matters–what’s being said.

Chuck Fadely of the Miami Herald definitely subscribes to the “pay attention” school of interviewing. Here are a few of his best interviewing tips from an online discussion group:

* pay attention! You need to know what you’ve got on tape and what you still need for the story
* pay attention! You need to know what the story is and stay on track
* pay attention! You’ll need to go shoot b-roll of what they’re talking about

Photojournalist and teacher Cyndy Green reinforces that last point.

My #1 rule is to always listen to what the interview subject is saying and make mental notes about visuals that will tie in what they talk about. So if you’re doing a story about drug houses and they mention how run-down the yards look or how there is always someone on the lookout for cops…those are visuals you can try to get to enhance the story.

Green’s second rule is all about paying attention, too. “Keep eye contact with the interview subject…let them know you are interested in what they have to say.

”

You’ll notice that both Green and Fadely expect you to interview first and shoot later. That’s generally good advice when you’re working alone, but only if you’re not covering breaking news. If you are, check these tips from WBFF’s Darren Durlach.

Filed under: 02. Reporting the Story | 1 Comment »

If a journalism school offers real world experience, should the students who participate be protected by reporters’ privilege? That’s a key question in a case involving a professor and students at Northwestern’s Medill J-school.

David Protess runs the school’s “Innocence Project” in which students investigate old crimes looking for wrongful convictions.  In the past decade, the school says, “[they] have uncovered evidence that freed 11 innocent men, five of them from death row.”

Protess and his students believe they’ve found another wrongful conviction and Northwestern’s legal clinic has filed a petition for a new trial. But local prosecutors are suggesting that the students may have been under pressure to prove the case in order to get a good grade in the class. As the Associated Press reports, the prosecutors have subpoenaed the students’ grades, private emails, notes, unpublished memos and expense claims. That kind of information would typically be protected by the state shield law but the prosecutors claim the students aren’t journalists, so they’re not covered.

The case raises concerns for all students who do “real world” journalism as part of their course work. And it underlines the need to bring shield laws up to date in today’s multimedia world when anyone can be a journalist. The latest draft of a federal shield law does just that, by covering anyone who does journalism, even if they don’t get paid for it.

Filed under: 04. Reporting in Depth, 11. Multimedia Ethics | 1 Comment »

Okay, I admit it. I’m a grammar-and-spelling nut. And I think it’s critically important for journalists to get it right. In my view, “little” mistakes on the air, in print or online matter because they can dent our credibility. After all, if we can’t manage subject-verb agreement, what else might we be getting wrong?

College journalism teachers tell me their students often need remedial help with the basics because they never mastered grammar in high school. Even schools that require a passing grade on a grammar exam for admission to journalism school find they’re up against some deeply ingrained bad habits. And it’s tough to convince students they need to break those bad habits, especially broadcast students. We want them to write conversationally, of course, but we don’t really want them to write the way they would speak to a friend. If we did, we’d be okay with a script that reads, “Her and a friend arrived just before the shooting.”

It doesn’t do much good to suggest that people who speak this way consult a style guide when they write. If they don’t have a clue that what they’re saying is wrong, they probably won’t bother to look anything up.

Practice can help, and there are plenty of online resources available, like Newsroom 101, with free exercises in grammar, usage and style. But if those exercises feel like drudgery, take heart. The funny folks at The Oatmeal have come up with a guide to one of the most misused punctuation marks ever, the apostrophe. Check it out and never confuse it’s and its again.

Filed under: 05. Writing the Story | No Comments »

Be respectful, listen politely and stick up for the little guy.

That doesn’t sound much like the advice of a hard-hitting investigative reporter, but Steve Andrews has been righting wrongs in the Tampa Bay area since 1985.  The investigative reporter for WFLA has uncovered stories ranging from corruption at the courthouse to sub-standard bridge construction to critical failures within the state agency charged with protecting children and the elderly.

