On AR&D consultant Bob Kaplitz’s blog, Scholett offers this advice to other multimedia journalists:

1.)   Don’t think of your video as an afterthought. Good video might save a story, but poorly shot wallpaper video will certainly ruin one.

2.)   Don’t complain about carrying gear. There are hundreds of darn good reporters out there who are carrying resumes right now who would kill to be carrying gear.

3.)   Don’t forget what it’s like to be a viewer. See each day’s story as if you were watching it from home. Did you get the take home message across? Did you like video? Did it all make sense? Would you want to watch it again? Would you need too?

4.)   Don’t rush the writing. That’s where real mistakes are made.

5.)   Don’t use being a one man band as a crutch or an excuse. It’s the wave of the future and a great skill to have.

You might also want to check out Schollett’s advice for managing time as an MMJ – anyone who can physically survive anchoring three shows and turning a story every day has got to know something about time management, right?

Chip Mahaney is director of digital content for Scripps TV stations.  He says that Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools can be used in three ways:  1) Newsgathering 2) Dissemination and 3) Engagement.

In terms of newsgathering, tools like Trendsmap.com allow you to do real-time mapping of Twitter trends in your area.  Much of the time, it may be drivel, but in a breaking news situation, it could be invaluable.  Facebook, for example, is often used as a means of finding friends or relatives of newsmakers or as a tool for finding people affected by a particular issue or development.

And though journalists are tweeting about the stories they themselves are covering, Mahaney thinks they could be doing more to capitalize on the content that Twitter provides.

“Twitter is open,” Mahaney said.  “They are giving information away for free.”

He suggests that news organizations can create custom feeds for their sites on particular topics.  For example, Mahaney believes TV stations should try to grab Twitter names like “Atlanta traffic” or “Houston weather.”  If you can engage the audience on those topics and get them to contribute, think of how valuable those feeds would be in the case of a massive pile-up or a severe weather situation.

In addition, Mahaney feels news organizations and individual journalists could be doing more to engage their followers.

“Call out someone  in a tweet,” Mahaney said.  “Let one of your followers know you are following them or send a message to let that person know you’ve read what they’ve written.”

Mahaney says the trick to getting more people to follow you on Twitter is to follow them first, and he says another good engagement strategy is to re-tweet what someone has written.

And if you want to check out the impact of your own tweets, log on to TwitterCounter.com, which allows you to track your Twitter name’s effectiveness.  Or you might try Twitazlyzer.com , which looks at how much junk versus real information your tweets provide.

“It’s a chance to see what kind of clout your Twitter name has,” Mahaney said.  “It allows you to check on your brand.”

Victor Hernandez, director of coverage, says it’s because they’ve had trouble finding people who meet all their criteria.

Speaking to a crowd of broadcast journalists at an RTNDA workshop, Hernandez said he’s looking for people who exemplify four core attributes:

• Strong editorially
• Technically superior
• On-air presence
• Exceptional mindset

Hernandez says the mindset is most important of all.  He  wants their APJs to be platform agnostic.

“I want them to look at storytelling content and not be beholden to precedent and the way things have always been done,” Hernandez said.  ”It’s the ability to look at each story and figure out the best platform.”

The reporters they’ve hired so far are not working on “day turns,” rather they typically have several days to develop a single story.  The goal, too, is to hire people with a unique style.

“It’s really the ’anti-TV’ reporter in terms of look,” Hernandez said. “We want someone free-spirited, off-the-cuff, interactive.”

 The APJs have to be very comfortable with digitial technologies as well says Hernandez, for example, he wants them to already know Final Cut Pro.  Though they will get some training, they have to come in the door with tangible skills.

That’s because they’re going to need to work with an extensive multimedia toolkit and to feel comfortable trying out technological set-ups that may have never been used before – like the system CNN designed for getting high-resolution still photos back to the newroom online and in just minutes.

CNN All Platform Gear:
-Sony Z1U HD camera (changing to EX1/EX3) 
-Canon still camera
-Flip cam
-MacBook Pro
-Smart phones
-Air card
-Sat phones

 Hernandez says the technological advances are making amazing things possible.

“Anderson Cooper was live for an entire week in Afghanistan through IPTV,”  Hernandez said.  “There was no traditional satellite equipment.  We did it all through Skype and other internal apps.  The  quality was almost indistinguishable from what we see from a satellite, but the cost is about 1o percent.”

Hernandez hopes these new  tools can help energize his own news operation, help journalists to think differently about what might be possible, even in tough economic times.

