Sadly, timelines on news sites are too often nothing more than text, like the one the Sporting News posted chronicling the Penn State sex abuse scandal. It has all the dates and facts but it’s not in the least bit engaging. Why not take advantage of the medium and add images and links that users can navigate for themselves? That’s what the Seattle Times did in the run-up to an exhibit about the iconic grunge band, Nirvana.

That timeline was created with Dipity, a free online tool anyone can use. You don’t have to be a graphic designer or know anything about code to produce a sharp looking timeline that can be embedded on any site. Trust me. Here’s how:

Another free online tool that can be used to create timelines and more is Vuvox. The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, used it to create a minute-by-minute account of the race to save a stroke patient. Projects created with Vuvox look and function a lot like a slideshow and there are lots of options for customizing the content. But a simple timeline or “collage” is easy to produce. Trust me (again). Here’s how:

Remember, the basic editions of both Dipity and Vuvox are free. So there’s really no excuse for posting dull, text-only timelines, is there? Let us know if you try either of these free tools, or if you’ve tried others we should investigate. And have fun!

Let’s begin with the Internet-connected TV sets that were all the rage at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. True, there were several competing systems on display, but that doesn’t mean broadcasters should dismiss them, says Arthur Greenwald at TVNewscheck, because those systems could soon converge.

If so, they’ll arrive in one massive wave that could completely disrupt the way people watch TV — and threaten the way broadcasters do business…Today’s smart TVs are precocious toddlers, little more than key word matches within a single program guide. But they’ll soon skip a grade and display much more sophisticated selections.

When a broadcast channel is just one of dozens of icons on the screen, how hard will it be to find? And when promos don’t reach viewers, how hard will it be to sustain expensive programming?

Now, consider the aggressive push by YouTube to launch 100 channels of original, specialty programs available only online. Those channels won’t just be watched on computer screens and tablets. Thanks to connected TVs at set-top boxes, they’ll be watched on big screens, too. So broadcast execs should worry, says consultant Will Richmond.

YouTube – and the many others who are pursuing original online programming – are still in their early days. But when combined with changes in viewer behavior, the proliferation of connected and mobile viewing devices and the firming up of online video monetization models, I’m betting that these efforts, particularly those led by YouTube, are going to be a highly disruptive force to the traditional TV ecosystem.

Broadcasters have been counting on mobile digital TV to change the game in their favor. When users can get high-quality streaming video for free on multiple devices, the thinking goes, they’ll be less interested in paying for “over the top” services that require an Internet connection. But mobile TV has been at the starting gate for a couple of years, while connected TVs and set-top boxes are selling now.

[Update: Just hours after this post was published, The Huffington Post announced plans to launch a live streaming video network this summer, described as “never-ending talk show.”]

What are broadcast executives doing to prepare for this disruptive future?

The assignment feature allows producers to tell photographers how much they’ll be paid. Photo and video journalists retain rights to the work they create using the app and can share it with their followers on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

The free service launched for iPhone last November; an Android app is in the works. Rawporter allows publishers from news organizations to bloggers to solicit either video or stills via geolocation push notices and to pay users for their work. In an interview with the citizen journalism blog NewsMeBack, co-founder Kevin Davis said the tool aims to make it easier for “everyday people to cash in on being in the right place at the right time.”

Rawporter wants to help media outlets crowdsource cost-efficient news content that they would normally not have access to. At the same time, it’s important to us that our contributors’ rights are protected, and that they get the recognition they deserve. That’s why, if something sells, contributors get paid. If something is used, they get the on-screen or online credit.

The new reality of local TV newsrooms, which produce more hours of news than ever before, makes these kinds of tools appealing to managers and anathema to professional photojournalists. We’ve written about this new world in which everyone is a news photographer before. YouTube claims that many news organizations are using its Direct platform to collect citizen reporting about news events, among them ABC News, the Huffington Post, NPR, Politico, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, WHDH-TV in Boston, Tribune Company, Gannett, Al Jazeera, and ITN News. Rawporter is so new, it’s hard to tell if it’s being used at all. The question, once again, is whether these tools are a serious threat to the profession.

