How to produce live coverage using video chat

How to produce live coverage using video chat

What can you do when the network sucks up all the air time on Election Night? Convinced that cut-ins twice an hour just wouldn’t cut it, anchor Amy Wood expanded her station’s 2012 coverage online using a relatively new video chat tool, Spreecast. The result? “Nine hours of live streaming coverage. No live trucks. No [...]

Must-have equipment for video journalists

Must-have equipment for video journalists

Great photojournalists are sticklers about their gear. They check it thoroughly before and after every shoot. They supplement the standard-issue package with specialty items, from dimmers to clothespins to GoPros. They experiment and improvise, always on the hunt for new accessories that will save time or give them an edge on the competition. Jonathan Malat [...]

Tracking digital footprints

Tracking digital footprints

It’s an age-old question. How can you be sure the information you’re getting is accurate? That basic task of every journalist has become more difficult in today’s digital world, when data can be so easily manipulated. But as we’ve noted here before, technology also makes it easier to detect manipulation. And one very useful piece [...]

How much can one journalist do well?

How much can one journalist do well?

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 [...]

Quick thinking gives iPhone telephoto lens

Quick thinking gives iPhone telephoto lens

Police invariably keep journalists so far back from crime scenes that it’s almost impossible to see what’s going on with the naked eye.  That’s the situation KTUU’s Jason Lamb faced earlier this month, as police prepared to search a frozen lake for the body of a missing woman. Photographer Mike Nederbrock had a decent shot [...]

How to create an interactive timeline

How to create an interactive timeline

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 [...]

Beware of the future, TV broadcasters

Beware of the future, TV broadcasters

Forgive the apocalyptic headline, but when two columns cross my desk the same day warning broadcast executives to wake up or face extinction, I pay attention. Technology-driven threats to the broadcast business model aren’t new, but these columns suggest a bazillion-channel future is closer than many may think, leaving little time to prepare. Let’s begin [...]

Mobile apps let newsrooms assign 'citizen journalists'

Mobile apps let newsrooms assign ‘citizen journalists’

A new mobile app aims to give YouTube a run for its money in the “citizen journalist” assignment game. Rawporter is the latest competitor to YouTube Direct, giving newsrooms the ability to request and rebroadcast video from anyone who happens to be at or near the scene of a news event. What Rawporter offers that’s [...]

Top 10 NewsLab posts of 2011

Top 10 NewsLab posts of 2011

Beginning a new year by looking backward is a time-honored tradition among procrastinators and (true confession here) I can procrastinate with the best of them when I’m not on deadline. So herewith, a look back at the posts that got the most traffic at NewsLab in 2011, in case you missed any or would like [...]

Top 10 in journalism for 2011

Top 10 in journalism for 2011

Who’s counting? Everybody, it seems, at this time of year. Everywhere you look, there’s a top 10 list for the year’s best and worst, so why should journalism be different? And why reinvent the wheel? Instead of creating our own 2011 rundown, we’ve put together a meta-list with a few additions and comments. This was [...]

Once a storyteller, always a storyteller

Once a storyteller, always a storyteller

What do you get when you put two terrific storytellers in charge of a PR shoot? A great story, that’s what, and some useful lessons on how to capture stunning video with compact, light-weight equipment. “The Sewing Machine” is a video produced by former NBC reporter John Larson and one-time NPPA photojournalist of the year Lisa [...]

Must-haves for mobile journalism

Must-haves for mobile journalism

“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 [...]