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Meet your new (Apple) mojo kit

September 2, 2010 in Multimedia views, Tech Talk

hd_video_snapshot20100901

Update: Damon Kiesow responds at Poynter (see below).

Apple held their fall product announcement event yesterday. The iPod lineup got a complete makeover. The biggest announcement from a journalistic perspective – hands down – was the addition of video/still cameras to the iPod Touch.

While the Droid X and other Android phones duke it out with the iPhone for supremacy in terms of mobile phones, the iPod Touch has languished in development until now.

The addition of the HD cameras (both front and rear-facing) make it perfect for a journalist on the go who either doesn’t want to pay a monthly surcharge for data rates on a mobile plan, or doesn’t want to switch providers because of Apple’s AT&T exclusivity.

The downside, of course, is that the cost of the iPod Touch went up a bit.

The new features will be useful for students at the University of Missouri and other j-schools who are “required” to purchase one.

Engadget has a hands-on review of the new iPod Touch.

Update with comment: Kiesow notes the paltry quality of the back still camera and lack of GPS on the new iPod Touch:

However, the back still camera is a paltry 960 x 720 pixels (.69 megapixels), which is far less than the 5-megapixel camera included on the iPhone 4. Of some lesser concern, the iPod Touch does not include a GPS radio, so location sensing is handled by identifying the WiFi networks the device can detect. That is not necessarily an issue for actual news gathering, but it does mean you would need an additional device (GPS or cell phone) to meet any location or navigation needs.

These are certainly valid points. I suppose I’m seeing more of an attraction for college journalists who lack the resources to pay for a full-featured iPhone + mobile plan (or young journalists just starting out who would like to eat more than Ramen noodles on a beginning salary). As Damon mentions, the GPS issue is less mission-critical for actual news gathering. And, I imagine the camera will be upgraded in future editions (hopefully).

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Random quote: Ira Glass on comments

July 18, 2010 in industry news, Multimedia views

Ira Glass of This American Life giving a lectu...
Image via Wikipedia

“I don’t find it very comforting that there’s like a world of people who don’t agree with my feelings about my own show, but that’s okay with me. Like, I don’t have to feel good about that.

I feel like, you know, you make something, you put it out in the world and you want people to have feelings about it, and the feelings can include, they hate you and that seems okay. And the fact that they get to say it and it gets to stick to my name, I feel like even that seems okay.”

Ira Glass on comments in an interview with “On the Media”

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Now you can know the future of media!

June 9, 2010 in General Media, industry news, Multimedia views

Yesterday, the folks who run I Want Media (which I get in a digest form every day) held (yet another) panel discussion about The Future Of Media: 2010. Panel participants were: Dan Abrams, NBC News legal analyst; Josh Cohen, Google News senior business product manager; David Eun, AOL Media president; Jonathan Geller, Boy Genius Report founder and editor; Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post founder; Cindi Leive, Glamour editor in chief; and James Pitaro, Yahoo Media VP. I Want Media Founding Editor Patrick Phillips was the moderator. Here’s the video of the event (if you want to skip the boring introductions, you can skip to the 7:00 mark) :

Watch live streaming video from iwantmediatv at livestream.com
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Opening up Pandora’s box

February 24, 2010 in consulting, hope for the future, Multimedia views, Training

compRecently, I was on a plane flying back to St. Louis from a two-day workshop at The Daily Toreador at Texas Tech. (I say 2-day – thanks to the airlines and the weather, it was a little less, but that’s a story for another time).

Thinking back on it, I just realized the feeling I usually get when I do these workshops – it’s like opening Pandora’s box. Because I never just talk about audio or video. I always walk through all the other free and easy to use online tools that are available to tell a story online.

I’m so used to seeing all these tools and seeing possibilities to use them that I guess they almost seem mundane in a way.

but when I unpack them in front of a group of students who have never seen an online timeline, or known how easy it is to create a map or edit a piece of audio, I get a glimpse of the magnitude of the vista that is out there for some young journalist who wants to explore online storytelling. It can be intimidating.

That’s why I always repeat the advice I first gave several years ago – pick one thing and learn how to do it well. Don’t worry about the entire river, just find one current to surf for a while. After you’ve got a handle on that, then move to something else.

Everyone will settle on something different, but the crucial part is to get going.

This weekend, I’ll be in Phoenix for ACP’s National College Journalism Convention preaching the multimedia gospel again.

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Video camera guidelines: how much money?

