February 20, 2008 • 7:39 am 3
For my talk on multiplatform science reporting for the Knight science journalism symposium, I prepared a cheatsheet on how to successfully produce a multimedia story.
It goes over the need for planning, collaboration, innovation and interaction, and offers some tips on the use of video and data.
Download the cheatsheet here (PDF)
Filed under: education, internet, multimedia, multiplatform journalism , advice, cheatsheet, tips
November 12, 2007 • 10:50 am 5
Farewell then, BBCNews.com. As from today, the BBC News website no longer exists as an autonomous, editorial unit within the BBC.
Instead the BBC has created a multimedia newsroom, integrating output across TV, radio and online.
On the BBC Editors’ Blog, Peter Horrocks explains the rationale for the decision, arguing:
We have a new system that allows the great strengths of each of our editorial areas to create an even stronger editorial proposition.
Horrocks wants to know what you think, asking: “As a consumer of BBC News on the web, do you expect it to cover the same stories as BBC News on TV and radio?”
The problem is that this is the wrong question.
Filed under: BBC, broadcast, multiplatform journalism , Horrocks
October 18, 2007 • 4:53 am 2
Among all the coverage of the BBC job cuts, there is also news on the issue of advertising on BBCNews.com.
Slipped into the bottom of the MediaGuardian story on the cuts is a small paragraph:
The BBC deputy director general, Mark Byford, also confirmed that the BBC Trust has given approval for advertisements on BBC.com
There was an air of inevitability about this. BBC Worldwide has been trying to push this through for more than a year, and BBC News were tempted by the prospect of additional funds. It means that international readers of the BBC News website will have to get used to ads surrounding the news. Pre-roll ads are already running on BBC News video.
UPDATE: The BBC Editors’ blog has a post explaing the rationale for the advertising. The ads will start appearing on high-traffic pages from next month. The comments make for interesting reading, with many unhappy about seeing the commercialisation of the news on the BBC.
The irony is that many people now use plugins like AdBlock Plus to strip out the ads.
Filed under: blogs, multiplatform journalism, online , BBCNews.com advertising
September 25, 2007 • 9:39 am 1
Lists are always popular online, but this one by Paul Bradshaw on how to be a journalism student is useful too.
Top of the list is “Read the news.” This echoes what we tell our students at the UBC School of Journalism. As an incentive, we test the students on their knowledge of current affairs in a weekly news quiz, which is run more as a TV game show than as a serious test.
As Mindy McAdams commented on the list, curiosity is key. To succeed as a journalist, you have to engage with the world with a desire to find out something new.
I would make one addition to the list and that is flexibility. Today’s journalism students are entering an industry in transition. The likelihood of spending your entire career working just in newspapers or television are slim. Instead, today’s journalism students need to be able to adapt to changing circumstances and news demands, working across print, audio, video or online.
At the start of term, I ask my students to list the qualities they think they need to succeed as a journalist. This year, flexibility was up there with traditional skills associated with journalism.
Filed under: academics, education, journalism, media, multiplatform journalism
September 21, 2007 • 12:22 pm 0
Last week’s Future of Newspapers conference in Cardiff didn’t generate as much online coverage as similar conventions tend to do in the US. One of the few people providing updates was Paul Bradshaw via Twitter alerts. But then, there is only so much you can get into 140 words.
He did write a piece for the UK Press Gazette, picking up on two of the presentations. The original draft of the story, on Paul’s blog, led with comments by Jane Singer.
She argued that the current mass market, ad-driven model for newspapers was an historical anomaly and that now we were going through a process Singer called ‘punctuated equilibrium’.
We don’t need journalists to cover minutiae, to spend so much time on things they don’t need to be doing, like sports scores, and press releases, and acting as a ‘middle man’ between a source and their audience. We need journalists to put information into context, to do it without fear or favour.
This gets to the heart of how journalists add value to information. A journalist should be explaining the how and why of a story. In an age of an abundance of information, context is all.
Filed under: academics, education, journalism, multimedia, multiplatform journalism , context, future of newspapers conference, history of newspapers, UK Press Gazette
September 19, 2007 • 9:32 am 1
One of the pressing issues for the news industry is training. Many journalists simply do not have the skills needed in an Internet age, so the Knight Foundation is investing more than US$6 million in preparing reporters and editors for a digital world.
The money is going to the Knight Digital Media Center, based at two universities in Los Angeles. $2.8 million is going to the University of California, Berkeley to enable it to offer more multimedia workshops and $2.4 million to the University of Southern California for leadership workshops and special topic seminars for journalists.
The foundation is giving an additional US$1.5 million grant to help NPR gear up for its expansion into digital news.
Having been involved in some of the training sessions organised by the Knight Digital Media Center, this funding is welcomed news. Earlier this year, a study by the Knight Foundation, Investing in the Future of News (PDF), found that fewer outlets are investing in the future of news, with nine out of 10 journalists saying they needed more training.
With the challenges journalism is facing, more news organisations should be investing in training, rather than cutting back on budgets.
Filed under: education, innovation, internet, journalism, multimedia, multiplatform journalism, new media
September 14, 2007 • 2:37 pm 1
A key skill for journalists in an Internet age is knowing how to evaluate online news sources. This was part of the focus of this week’s class in multiplatform journalism at the UBC School of Journalism.
There are five criteria to consider:
The Virtual Chase, a research learning site aimed at legal professionals, offers a handy one-page guide with examples.
A powerful online tool to find out who is behind a site is the Whois registration information of a web domain. There are many Whois services to choose from, but I recommend DomainTools as it provides the registration information as well as a host of other data related to the website.
If you have other ways of unmasking the owners behind a website, please add a comment.
Filed under: education, internet, journalism, multiplatform journalism, online
September 12, 2007 • 9:05 pm 5
Here is a list of essential online tools for journalists that I’ve handed out to my multiplatform journalism students at the University of British Columbia:
RSS software
Macs:
Windows:
Online RSS feed readers
Personalized news pages
Blog aggregators:
News alerts:
Webpage archiving:
Web 2.0 tools:
Journalism resources:
Any other suggestions? Please leave a comment.
Filed under: Canada, Web 2.0, academics, education, internet, journalism, multiplatform journalism
September 5, 2007 • 1:11 pm 0
Today was the first day of our redesigned core course at the UBC School of Journalism in Vancouver. Entitled Multiplatform Journalism, it seeks to instruct the students in the key intellectual and practical skills they will need to operate as a professional journalist in a multimedia industry.
The course aims to move away from training the students for jobs as a print journalist or as a radio journalist. Instead we are training the students to be journalists, to learn and understand how to tell stories using all media to their fullest potential.
This video with Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jennifer Lin sums up why this kind of journalism education is needed. She has been a reporter for 25 years but recently realised that if “I don’t update my skills, I’m going to be obsolete.”
Her advice to students: “If you want to be a journalist, if you want to be a newspaper reporter, you need to know not only how to write stories, but tell stories visually … this is the future.”
(Via The X Degree)
Filed under: internet, journalism, multimedia, multiplatform journalism, video
July 24, 2007 • 12:45 pm 2
Students heading into journalism school this autumn should get their hands on a new textbook, offered for free at the Knight Citizen News Network website.
“Journalism 2.0″ by journalist Mark Briggs from the News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington, is available as a PDF download.
It is next on my list to read, covering subjects such as reporting for the web, podcasting, shooting photos and video and an introduction to Web 2.0 technologies.
Given that it is available gratis, there is no excuse for students not to have this on their reading list.
Filed under: Web 2.0, broadcast, citizen journalism, journalism, multimedia, multiplatform journalism, newspapers, podcast
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