Study abroad- journalism

I just found out today that I am officially accepted to the Fall 2012 study abroad program in Buenos Aires, Argentina! I am in a few classes, but the program is mostly internship based. By the end of the semester, you gain experience at multiple journalism outlets in the city. Hopefully, I will be working with magazines and possibly a few PR organizations taking photos, writing and designing. Working in an international environment in another language will be an entirely new experience– and it will be an important time to remember the things I learned in cross cultural journalism last year.

For anyone interested in internships abroad, the kind of experience they offer, and the short and long term benefits, this is a good website to take a look at:

http://www.projects-abroad.org/projects/journalism/

Additionally, here is the link to the program I’m participating in:

http://www.mujournalismabroad.com/buenos-aires.html

Working in a completely foreign environment in another language will definitely teach me a new side of journalism that I can’t learn anywhere else. I’m excited to work with people of a different culture, as well as learn more about the working world of journalism.

Infographics

Infographics are becoming more and more common these days, for purposes as serious as educating the public about a serious virus called Stuxnet that can be used as a weapon…

…to things as silly/frivolous as breaking down where and when smartphones are lost all over the world (nearly $30 billion worth per year!)

 

Point is, it’s a niche market for potential students to enter. It’s becoming a more highly sought after skill that can really enhance your portfolio and make you more hirable. It costs less than hiring an entire crew to film an action video, and costs less then sending a photographer to a faraway location to shoot photos. It’s a new way of sharing information that is concise, visual, and attention grabbing. There are many tools on the internet to help out potential infographic makers– even infographic generators that can be downloaded from a quick Google search.

Whether you’re stumbling across inspiration on Pinterest, where infographics are becoming increasingly popular, or seeking them out on news websites, it is important to familiarize yourself with this emerging news format. Daily Infographic can be a good place to go once a day to get some ideas!

http://dailyinfographic.com/

Ice Cream with a Local Flair

It’s hard to miss Sparky’s ice cream on 9th street: painted neon green with its unmistakeable neon bulldog sign, it has been around for quite some time. But local resident and MU student Megan Shaffer says it isn’t as well known as one might think.

Having grown up in Columbia, Shaffer has been ordering her favorite flavor– cookies and cream– regularly at Sparky’s since she started coming with friends in high school.

“Their ice cream is great, and I come here as often as I can,” Shaffer said.

But Shaffer says that she is often surprised when fellow MU students have not heard of the store.

“I think it’s actually more of a local spot,” Shaffer said. “Whenever I talk to people at MU about it, they never know where I’m talking about.”

Shaffer isn’t quite sure why students she talks with haven’t heard of it. Her one guess? The artwork.

“I’m always really creeped out by all the weird paintings they have,” Shaffer said, laughing.

Despite the bizarre art, the same thing keeps drawing her back: a tasty scoop of cookies and cream.

Techniques in Mobile Journalism

Valerie Gimenez says that

“If 2011 was the year the importance of mobile journalism became clear, 2012 will be the year when the media stop thinking that simply using cell phones for news gathering is enough.”

In her article on why shooting with your cell phone just isn’t enough for mobile journalism, Gimenez says there is more than one way to employ these techniques. Proven effective and essential in the right setting– such as the Chilean coal mine incident– mobile journalism is a new facet to the ever-changing field. But convenience and the ability to broadcast live should not be exchanged for laziness! Here are some techniques she offers to bring more to the table with mobile journalism:

– Microblogging is the new narrative: Espinosa has “no doubt that microblogging is the new narrative for mobile coverage.” In other words, mobile journalists should always include dedicated hashtags or plan other ways to interact with microblogging services.

Espinosa says mobile journalists, or mojos, should craft messages within the 140-character limit set by Twitter, including the title of the video or audio of the mobile report. At the same time, headlines or titles should also be search-friendly so viewers can find them easily.

– Harness community feedback: Espinosa recommends hashtag planning to “direct viewer contributions while out in the field.”