February 4, 2010 in Multimedia views, Tech Talk

The Canon Vixia HF200

The Canon Vixia HF200

A couple of weeks ago,  I wrote a post about video cameras. In the comments to that post, Kathleen Flores, adviser at UT-El Paso, wrote:

I’m considering the Sanyo Xacti. It is only $160 but has no microphone/headphone inputs. I want to get something inexpensive so that I can purchase at least four or five cameras and equipment (I could make a mojo kit for $250) to make them accessible for our students. Has anyone used these or have any other suggestions. I would rather get more students doing some basic multimedia than just one or two using the more expensive equipment. Whenever a new student wants to use our more expensive equipment, I always shudder and hope they take care of it. I was thinking that this route would encourage more experimentation and participation.

I don’t have any personal experience with that camera, but I do want to reiterate my personal preference in the quantity vs. quality debate as it regards video equipment: where possible, try to do both.

Budgets being what they are, it’s sometimes impossible to purchase both prosumer and consumer quality cameras. But if it is possible, I’d recommend purchasing some consumer-level cameras for reporters to take out into the field and experiment with, and then get a couple of higher-end prosumer cameras for the photography staff, and people who really seem dedicated to exploring video online. The amount of control over the quality of the images and sound is vastly different between the two.

This is similar to the iMovie vs. Final Cut (use your imagination for the PC equivalent) debate. You can learn quite a lot with iMovie, and for most breaking news or quick turnaround work, it’s a fine product. But if someone is really interested in video, a higher-end editing package is a worthwhile investment.

Thoughts?

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Moving beyond breaking news multimedia: now is the time to plan

January 8, 2010 in management, Multimedia views

students

As the new semester begins, I want to encourage you who are working with online/multimedia in your college newsroom to begin the process of planning to move beyond the quick-hit multimedia package this semester.

I try to encourage our multimedia staff at dennews.com to think about two enterprise packages that they could put together over the course of a semester that would really address serious issues of concern to students, faculty and staff.

I’m not talking about the “meet the SGA candidates” package, or the sports season preview, or a year-in-review audio slideshow. No, I mean enterprise, something that takes real digging, journalistic effort, and a team of talented journalists to pull off.

Last semester I put this assignment to my online journalism class. We brainstormed ideas about a month before the end of the semester. I posed the question this way: “What are some really difficult issues that students struggle with here?” Eastern is a pretty typical college campus, so I could probably name some topics you could use:

  • Alcohol/drug abuse
  • Employment prospects upon graduation
  • Juggling work and school
  • Sexuality/relationships
  • Minorities/race relations
  • Faith on campus
  • LBGT issues
  • Military/War issues (students who will serve or have served)
  • Students who are also parents
  • Unwanted pregnancy
  • Mental health/stress issues
  • University impact on town politics

The three teams of students in my online journalism class came up with some pretty good work once they focused on their topic.

I would suggest you take one or two of those topics (or a similarly meaty topic) and break the topic apart into smaller stories, just like if you were going to produce a series of stories for the print/broadcast product. Depending on how many people you have to work with, you could shoot for three, five, or seven different angles/stories.

Then, with each of those smaller stories, figure out how you can present those stories using the unique attributes of the web – timelines, video, audio stories, audio slideshows, animated graphics, databases, maps, etc.

Then start assigning those multimedia elements to a team of people on your staff. Figure out what kind of time, equipment they may need to get each of the parts done. Give them deadlines several weeks into the future. Set a date certain for when the project will be posted online. Check up on their progress. Work on the layout for the “package.”

The point of this is that an enterprise multimedia project is going to take time to produce, just like any significant piece of journalism. And once you get into the flow of the day-to-day of producing a daily or weekly printed product and putting all those one-off multimedia projects together, you’re not going to have the time to come up with a good project, plan it out, budget personnel, and get the work done.

Now is the time to plan for those projects. And when you get them done, let us know so we can share your success with the rest of the college journalism world.

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New School Year: Changes coming to the Daily Eastern News

August 18, 2009 in management, Multimedia views

This week, student journalists at the Daily Eastern News at Eastern Illinois University will begin an experiment to reconfigure the newsroom to better deal with the online future of news.

It’s something I’ve talked about a lot here: getting the copy desk and editors to put stories online, freeing up the online staff to focus on web-only content. Getting print reporters to gather links and prepare their stories with the online component in mind. But the timing for a transition in the newsroom hasn’t been right, until this year.

The online staff, senior editors, and I will lead the entire staff through training in writing blogs, posting items to the dennews.com site, and thinking more about how to add depth to stories through multimedia.