Now, with TV stations around the country cutting back on investigative units and letting veteran reporters go, Andrews has continued to work on holding the powerful accountable.

For example, Andrews learned that a major water reservoir in the Tampa area wasn’t built to plan specifications and the 3-year-old reservoir was developing huge cracks in the walls.

Filed under: 04. Reporting in Depth | No Comments »

“A video should be as long as it needs to be absolutely compelling.”

Andrew Fitzgerald oversees the online news efforts for Current TV. His view on video for the Web was echoed by the AP’s Kevin Roach and YouTube’s Olivia Ma. All three took part in RTDNA’s “Video-Free-For-All” webinar.

One of the fundamentals expressed is that the Web is changing audience expectations for video online or on the air. These days users and viewers seem to be more accepting of lower quality video, if it’s truly compelling. As one speaker put it, “It comes down to what camera you have in your hand at the time the news is happening.”

Case in point is the video shot by a bystander as demonstrators set up a barricade in Iran back in June.

Roach, who runs all U.S. based news operations for the AP, says they’ve found tremendous value in posting raw video online and says there’s no more waiting for the next newscast to get great video published.

“It’s really simple, first wins,” Roach said.

Camera quality

The panelists also reinforced the notion that inexpensive cameras are a major boon to news organizations, referring to $200 dollar Flip cams as “an insurance policy.”

Roach told the story of a “text-only” AP reporter who had the presence of mind to stop at a Radio Shack to buy a Flip camera on her way to track down South Carolina’s governor, Mark Sanford.

“Having a Flip cam in every reporter’s hands is not a bad idea,” Roach said. “And while you’re it, the GM and every engineer should have them, too.”

Roach says that if the subject matter is strong enough and you have “the only shot that exists, it’s acceptable.”

Cameras mentioned include:

• Flip camera      $150-$250
• Canon HV30    $1,000
• Sony Z1U           $3,500
• Sony EX1           $7,000

Sharing video

The speakers also questioned the wisdom of news organizations that refuse to share their video. 

“Right now, the AP video player is on 2,000 sites and that number continues to grow.  It’s not about getting people to your Web site,  it’s about discovery,” Roach said.  “A good chunk of our video is on YouTube.  We get more than 50 million streams a month, and the ads go with it.  Even if the video is streamed on another site, AP gets the ad revenue.”

News manager for YouTube, Olivia Ma, said local newsrooms that share their video on YouTube are also reaching audiences they ”might not otherwise have access to.”

In addition, Ma described a new service called YouTube Direct.  According to Ma, the service will provide local newsrooms an easy way to create assignments and solicit content from users.  No launch date was mentioned, but it sounds like something worth checking out.

Filed under: 06. Visual Storytelling, 08. Producing for the Web | No Comments »

If you want to be an investigative reporter, you may need to look beyond traditional newsrooms for job opportunities. Many local television stations have trimmed or dropped their I-Teams. Local newspapers like the Oregonian and Toledo Blade have cut back, too. But investigative reporting is still being done, just not the old-fashioned way.

Since we last wrote about new models for investigative journalism, the playing field has expanded. ProPublica is now well established as a non-profit news producer; their investigations have run on 60 Minutes and in major newspapers, including the the New York Times. They’re even looking to hire more reporters. And they’re not alone.

The Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Investigative Reporting have been around even longer, producing national investigations with funding mainly from foundations. But this year, CIR launched California Watch to focus on state issues. Texas Watchdog and other regional groups have launched as well: The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting and American University’s Investigative Reporting Center are producing original projects using students as researchers, reporters or interns.

Stories from several of these non-profit groups are getting wide distribution thanks to a deal with the Associated Press, which may be revised soon to include even more sources. The groups themselves are discussing the formation of an investigative news network to support their work.

News organizations trying to operate with fewer staffers and produce news for more platforms obviously welcome the free content. But as a special report in Editor & Publisher asks, Is this the future of investigative reporting? And if so, what will be missed?

