As one semester dwindles and another looms, I need to tap into the broader intelligence.
Specifically, I’m looking for feedback from journalists, teachers of multimedia and anyone else on content for a first-year news production course I teach each spring semester.
The course started out years ago as 15 weeks of learning newspaper design, Quark, and then inDesign, in some depth. Over the years, bits of multimedia have been added as online journalism took off. Now the course is exclusively about online story-telling. It’s also the students first exposure to doing multimedia journalism.
Last year, students learned through three projects: an audio story, a photographic slideshow with audio (using Soundslides) and, finally, a video. (The results are here should anyone care to look; fixing the website — which was broken when the site was hacked and the updated WordPress theme changed the way it dealt with front page images — is one of several projects for semester break.)
I chose those three because of the logic of the progression: start with sound, add images and then onto moving images.
For the coming semester, I’m thinking of abandoning the audio project, partly because students get a full semester of audio in their second year and partly because the basic skills of gathering and editing audio can be covered during slideshow and video production.
So, wise reader, what should I replace the audio assignment with? Should I try and hit other aspects of visual journalism (mapping, etc.)? Blend in the interactive, word-based journalism that Twitter and live blogging make possible? Begin to deal with the packaging of bits and pieces through Flash?
Any and all ideas are welcome. You could e-mail me or respond on Twitter, but if you leave your ideas in the comments, we can all share and learn.
Thanks.
Tags: audio, journalism, Multimedia, slidehows, teaching, Video, visual journalism
Daniel:
Thanks. I had lost track of Rob’s post; it really is helpful.
Mark
Mark,
Long-time reader, first-time emailer. As a wet-behind the ears web editor at a small daily, I wish that more reporters (and editors) understood that multimedia can be more than audio slideshows and video. While it would be great to teach map mashups, database journalism, flash and the like, perhaps those are too great in scope to go along with what you already have in a 15 week course.
Perhaps some info on other new media options for multimedia could be taught (geared more towards reporters).
The following two posts touch on how reporters have embraced new media (in the first case, without really using a still or video camera).
http://robcurley.com/2009/11/0.....ival-plan/
http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/.....long-tail/
Good idea for the web presentation. I could start that way and then work into the individual content.
I would start with a multimedia web presentation. I could be graphical or image based, but with text and some kind of interactive element. I think this is one of the most exciting areas of journalism right now.
Boris:
Great stuff. I can see a load of potential there.
And thanks, too, for the words on Flash. Javascript is definitely something I need to look more closely at when it comes to tying bits of a story package together.
Mark
If it’s about online storytelling, then what about the other half, which is using online to “source” material. I’d say crowd sourcing, except it’s not exactly that either.
I’ll give you an example. I was emailed (then called) by a CBC journalist. They were looking for examples about a topic I know something about. I had one weak example close at hand, but was sure that my “community” would have more examples.
I asked if they had the ability to write up a blog post (as you have here) that I could share a link to, where people could add comments. The link could spread throughout the network.
The person laughed, and said no, they were old school, and couldn’t possible post a blog post. CBC’s “Spark” comes to mind as a great example of this, but I think it is equally valid whatever the final output.
So, leveraging online networks to source material?
Re: Flash. No, no and no. Every piece of content should be a content that is separately addressable (i.e. should have a permalink). Flash jumbles that all together. Javascript slideshows are a better option, since they allow for permalinks.
Thanks, Stefan. And I agree that good audio is the key to so much visual storytelling.
Mark,
I would be wary about not teaching audio as a separate entity. The best videos and movies are those which have nailed sound editing to a T.
But that said, if your students get more in the second year, I would definitely focus on location and mapping. Visual clues to how things connect really help the context of any story.
That’s my two cents.
Thanks.