He gives the example of Susan Moran, a journalist who covered the police revolt in Ecuador with her Nokia E71, whose followers served as a compass while she covered the dangerous situation. When she got trapped in a bathroom in the crossfire, hashtags helped her know what to report beyond what everyone was publishing and refine what people wanted to know at that moment, Espinosa said.

– Save time by using geolocation. Make use of your smart phone’s GPS function to find sources discussing the issue who are in the area where the news is breaking. Do it right, Espinosa says, and you can pinpoint potential sources before you even arrive on the scene.

– Have a distribution plan. Like any other kind of news today, mobile journalism coverage should be ready to cross platforms. Think in terms of distributing your information to everyone. That means including the people who can read only text messages — not just those who are using iPads, Espinosa says.

Google as a monopoly?

The debate keeps resurfacing as to whether or not Google is a monopoly. Can an online monopoly even exist if competition is just a few clicks away? New York Times continues to explore the issue, and I think it’s an especially important one in the context of multimedia journalism. If Google– or any other search engine for that matter– chooses to direct search engine traffic where they see fit, then it certainly influences the flow of information. In this case they obviously want to keep internet traffic within their own company’s interest, which makes sense– but should antitrust regulations apply here to prevent that? Not sure where I stand on the issue, but I think it’s definitely an important one to keep track of.

Here’s the article:

The article “Sure, It’s Big. But Is That Bad?” written for The New York Times by Brad Stone details regulators’ antitrust concerns over the giant Google. Referencing similar hype in the 1990’s over antitrust concerns of “high-tech heavyweight” Microsoft, the article examines the search engine Google in the debate over whether or not it is a monopoly. Claims of algorithms formulated to keep search traffic within Google have surfaced, such as those by the company Foundem, a shopping comparison website. Critics claim that Google favors its properties over every other site on the web, thereby enforcing their own monopoly and attempting to control traffic where they see fit. Simply put: they want to control internet traffic. For that reason, it’s just as important an issue as any for journalists to pay attention to, even if it may seem like economics talk!

More video

I’ve just been exploring some more multimedia/video lately to familiarize myself, and a cause I’ve always cared a lot about recently released a new video. Invisible Children has created multiple multimedia pieces– truly multimedia in that not only do they use video, audio, music, and still photo, but also a mix-up of various artwork.

Here’s their newest piece:

While not exactly journalistic because they are obviously trying to sway the audience to one side (not that it’s hard to get there), I think their content is usually pretty great. It does get a bit dramatic at times, but I think that is obviously the effect they are going for so I wouldn’t even necessarily consider that a criticism. I think it’s really interesting how the take such an interactive approach. Again, this obviously would not work for most forms of journalism, but for their purposes of getting the audience involved and active in their cause, I think it is a really effective and interesting technique. By speaking to the audience and informing them that they are already a part of this movement, the makers of the Invisible Children multimedia make their work that much more powerful.

Video

This week we’re shooting video, which I haven’t done much of before. I know how to work final cut pretty well, so I’m more worried about the actual filming process. I wanted to figure out how to film so that the transitions would seem more natural- as a photographer, the idea of filming continuous motion but still jumping around and showing different angles is hard for me! Here was a good site:

http://www.mediacollege.com/video/editing/transition/

It tells you to ask some main questions before you start:

• What do you intend to achieve with the transition?
• Do the shots fit comfortably together?
• Does the transition make sense, or is if confusing?
• Does it progress the story?

It’s also a big challenge for me working with a tripod. I’m used to making still images, which grants me the freedom of movement without worrying about jolting the camera around or making shaking video that will throw off the audience. You can’t always quite get a tripod to the height or angle that you desire, so it’s a big challenge for me going from the total freedom of working with still to constantly needing something to stabilize the camera. Hopefully I’ll get used to it!

