Here’s something I love about the Internet: the way it forces you to reconsider what you think you already know. Take the passive voice, for example. For years, I’ve urged journalists to avoid it in almost every circumstance. Writing in the passive means putting the object before the verb and sometimes leaving the [...]
Filed under: 07. Writing for the Web | No Comments »
How do you use sound bites from an interview with someone whose native language is not English? The standard approach is to have their answers translated and use a voiceover for the bite you decide to include. That sounds simple enough, but it can get complicated, as Rich Beckman points out in NPPA’s [...]
Filed under: 11. Multimedia Ethics | No Comments »
Job applicants, be forewarned. TV news directors don’t want you to shout. They don’t want sing-song delivery, nasality or sloppy articulation, either, according to a 2005 survey by Ann Utterback. But they hear a lot of it. Former news director Dave Cupp, who now teaches at the University of North Carolina, writes in the journal [...]
Filed under: 10. Delivering the News, 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | No Comments »
We often talk about the opportunity multimedia reporting provides to tell more of a story – the Web, for example, is a perfect medium for providing audiences access to source documents, links to more information, etc. Now, KCNC-TV in Denver has found a way to use the Web to be more transparent in its [...]
Filed under: 08. Producing for the Web, 11. Multimedia Ethics | 1 Comment »
The New York Times has finally entered the 21st century at its new headquarters at 620 Eighth Avenue. Instead of being housed in separate buildings five blocks apart, the print and online newsrooms are now integrated. Web producers sit right next to the print news desk. As a result, says deputy managing editor [...]
Filed under: 03. Multimedia Newsgathering, 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | No Comments »
Online video sites are scaling back their use of amateur videos in favor of professionally produced programming, according to a report in Business Week. “People would rather watch content that has production value than watch their neighbors in the garage,” says Matt Sanchez, co-founder and chief executive of VideoEgg. One major reason [...]
Filed under: 06. Visual Storytelling, 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | No Comments »
Lots of news organizations have created crime maps online; many of those maps include searchable databases. But the Los Angeles Times has taken crime data to a whole new level on its Homicide Map. All homicides for the year are mapped by location, but also sorted by age, race/ethnicity, gender, cause of death, [...]
Filed under: Multimedia Examples | No Comments »
Three misconceptions about the audience are leading journalists to produce vapid journalism for the Web, says Robert Niles in the Online Journalism Review. Do you think today’s audience suffers from too-short attention spans, can’t handle details and hates numbers? Wrong, wrong, wrong, says Niles.
Attention spans are not the issue. Competition for time is. People will [...]
Filed under: 01. The Multimedia Mindset, 07. Writing for the Web, 08. Producing for the Web | 1 Comment »
A cable news anchor in New York has lost his job for making a crank call to one of the station’s talk shows. A Washington Post reporter has been disciplined for sending an angry email. Both journalists expressed their personal opinions in ways they clearly should not have.
According to the New York Daily [...]
Filed under: 11. Multimedia Ethics | 1 Comment »
Bill Moyers of PBS has been crusading against media consolidation for years. With the FCC again considering new ownership rules, Bill Moyers Journal took on the issue again. As you watch this, remember that it’s an opinion piece and focuses on just one side of the issue.
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Filed under: 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | No Comments »