“I want us to get that start-up mentality,” Hernandez said.  “You know, that ’find the next thing or you won’t eat next week’ approach.”

Consider these excerpts from a job description for an “Interactivity Editor” at Gannett:

• Adept at all forms of social networking, interacts regularly with audience to respond to concerns/questions; able to spot trends in responses and direct information to appropriate editorial staffers for action; able to serve as the audience’s voice in editorial meetings.
• Mines readership and census data; visits communities regularly; reaches out to audience through blogs and forums for insight; develops social media strategies for creating community interaction.

Few of us could have envisioned a job like that even just a few years ago, but now terms like “crowdsourcing” and “scanning for tweets” are part of everyday conversations in some newsrooms.  At the Future of Journalism Conference in Cardiff, Wales researchers from around the world gathered to talk about what the next few years might hold for the profession.  Social media invariably became part of the discussion whether the topic was economic challenges or ethics.

Alfred Hermida from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada has been researching Twitter and the role it’s beginning to play in journalism.  He speaks of it as an “awareness system” – a term he’s borrowed from computer science to describe the way Twitter makes people aware of other people’s activities and connections.

But Hermida also believes it may be leading to a new form of newsgathering that he calls “ambient journalism.”

“It’s multi-faceted and fragmented,” Hermida said.  “Each tweet is limited on its own, so you have to try to see them as a collection, a system.”

Hermida used the Iranian election coverage as an example.  At its peak, there were 200,000 tweets per hour coming out of Iran.  As isolated fragments, the information wasn’t all that valuable, but as a collection of information, it was all quite useful.

Hermida says what journalists need now are better tools to evaluate the flow of information coming from Twitter and other forms of social media.  He pointed to twitscoop.com, which tries to identify Twitter trends, so you can see what topics are getting the most discussion.

Then there’s nowpublic.com, which allows you to search for “conversations” – often on breaking news topics – and find related photos, video and links to more information.  Checking the site while writing this post, the topic was Pittsburgh police ordering marches to stop at the G20 summit.  The information compiled included  60 photos and three related videos.

Still Hermida calls these tools rudimentary and believes we need more means to analyze and contextualize Twitter and other social media systems.  As journalists begin to act more as curators of information, the ability to sift  through tweets and posts and other social media sources will become more critical.

Great photographers know this and they work hard to get the sound they need.  Here are some tips from the pros:

Listen closely at all times: To make sure you collect the sound you’ll need to tell the story, former NPPA editor of the year Brian Weister advises closing your eyes. “Listen, and then go shoot it,” he says.

“I drive with my windows down, listening for good stories,” says former NPPA photojournalist of the year Corky Scholl. When he finds them, he makes an extra effort to get great audio. Obviously, Corky cares about photography, but he says, “I would take a great sound bite over a nicely composed shot any time.” Another former POY, Ted Nelson from WTVF in Nashville, often rolls just to capture sound, and shoots video later that he can use to go along with it.

And then there’s this essential advice from Seattle photojournalist Tim Griffis: “Wear headphones or an earpiece so you don’t miss a moment.”

Get close: Put a microphone right next to the action. Wireless mics make that easier, but you can do it with any microphone. In one story, Scholl put a mic on a birdfeeder, and captured the buzzing sound of a hummingbird’s wings. “It makes the shot more compelling,” he says. Nelson often uses a wireless shotgun mic to get in close. “I don’t see any reason why somebody would look up from their food” for a story that’s just track-bite-track, says Nelson.

In breaking news situations,  former KPNX photojournalist Julie Jones often asked the reporter she was working with to wander with a wireless in search of sound while she shot the scene. “Let’s say the fire captain is frantically telling the reporter that they are concerned with the other side of the building,” she says. “Boom! Got your sound, got your information you need to keep shooting this thing.”

Time shots for sound: Nelson makes sure the reporter he’s working with knows when to ask questions to get the best usable sound. In one story, he framed an interview subject with a backyard baseball game in the foreground, and told the reporter to ask a question as soon as the ball was pitched. The result: a shot that begins with the crack of the bat, followed immediately by a soundbite.

Use what you get: Nelson logs natural sound while the reporter writes, and often builds a nat sound sequence or two while he’s waiting for a script. He’ll tell the reporter what elements he’s using so they’re both on the same page. As an editor, Weister says his niche with the station’s producers is giving them more than they expected. His specialty is turning “just a V/O-SOT” into a 45-50 second natural sound mini-package that tells a more complete story in just a little more time.