The report finds that few top editors will admit that investigative reporting is suffering at their papers. Some say they’ve put more emphasis on investigations even as they’ve had to cut staff. But others concede they are much more selective about the investigations they pursue and expect reporters to produce more stories. At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, for example, members of the “watchdog team” are “more tip-oriented and work sources better,” according to Managing Editor Bert Roughton Jr. “They come up with stories weekly instead of semi-annually.”

IRE president Alison Young tells E&P that what’s missing is easy to define:

It is becoming more difficult to do the longer-term, more complex investigative stories — the kind of stories that are six-month projects. The big multi-part series that requires lawsuits to get access to records, that requires travel. Those are much more difficult to do, and in some newsrooms impossible.

The non-profit investigative centers are filling some of that gap, but it’s unlikely they can do so at the local level. And while some major foundations have put a lot of money into these journalism projects lately,  it’s not unreasonable to ask how long their support will last.

Filed under: 04. Reporting in Depth, 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | No Comments »

According to research at the University of Mississippi, a review of more than 500 job openings in television news revealed producer jobs topped the list.  Here’s how about half the openings in the Top 10 TV companies broke down: producer (18.8%), photographer (12.2%), reporter (11.6%).

Bob Noonan, assistant news director at WREG-TV in Memphis says producers are always in demand, even in these tough economic times.

“Right now in newsrooms producers, good producers, are hard to come by,”  Noonan said.  “If you’re a good writer, have good news judgment, this is your ticket to advance quickly in the industry.”

If you’re looking for more evidence to back that up, a check of the Hearst Television job posting site found 17 producer jobs open and just 10 reporter jobs.

Noonan, who was news director at WGNO in New Orleans before moving to Memphis, still thinks most producers will start their careers in small markets, but the rise to a big market can be very rapid.

“If I were starting school again, [producing is] absolutely where I’d go, that’s where I’m going to advise my daughter to go, but she wants to be a reporter,”  said Noonan with a smile.

One of the reasons some people used to favor reporting over producing was the salary discrepancy, but that’s clearly diminishing.  In the most recent RTDNA survey, the median salary for a news reporter ($26,000) was actually less than the median salary for a news producer ($28,500).  The highest paid reporters ($250,000) still make a great deal more than the highest paid producers ($110,000), but that may be changing as well.

So, what skills does a producer need to develop?  For Noonan, writing is critical – especially tease writing.  

“You have to be a good tease writer,”  Noonan said.  He points out that in metered markets, you won’t hold the audience through the quarter hours if you can’t write compelling teases.

For the personality of a producer, Noonan says you have to develop a thick skin.

“You have to be tough, you don’t have to be a jerk, but you’ve got to be tough,” Noonan said.  He says producers have to be able to stand firm when a reporter comes in with a story that’s too long.  “You have to be able to say ‘go back and take 15 seconds out of that.’”

So, how do you develop writing skills, creativity in crafting shows and the producer personality?  Noonan advises getting an internship to learn all you can about putting together a newscast.

“Find one producer that you might really hit it off with.  Producers are sometimes a strange lot; there are some that can be a little caustic and others who are very nice and will teach you the right way,” Noonan said. “Those are the ones to hang around with.  And I would just jump in and say, ‘Let me write;’ but be prepared to have it ripped apart.  This is not a business for the thin-skinned.”

Filed under: 09. Producing for TV, 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | 1 Comment »

USA Today puts together some amazing online interactives with a surprisingly small staff. Just five people are typically involved in putting together major projects, says Chet Czarniak, managing editor of USAToday.com–a designer, programmer, producer, IT person and database editor.

The results are often impressive, like this searchable database of US war casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Web producer Josh Hatch says the goal was to give users a statistical view of the wars’ costs, but also a personal view. “People tend to want to find stuff that’s sort of about them,” he says. So the interactive lets users sort the casualty list by gender, race, age, hometown and other demographic information to find out if anyone who died is “kind of like me.”

