You’re working on an exclusive story for tonight and the Web and social media team wants a piece of it, hours before air. Should you share? If you thought that question had been laid to rest years ago, think again. In some newsrooms, the answer still is, “It depends.” Brandon Mercer, news director at KTXL [...]
by Geoff Roth, executive producer, KRIV, Houston Last year our news director challenged everyone to come up with new ideas for our newscasts. One suggestion I made was to recruit bloggers from the Houston community to do pieces on restaurants, lifestyle, and the arts. His response” Great idea. Why don’t you go out and do [...]
Of course you have video on your website. Doesn’t everyone? But what is it, exactly? Putting TV clips on the Web is a no-brainer, says NBC News chief digital officer Vivian Schiller, but it’s not a game changer. What is? No one really knows yet, but there’s lots of experimentation underway. Schiller told the Beet-TV [...]
The iPhone has become an essential part of many if not most journalists’ tool kits, in part because so many free or low-cost apps make it easier to report with an iPhone than other smart phones. We’ve written about some of these apps before, but not lately, and things obviously change fast. So it was a pleasure [...]
It’s a map. It’s a timeline. It’s photos and video and text and links. But that’s not all you get from the new online tool Meograph. You can also add a voice-over to tell a complete story, with the bells and whistles providing context–the fourth dimension, according to the founders. Other tools, like Vuvox, provide similar [...]
Darren Durlach left television almost two years ago to try something new. He’d won two consecutive NPPA TV Photographer of the Year awards and, unbeknownst to him, was on the verge of winning a third. He’s now senior multimedia producer at the Boston Globe, where he shoots and edits stories both alone and in collaboration [...]
It’s no secret that television newsrooms are expecting more production from everyone on staff. And there’s nothing really new about reporters being expected to file multiple times a day for multiple outlets. Heck, I did that 30 years ago at CBS, filing for radio and TV. But a recent story on TVNewsCheck about this new reality [...]
by Holly Edgell When I graduated from Michigan State University in 1990 with a bachelor’s in newspaper journalism, I had a vague sense that I might like to dabble in broadcasting as well. I’d done a radio internship and really liked it. I was not overly excited about newspapers. The message from professors, career counselors and recruiters was uniform: [...]
Lots of news stories are here today, gone tomorrow. But many come back again and again, stories that have twists and turns, a history and new developments that need to be reported. Here’s one example: A crime, an investigation, an arrest, a trial and a verdict. Now consider how those stories are most often covered [...]
Working alone in the field can be a challenge, but it’s a challenge that Michelle Michael has mastered. Since 2003, she’s been shooting, writing and editing her own stories for the US Armed Forces Network. This year, she won the NPPA Solo Video Journalist of the Year award. What’s her advice to other one-man-bands? “If [...]
“Everyone should have a smartphone in the future; it’s baseline gear,” says Damon Kiesow, senior product manager at Boston.com. Speaking at the Excellence in Journalism convention in New Orleans, Kiesow said newsrooms have to get more “intentional and strategic” when it comes to mobile. “It doesn’t work to just go buy 20 iPhones and tell the reporters [...]
The Murrow Award for writing “demonstrates excellence in writing that conveys the feeling and significance of events to the listener or viewer.” That’s the goal of great storytelling, isn’t it? To help make the news matter. Last year’s national winner in the small market TV category was Jason Lamb of KTUU in Anchorage, AK. In [...]
Too many TV stories use graphics as filler, when there’s no obvious video available to cover a track. Full screens of text and numbers aren’t very attractive but they’re better than a black hole, right? If that’s how you’ve thought about graphics in the past, you need to think again, especially when it comes to [...]
You’ve written a story for the Web or a post for a blog and you need to add an image or a related video. If you didn’t take a photo or shoot footage yourself, what are your options? The Internet is a treasure trove of multimedia but it’s important to make sure that what you [...]
Forgive me for tooting my own horn, but I’m pleased to announce the publication of the second edition of my book, Advancing the Story: Broadcast Journalism in a Multimedia World, co-authored with Deb Wenger. It’s available now from CQ Press or Amazon, and we hope you’ll check it out. What’s different this time around? The new [...]
There’s no shortage of video online these days; in fact, it’s become almost ubiquitous. But if everyone’s bought in to the importance of posting video, not everyone has figured out how to get people to actually watch it. There’s no single “holy grail,” of course, but two key words are search and social, according to [...]
The folks at the Guardian have been doing inspired work with data for several years. Now, they’ve added a new data store–one stop shopping for anyone interested in making data more meaningful. In addition to the data blog that highlights the British newspaper’s own analysis and projects, the new site includes: • The key data [...]
The transition from general assignment reporter to multi-platform journalist isn’t always easy, but people who’ve made the switch often say they’d never go back. For Josh Hinkle of KXAN-TV in Austin, Texas, working as a one-man band makes it easier to be creative. “I don’t have to explain my concept to a photographer or editor,” [...]
When a big story breaks, the challenge these days is not only to get the story right and get it fast but also to get it to every possible audience. Elections give newsrooms a rare opportunity to plan for breaking news, so it’s a great time to figure out what works and what doesn’t. At [...]
Should you ditch your laptop for an iPad? Kerry Northrup votes yes. He’s the brains behind the long-running NewsGear project, formerly based at the IFRA Newsplex at the University of South Carolina, and he issues an annual list of state-of-the-art mobile technology for journalists. This year’s list, unveiled at the SPJ conference in Las Vegas, [...]