My own sense is that newsrooms won’t use these services instead of staff photojournalists, but they may turn to them when news breaks where they can’t go, or when they can’t get somewhere fast enough. But freelancers could face a real pinch if stations find they can reliably and quickly get cheap video of breaking news from a bystander with a smartphone. Beyond that, asking non-journalists to get video in what could be dangerous situations raises all kinds of ethical red flags.

What’s your view?

Using Facebook for a TV investigation: Proof that social media are great reporting tools.

Digital note-taking tools: A review of free and low-cost software to help you keep track of information.

How to learn social media skills at mid-career: A three-point plan for getting up to speed on social media.

Is there any hope for quality in local TV news?: Review of a documentary that paints a gloomy picture.

Why journalists should learn to love data: Tips and tools for working with data that can lead you to great stories.

Do-it-yourself interactive graphics: How to use ManyEyes.

Recommended journalism textbooks: Originally posted in 2008, an updated list leading off with the second edition of Advancing the Story.

Secrets of the TV stations of the year: The shared newsroom culture and personal connections behind the three 2011 winners.

How to interview children: A tip sheet on how to talk to kids on camera.

Resolve to be a more enterprising reporter: What is takes to turn better stories (posted on New Year’s Eve 2010).

What did I learn by looking back at this list? It seems pretty obvious that tips and how-to posts are most popular with NewsLab regulars, so one of my goals for this year is to bring you more of what you’re looking for. If you have specific requests, please let me know.

In the meantime, here’s to a terrific 2012.

This was the year that Al Jazeera English made its mark in the U.S. with its coverage of the Arab Spring, says the Huffington Post. It was also a terrible year for NPR, as top bosses were ousted and the network got a big story terribly wrong–falsely reporting the death of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Biggest interview scoops of 2011? HuffPo gives credit for most of its top 10 to TV networks, with ABC in the lead for snagging the first interview with Giffords, among others. Also on the list, NBC’s Bob Costas’ interview with ex-Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky, which Costas later said came as a complete surprise and was set up at the last minute by Sandusky’s lawyer. Maybe it belongs in a different category: scoops that fall in your lap.

In television, it was a year of departures, says Tom Jicha of the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. In TV news, he highlights the end of Katie Couric’s less than stellar five-year run as anchor of the CBS Evening News. I’d add a few more.

• Meredith Vieira stepped down from NBC’s Today Show, also after five years. “It wasn’t working for me in terms of my personal life,” she said.
• Christiane Amanpour was eased out as host of ABC’s This Week just over a year into her tenure with the broadcast still mired in third.
• Keith Olbermann, unceremoniously dumped by MSNBC, found a new home for Countdown, doing the same shtick for fewer viewers, on Current TV.
• Glenn Beck, boycotted by advertisers, parted ways with Fox News and started his own Web channel.

So many anchors and reporters left CNBC this year, one critic wondered about “brain drain.” And there was one more memorable departure–Andy Rooney, the longtime curmudgeon-commentator for CBS’s 60 Minutes, died in November.

Broadcast-related entries on Mashable’s list of top digital journalism events include the rise to Twitter stardom of NPR’s Andy Carvin and a new emphasis on mobile delivery, calling CNN’s acquisition of the iPad app Zite ”arguably the biggest mobile move by a news organization.”

The list of biggest journalism gaffes of the year, courtesy of HuffPo, includes several recent whoppers, including Fox News’ use of an Obama photo to illustrate GOP poll results and NBC’s Chuck Todd flipping the bird on air. There were plenty of local screw-ups too, including the Minnesota anchor whose slurring newscast video went viral who was later arrested for DWI. And the Minneapolis station “investigation” that claimed dog meat was for sale in New York’s Chinatown apparently based on a reporter’s having misheard the word “duck.”

For my in-depth take on more serious trends in local TV news, you’ll have to wait just a bit longer. I’m writing that chapter again for the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual report, The State of the News Media, due out in March.

“The Sewing Machine” is a video produced by former NBC reporter John Larson and one-time NPPA photojournalist of the year Lisa Berglund. It’s a video with a clear purpose–to raise money for VisionFund, the microfinance arm of World Vision International. But it’s also a story that illustrates many fundamental principles of good storytelling.