A project like this will take a couple of months to build, so the team tries to choose its topics wisely. They look for topics with a “long tail” that will keep producing page views over time, Czarniak says. The goal is to build a graphic once and update it by adding fresh data.

Simpler multimedia graphics can be produced by almost anyone at USA Today, using templates the design team has created. “It democratizes the ability of people to participate,” says Czarniak, and it’s had the unexpected benefit of reducing errors. Because the templates allow users to save a draft version of an interactive, the copy desk can review it before it’s published online.

Hatch compares his job as multimedia producer to that of a utility infielder in baseball. “I can do a lot of things,” he says, “but there’s always someone on staff who can do it better.” So Hatch welcomes the opportunity to work with a photojournalist, as he did on this story, with both of them shooting some of the video:

Hatch began his journalism career as a newspaper reporter and eventually found his way to Web producing. Meeting with a group of journalists from around the world at USA Today headquarters in McLean, Va., last week, Hatch described his career path and talked about the skills journalists need in today’s multimedia newsrooms:

“Combining journalism and technology ensures that I’m always learning and usually having fun,” Hatch says. “Who could ask for more?”

Sourced from: NewsLab

Filed under: 08. Producing for the Web | Comments Off

By Stephen Goforth, University of Mississippi (former CNN writer/producer)

The Online News Association convention in San Francisco included a session titled, “Design Solutions from News Experts.” While panelists from the New York Times revealed a glimpse into new features coming to the newspaper’s Web site, Adaptive Path president Jesse James Garrett offered practical advice from his company’s work on Web redesigns for CNN, PBS and NPR. During the session, one person tweeted that Garrett’s speech got him thinking of a news site as something like a “dashboard” and less like a “publication.”

Jesse James Garrett’s “12 Things I’ve Learned about Online News”

1. Know who you are.
Don’t try to be all things to all people; talk to your users. NPR believed its Web site was a place for breaking news but research showed its users use it for analysis after going other places for the basics. Focus your resources on what your users want from you. Focus on your strengths.

2. Be in the Web, not on the Web.
The Web is not the delivery channel for your product. Your product is part of the Web itself. It adds to the Web.

3. The Web is not the world.
Don’t approach your site as if it is the only source for users. Recognize the context. There are other sources of information.

4. Understand what people do with news, why people consume news.
Some people want to add to their knowledge, others want application. Some people want news in order to share it (for them it is a social engagement, a way of connecting to others). Recognizing the different uses for news is critical for meeting your audiences need. People consume news to absorb, apply, share, enjoy. Design and strategy must work around this knowledge.

5. Support different modes of engagement.
Design solutions that support scanning needs as well as deep dive needs.

6. Every page is the home page.
The main page is not the master entry point through which users will experience your site. Each page is a starting point, so each page must show the depth and range of coverage your site offers. If you are about investigative reporting or local news, etc. show it on each page.

7. Navigation is dead;  long live navigation.
People rarely use global navigation unless they are task-switching. What gets used is navigation that is textually relevant. Tailor links to drive traffic to other parts of the site.  What gets used more is navigation that is contextually relevant, so leverage what you can tell readers.

8. Put the “multi” in multimedia.
Use a variety of ways to tell stories: video, audio, etc. more than just offering blobs of text.

9. Headlines should tempt, not tease.
Make people want to know what’s on the other side of the link not just wonder what the story is about. Headlines should be straightforward, making a promise, not baffling readers because they are scanning for specific facts.

10. Think outside the blob.
Don’t just think multimedia, structure your data. Offer tools that let readers navigate through the data easily so they can consume and work with the news rather than creating tools that are simply delivery vehicles for the news.

11. It’s an application not a publication.
Create tools that allow people to work with the news, not just read the news. Interactivity is not a coat of paint. Elements need to add depth, understanding, deliver genuine value. It must deliver insight into the story that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

12. Try things out, throw things out.
Constantly evolve rather than falling into a few set patterns.

Filed under: 08. Producing for the Web | 2 Comments »