Training sessions begin tomorrow and continue Thursday. We’ll see how things go in the coming weeks and months, but it’s an exciting transition.

I know several student papers have already made this transition. We tried to do this when I first arrived, but the staff wasn’t quite ready. There’s a saying about leading a horse to water that applies here. But the future won’t wait forever, and hopefully this is the time.

We’re still pushing along with College Publisher 4 for the time being, so it’s going to be a little bit more involved than I’d hope.

I’ll update as the semester goes along.

Now if I could only convince them to get rid of the “Daily” in the masthead.


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SEC goes with teh stupid: tells fans they can’t tweet

August 14, 2009 in Multimedia views, social media

SEC Logo

Image via Wikipedia

I continue to think that there is only so much stupid that can be brought to bear in the world of big-time college athletics. Sadly, the SEC is the latest to disprove my theory. (props to Jay Rosen @jayrosen_nyu on Twitter, for the head’s up)

Ticketed fans can’t “produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the Event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event … .”

The SEC is getting some blowback for their policy. Not from the media, but from fans. If I were a fan paying premium prices to watch the tenant-farm system that is big-time college athletics, I’d be miffed too.

Of course, this isn’t the first, nor will it be the last, episode in the continuing series of “college athletics attempts to deny reality.” The NCAA has propagated the stupid for a couple of years now related to journalists reporting from games.

Now that one of their own has turned their attention to the fans, will there be some sort of “grasp of the obvious” coming from the heads of various sports entities? I doubt it.

To be clear, we haven’t seen this kind of push back from the NCAA at EIU, since we’re not in the conference with the big time money deals with major networks. Thankfully, we can practice new media coverage so far.

But rather than just castigate the SEC for their stupidity and short-sightedness, here’s a proposition for how to make lemonade out of the new media lemons you think you’ve been given: create a place on your site, or the site of your corporate broadcast overlords, where fans can upload their videos, tweets, whatever, to add to the texture of the games. In other words – surf with the wave, not against it.

Why does this seem so hard for some to get?


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e-reporting: the good, the bad and the ugly

March 2, 2009 in industry news, Multimedia views

iChat AVImage via Wikipedia

In the midst of a good article for student journalists about the perils of “e-reporting,” Mike Heistand of the Student Press Law Center notes the following:

Despite its growing popularity, some veteran journalists scoff at interviews and research conducted entirely by “e-reporting,” arguing — I think somewhat persuasively — that email and other forms of written, electronic communication miss the nuances, depth and spontaneity of an in-person interview. Even telephone interviews allow a reporter to hear changes in the speaker’s tone or voice inflection that e-mail and its close cousins don’t pick up very well. A written, “Of course he did it” is much different from the same statement when said sarcastically or with a chuckle.

The fact that written communication lacks the nuance of an in-person encounter is hardly surprising, news, or unique to computer-mediated communication.

The problems of vocal inflection and nonverbal cues have been known for quite some time (If you’d like an example, just study the arguments people have over the potential use of sarcasm in texts from the Christian Bible).

I cringe when “veteran journalists scoff” about new means of reporting. Sure, there are perils with using e-mail or instant messaging for an interview, and an in-person interview is the sine qua non of interviewing, but in-person interviews aren’t always possible, whether because of time constaints or distance.

I’ve interviewed people by instant messaging, e-mail, phone, face-to-face, and video chat. Nothing beats the ability to see the subject’s expression. But again, that isn’t always possible.

My general rule of thumb: synchronous communication whenever possible (either via telephonic means – skype or phone – or IM), and asynchronous communication when not possible (e-mail). Whatever means I use, I record the conversation, either by chat transcript or by recording the audio or video for future reference. The key thing to me is getting a record, so there’s no question of context or “misquoting.”

Fortunately, modern computer technology allows a bridge to fill the telephonic/written gap – videoconferencing via iChat or Skype. Of course, it takes some time to train some sources to understand these new, promising tools. But it is usually worth the effort.

Perhaps more journalists will begin using these means to conduct face-to-face interviews via Internet means.

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An ultimate(?) online journalism list

February 17, 2009 in Multimedia views

UPDATED AGAIN: Added a few from comments, and reorganized Twitter higher up the list.

Okay, so this has probably been attempted before, but I’m working through some notes for upcoming conferences, and just wanted to post this list here for additions and comments. Here’s what I’ve got so far as far as potential areas for online additions to your college media web site. Anything I’m missing? It’s sort of built from simplest to more complex. Ideas?

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