Finally, here are some tripod tips:

http://vimeo.com/videoschool/lesson/110/tripod-tricks

MediaStorm

I’ve mentioned MediaStorm in previous posts, but it was put together by a Mizzou alum. The idea behind it is running a small company with a diverse staff that can provide all the services needed to create a media piece. Despite its small size, they are constantly receiving work requests from companies and non-profits. Part of that reason is they high-quality, journalistic work they turn out. Brian Storm has been to Mizzou to speak multiple times, and he operates his company on the belief that there is still a demand out there for longer-form, in-depth journalism; the platform is just changing. People still crave as much information as before, they just want to handed to them in different ways. So MediaStorm and their staff do just that.

A great example of the work they do is this following piece by Walter Astrada. I got to see Walter Astrada speak last semester about his work all over the world. He’s constantly in high-conflict war areas, and puts himself in dangerous situations to get the best and most informative content possible.  Among many other things, he has produced the piece” Undesired,” for which he has received a ton of recognition and praise. It is about the attitude towards women in India, and apart from being a great story, the technical flow of the audio, video and beautiful photos make it a great example of convergence journalism. Take a look:

Undesired

Audio Usage in Multimedia

With our soundslides project coming up, I think that the ethical use of music in multimedia is an important issue to discuss. In foundations of photojournalism and in advanced techniques in photojournalism, this was a frequent topic of debate.

One thing is generally agreed on- if the music was gathered at the scene, such as ambient audio, it is absolutely fair game. But what about the added music we’re seeing more and more frequently in the background of journalistic pieces? Here’s an article from Poynter that makes a few good points:

http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/newsgathering-storytelling/94672/music-in-multimedia-add-sparingly-not-as-a-crutch/

Some highlights:

“More and more, photojournalists who would never add anything to an image are adding prerecorded music to news stories. Click on a video or audio slideshow on a news site, and under the narration or natural sound, you’ll often hear music. Documentaries and television journalists do it all time.”

One fear the author points out: “Music has power, and within a multimedia story, it has the power to hide a lot of flaws: to make a story move faster, to set an emotional tone for a piece. “The problem is not that music doesn’t work, it’s that it works too well,” said Al Tompkins, Poynter’s broadcast and online group leader.”

I think this is a very well thought out argument. I would say that it is generally my opinion that music is used as a crutch in a multimedia piece, it is un-journalistic in that it adds something that was not there that could potentially change the emotions/opinions surrounding the issue. However, there will always be exceptions– if the music was gathered at the scene, if the music is part of the subject matter, or if the piece is cultural and the music is used to add another layer rather than change the mood.

Audio/Video

I’ve worked with Audacity and Final Cut Pro a few times in Advanced photo-J as well at the fundamentals course before that, but I’m hoping to iron out a lot of the kinks and problems I had when I worked on pieces at those times.

Over time working with the programs, I’ve gotten a lot better at creating smoother audio, but I still need to work on transitions. I’ve finally learned the best place to make cuts, but I often forget to collect enough ambient sound in order to make the gaps between cuts sound more natural, so I’ll be sure to collect enough this time. I also need to learn to fade in and out the noise so the transitions aren’t too harsh or abrupt.

As for video, I have had lots of problems in the past with exporting via final cut pro. Part of the problem traces back to setting things up incorrectly, so I need to keep following step by step guides until I memorize it all correctly. This results in lower definition video than I seem to be working with within final cut, as well as muted colors. I need to remember to render. Mostly, I need to make sure my original settings on my camera– when taking the video itself– are correct. In my final project for foundations of photo-j, I forgot to make the video high-definition enough to look consistent with my photos. In the Nostalgiaville USA piece, you will see an example of this. The photos are crisp and clear but the video interview is pixelated and stretched because not enough information was recorded on my sensor to begin with.

Here are two video examples of mine that also illustrate collected audio, as well as the problems I mentioned about:

Nostalgiaville USA- http://vimeo.com/35983847

Interview- http://vimeo.com/32992209