Month: December 2007

Predictions 2008

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Lots of people are risking future derision by telling us what to expect in 2008. Consider some of the dumber predictions from years past. Back in the 1940s, the head of 20th Century…

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What a new journalist needs

Jessica Chapin has been on the job at WMBB-TV in Panama City, Fla. for a little more than six months now. We asked her to think about what she’s already learned at work, what part of her education has helped…

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What’s an online journalist?

It may sound like a simple question, but Craig McGill says it wasn’t easy to find a definition for the term online or digital journalist: I’ve asked a bunch of people this question over the last few days – inside…

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How histograms help

Most digital still cameras have the ability to display a histogram–a graphic display of brightness levels in a scene. Photographer Michael Reichmann calls it “the greatest invention since the built-in light meter.” If you’re not using your camera’s histogram function,…

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Breaking news literally breaks in

Breaking news is a staple of local TV, but it doesn’t often happen like this.  Two minutes into the 10 p.m. newscast on Chicago’s WLS-TV on Dec. 23, 2007,  a minivan crashed into the studio.  The driver later was quoted…

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Twittering traffic

Some news organizations have used the microblog site Twitter in the past to send updates about breaking news stories like the Minneapolis bridge collapse and the California wildfires. Now the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is “twittering” in a slightly different way…

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Layering the news

Slide shows, videos, flash animations–there are lots of different ways to tell a visual story online. Now you can add one more: the photostory collage. A new service from VuVox allows journalists to build multimedia stories in layers. Watch Richard…

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Students covering campaigns

“Fresh political coverage like you haven’t seen before.” That’s how KDFW-TV in Dallas describes what it hopes will result from a new partnership with Southern Methodist University. FOX 4 News has teamed up with the school to cover the Iowa…

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Convergence in the trenches

Convergence is a reality in local TV newsrooms, but what does it look like? A new research study finds that in most cases what stations call convergence is just repurposing, not truly reporting across media. The researchers surveyed producers and…

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