Let sound dictate edit: Weister uses sound differently, depending on what type of sound it is. He’ll cut directly to a sharp, crisp sound like a hammer hitting a nail, but he’ll bring up a droning sound like a circular saw 20 frames ahead of where he wants it up full, and then will fade it back down. And don’t think of natural sound as something to break up narration. When you capture good sound, says Griffis, use it to glue your story together, like “mortar between bricks.”

Sourced from: NewsLab

The quality may not be up to snuff, though, as KGMB photojournalist Oscar Valenzuela discovered when he used that kind of bare-bones rig to cover Hurricane Felicia as it bore down on the Hawaiian Islands.

All in all I’ve since watched the shots and for the most part they looked… well, terrible. And our set-ups were pretty much Keystone Cop disasters. But as I have said before, in all my years in news it’s, “not what the shot looks like but… do you have the shot at all.” In this case we all got the shot. There wasn’t a live truck in sight and we could finally go Live!-Anywhere!-Anytime!… kind of.

After he got back to the station, Oscar tested Skype with a different set-up using his professional camera. The results? Much better. Check his blog for a comparison video.

Sourced from: NewsLab

Given Interpret LLC’s new research and their attempt to apply a new model of engagement when analyzing users’ attention to web video, this seems a good time to lay out some general guidance for those new to the production of online video. I aim this framework primarily at those who are covering news, but it could apply to those who post their video to small blogs as well.

As a visual person turned professor, I am constantly looking for ways to hook my students on a concept and make it stick. I come from the television side of the journalism business and the definitions there are well-known and long-used but don’t make too much sense to those coming to video from outside of TV-land. There they have the following names (TV types – feel free to skip down!):

VO (voice-over; pictures with an anchor or reporter reading live as the video roles) commonly used on sports highlights or with a traffic report.

VOSOT (voice-over-sound-on-tape; pictures with read-over followed by a sound bite on the topic) commonly used with a short story on a fire or community event. There are variations of this – SOT/VO (opens with the sound bite and goes to video read-over). Sometimes it’s a VO/SOT/SOT/SOT or a NAT/VO. This last is often used for a protest with sound up high to get the yelling, then under as the anchor reads over the rest of the video.

PKG (package or field report); these are “self contained” pieces when the reporter’s narration track is edited onto the story (not read live), and often contains a few sound bites from experts, witnesses or authorities. Good packages also make use of natural sound to take the viewer into the story more effectively.

All of the above are usually “turned” for the next newscast, which means anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours to get it written and edited. I’ll add another category here—the SPECIAL REPORT. The audience sees these most often during sweeps weeks for local stations. These resemble a standard package, but are produced over several days or weeks and often have a few more special effects.

Last fall I presented for a group of reporters at the Everett (WA) Herald and in preparing I was hesitant to carry-over these TV designations, but I needed something catchy. Chet Rhodes of WashingtonPost.com is oft-quoted with the three tiers idea, but I would like to take that a step further and provide a bit of a visual hook.

Think about the seating in a concert hall—Balcony, Founders’ Box, Front Orchestra—and for good measure add In-the-Orchestra. If we think of these as the “view” you are giving the audience it works pretty well.

BALCONY: Simply the pictures with a bit of sound underneath if appropriate. Think of the view of a concert when you are sitting in the balcony. You can see and hear, but you don’t get a lot of detail in the experience. In video on the web this is the presentation with some explanation in a caption. Unlike television where there would be a voice-over explanation, the user can read a little more on screen regarding the detail. This aerial fire video from The Spokesman Review is a good example.

FOUNDERS’ BOX: A closer seat where you can get a bit more out of the experience and a little more information. A web video of this type might have sound under video explaining what happened at the scene. Think of a witness describing what happened when the car ran into the store front – over video of the car, broken glass, the store. Or take a look at this video of snow in Seattle – an unusual thing.

This video has a few editing issues, but succeeds in taking you to the sledding hill and getting some advise from the young sliders! Also this Cash for Clunkers fun from the Miami Herald:

FRONT ORCHESTRA: Here you can see the sweat roll down off the face of the performer—you’re in there—hearing everything, seeing detail, it’s very intimate. This is closer to the television package with lots of production value, natural sound, interviews, detail in shots and probably a bit longer— two to three minutes. Other examples from Colin Mulvany of the Spokesman Review. And this one from HV Media Group (don’t be fooled by the credits–there is some nice stuff following):

IN-THE-ORCHESTRA: This might not have the equivalent in television, but I think of this as the report that comes with its own highly detailed web page, maybe with chapter selection, some panoramic views the user may click on, maybe some maps. Not only is the audience in the story, they get to really choose the story they see. Call it “improvising” the score if you will. Just one of the many packages that exemplify this is the One in 8-Million series on the New York Times website. Also see the pieces at MediaStorm for this genre, and this story by Adam Westbrook:

Having a sense of what type of coverage a story needs—what storytelling tools to bring to that story— will go a long way in helping your audience to stay with a story.