First, a strong central character. As with many PR shoots, an advance team had done the legwork at a remote location in Rwanda. But Larson and Berglund, being newsies, didn’t think much of the original plan, as Larson explained in the Facebook Storytellers group:

We rejected story lines that had been set up for a month, and found the sewing machine woman because we were searching for a more photo-rich, metaphorical story line. We found and selected the stronger details and story lines within her story.

Second, the story has a clear beginning, middle and end. In this case, there’s a story within the story, which has its own beginning, middle and end. But the viewer never feels lost or confused. See what you think when you watch the video.

Because this wasn’t a news story, Berglund and Larson did a ton of set-up. To use a news term, they staged the shoot, moving locations to get a more photogenic background, deciding what people should wear, and matching shots they knew they would re-create when they got back to the United States.

And because this wasn’t a news story, Berglund had the courage to shoot it with a camera she had never used before–the Canon 5D–a digital SLR.  ”It is not good in reactive situations (like news),” Larson says. “The lenses are slow, bulky, time consuming… and gorgeous.” Virtually everything was shot with natural light.

Audio was a different matter, Berglund says.

Monitoring audio is one of the biggest challenges. Most of the audio was shot with my Sennheiser MKH-60, plugged into a Zoom H4N audio recorder. The interviews were shot with a Lectrosonic 400 series wireless, also plugged into the Zoom.

Because so much additional equipment was required, Berglund wound up recruiting an assistant on the spot who carried the recorder, wore headphones and got the mics in close.

Sound is my passion. It was really hard to give up complete control. But the risk was worth it in the end, and allowed me to concentrate on the visuals.

One of the most memorable moments in the video is the shot that reveals how the woman expanded her business. It’s a lock-down shot that was carefully planned, with each individual element shot separately and then combined in the edit room. “The trick is using the effect when the narrative is building, or adding, or growing,” says Larson. “Then the effect supports the story you’re trying to tell.” So it does.

It’s often used for “point of view” video, which is what it was designed for, after all. Two of the top-selling models are the Helmet and Motorsports versions, cameras the company bills as “wearable” and “mountable.”

WJZ reporter Mike Schuh is a recent GoPro adopter. He’d never used a GoPro until he was sent out on a story this fall about firefighter training that involved working in very tight spaces. Having seen what he was up against, Schuh ordered the camera on the spot and used it to get shots he never could have captured with a full-sized camera.

Photojournalist Brandon Whitworth of WKYT in Lexington, Ky., used a GoPro for the first time last week for a story about the hazards emergency responders face on the road:

How did he get all those angles? “I was shooting inside the cab, and I had one GoPro that I mounted on the various spots on the truck,” Whitworth said. “Every other time we stopped I changed its location.”

People who have used the GoPro say the key is to use the video shot with it sparingly. “Sometimes the angles are too different and call attention to themselves,” says KGO reporter Wayne Freedman.  But he also says the camera comes in handy at times. ”Due to the wide angle, it can capture some very unique, up close perspectives.”

Freedman used a GoPro to get the opening shots in this story:

Reporter Garvin Thomas, who works for KNTV in San Jose, used a GoPro in an underwater housing attached to a light stand to get some key shots for this story:

Photographer Dan Fox of Citizen Pictures, formerly with KCNC in Denver, notes that the wide angle of the lens depends on the HD mode, which is selectable on the latest model GoPro2. “In 1080 mode, the angle is not so extreme. In 720, it’s fisheye, so for mounting on bikes, cars, surfboards, etc, it’s useful, but in 1080, it’s a more normal looking image.”

Bottom line? “GoPro doesn’t make your story better,” says Detroit Free Press photojournalist Eric Seals in an article in the latest NPPA News Photographer magazine. “It adds a visual hook to your story.”

If you’re thinking about getting a GoPro, here are some additional tips from Seals and other photojournalists:

• Use top-of-the-line SD cards to ensure a good capture
• Shoot sparingly so the download doesn’t take forever
• To improve the audio, remove the camera’s plastic housing
• A monitor is essential if you want to see what you’re shooting
• Other accessories worth considering: a chest-mount harness and a rollbar mount

The GoPro isn’t the only small HD camera photojournalists are using in the field. Others include the Canon G12, the Sony Cybershot DSC-WX9, the Canon Elph 300hs, Contour and Iconix.