Back in in TV-land the viewer usually watches the entire newscast and it is seen as a whole (or a set of quarter-hours by Nielsen). On the web we need to produce pieces that users will watch completely—that means keeping it short when it’s simply view from the balcony. No need to get too detailed sometimes. It means keeping their attention for longer form pieces by telling a compelling story with compelling characters. One of my mentors used to say “make me laugh, make me cry, but make me something!” And finally, the user/viewer will take action if they have been moved. They will make a comment, they will share, they will rate the video and sometimes they will even donate to a cause. And really, didn’t we all get into journalism because in our heart-of-hearts we want to change the world? Even a little piece of it?

If  there’s one thing most solo journalists will agree on, it’s that doing it all on your own requires terrific time management skills. Most people do develop their own strategies eventually, but if you’re new on the job or just looking for a few new ideas, we’ve picked the brains of a whole group of multimedia journalists.

For example, Janie Porter works for WTSP-TV in the Tampa-St. Pete market.  She says you have to take help where you can get it.

Be resourceful – use those curious bystanders to your advantage.  Don’t shoo them away – enlist their help in recruiting interviews, getting directions, etc.

Victoria Lim, a freelance multimedia journalist who will soon be doing investigative reporting for Florida’s Bright House Sports Network, says that you can increase your editing speed by shooting the right type of video while you’re still out in the field.

Close ups close ups close ups.  These get you out of editing jams.  You can never shoot too many of these.

Darren Brown at News9 in Oklahoma City warns against using your video camera as “a giant notepad.”  Instead, you might try interviewing your subject off camera first, so you can ask some key questions and limit what you actually record.

For Jessi Chapin at WMBB-TV in Panama City, FL, a strategy of “backtiming the day” seems to work well.

I set mini-deadlines for myself. For instance, I have my interviews and b-roll done by a certain hour. (For the 10 o’clock, I know 8 p.m. is my drop dead time to be back at the station.)  I do the same for writing and editing.

And at a recent SPJ reporters’ workshop, we got several other great suggestions from participants.

• Pack a lunch!  Make finding food one less thing you have to factor into your day.
• Map your story.  Before you head out, determine the locations for your shoots so you can minimize backtracking and other delays.
• Throw up a second or two of color bars on a video camera or start a new track on an audio recorder immediately after you hear a good sound bite.  That will make it easier to find when you’re logging.
• Record any good ideas you have about framing the story or a good line of copy on your phone, voice mail or audio recorder – that way you won’t forget it while you’re tackling the rest of the story.

Feel free to share your good ideas, too – we’d love to see them posted in the comments.

The benefits for the stations are obvious. Sending one photographer to cover an event for several news organizations at once should save all of them money. The networks have been doing it in Washington, DC, for years. Among the other arguments in favor:

• Video from pre-arranged events like news conferences all looks the same anyway, so there’s really no need to send more than one photographer.
• Stations that participate in pools will have more photographers available to shoot enterprise stories that could make each station’s newscasts more distinctive.

Not everyone is buying it. Emily Barr, news director at WLS-TV in Chicago, is keeping her station out of the pool. She told the Chicago Sun-Times that sharing video could compromise her station’s independence and flexibility. It’s probably no coincidence that WLS is the top-rated station in Chicago. The number one station in Atlanta, WSB-TV, isn’t joining the pool arrangement there, either.

No market has been doing this long enough to measure the real impact on local TV news. But some concerns may be well founded:

• Stations using pools could decide to cut their staff rather than redeploy them to cover other stories. That could make local newscasts even more alike than they are now.
• Stations may decide not to send their own reporters to events that are pooled, so they won’t get any independent coverage.
• Even if reporters are present, they may not be able to use a pool camera to shoot unilateral footage. That’s been a problem in DC for years. In my experience, it was almost impossible to get a second, independent camera sent to a pooled event.

My former colleage at Poynter, Jill Geisler, warns of other hazards, including the possibility that events designed to draw pool coverage will proliferate, as pols and PR types learn how to game the new system.

But video sharing appears to be on the verge of becoming the new normal. Should viewers worry that stations are saving money at the expense of quality ? Or will these collaborations actually improve local TV news?