Are you using a small HD camera to shoot elements for TV news stories? Please share your experiences and tips!

“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 to figure it out,” says Kiesow. “You need to know what you want to accomplish and provide training.”

Kiesow also says that journalists’ smartphones should have these features:

• Both still & video cameras
• An active developer community that keeps coming up with new apps
• GPS capabilities
• Wifi (4G much faster and better for sending video/photo — though iPhone 5 probably won’t have it)

Sourced from: Advancing the Story

“Lord, no,” says Jen Lee Reeves of KOMU-TV, who’s on the faculty at the University of Missouri.  ”You can teach yourself anything. You just need a little quiet time.”

At this week’s Excellence in Journalism conference in New Orleans, Reeves shared a simple, three-point plan for getting up to speed: play, create and connect.

“Jump in and play with free stuff,” she advised. ”Share what you love.”

Start by setting up Twitter and Facebook accounts, if you don’t already have them, and use the same picture and name everywhere. Make sure you create a profile with your work information on it. Consider claiming your name on about.me and point people to your content.The point is to establish yourself online.  ”If you call someone to interview them, they are totally going to stalk you,” Reeves said. “If you don’t have a presence online they’re going to be suspicious.”

Next, build a website or a blog and start writing about something you care about, whether it’s cooking or working out or something else. Reeves blogs about her daughter, who was born with one hand. What has she learned from that experience? “It made me better about doing journalism,” she said. “I learned how to build a community on the Web and Facebook and I’m now using those skills for the newsroom.”

If getting personal online feels uncomfortable, write about the experience of reporting a story and link to your own work.  ”I wouldn’t republish a story, but taking a screen shot is perfectly OK,” Reeves said. In addition to her blog, she also has her own “named” website, jenleereeves.com, where she writes about media.

Bottom line? “Our readers, consumers are everywhere and we need to reach out to them everywhere or we are going to miss a source,” Reeves said.  ”We know journalism. Let’s prove it, on all platforms.”

The first step was finding the right on-line tool. Lots of sites promise free and easy app building tools, but most of them don’t tell you what you really need to know upfront. It may not cost anything to build the app but if you want to share it, there’s often a substantial fee.

AppBreeder, for example, offers several templates that look attractive but charges $29.95 a month to publish an iPhone app. Appanda rates are about the same, plus there’s a $99 set-up fee. MoFuse also charges a monthly subscription fee for “build-it-yourself” apps that goes up with usage.  BuildAnApp has different rates for iPhone and Android apps. WireNode lets you create a free mobile site (not an app) but from what I could tell you have to start from scratch. There seems to be no easy way to import content from an existing site, which kind of defeats the purpose.

In my dreams, I wanted the app to offer everything the site does and to make it available in the iTunes store. And I wanted to do it affordably–for free if possible–with no recurring fees. AppMakr appeared to have a lot of potential. It imports RSS feeds and allows you to add multiple feeds, which seemed pretty simple. But what I got was never quite what I wanted. No images. Post after post marked “invalid date.” And the Twitter feed I included showed my name as well as my user name, which added clutter and confusion. To top it off, the process for testing and publishing the app for free required developer-level skills, which the site doesn’t make clear at the start.

Mippin’s App Factory, on the other hand, could not be simpler to use but the options for content are extremely limited. You can choose only one feed from a few prescribed sources: RSS, WordPress and Facebook among them, but oddly enough not Twitter. The “factory” is still in beta and plans call for allowing apps to display up to four feeds in the near future. For now, though, what you get is a clean, attractive display, complete with pictures, that’s optimized for mobile, iPhone and Android. The $20 flat fee even includes a cool QR code.

The NewsLab app I built with Mippin isn’t all I wanted it to be. It’s not available in iTunes and it doesn’t include the daily headlines, but it works like a champ. And to my great surprise, it’s the featured App of the Week on the Mippin blog. Please check it out, let us know what you think, and keep an eye out for updates. We’ll add more content as soon as we can.