Archive for March, 2010

“Telling Stories with Video”

Posted in Uncategorized on March 18, 2010 by

Journalism Next by Mark Briggs Chapter 8

The game has changed in more ways than one.Video cameras have become so easy to use that news organizations have created video journalists, or backpack journalists, who report, record and edit their own broadcast. It is multi-tasking to the nth degree.

“The quick and less polished video content on news sites,” explains author Mark Briggs, ” often draws bigger audiences.”

There are still different qualities of videography, but the majority of viewers don’t mind someone sitting at a desk talking to them through a webcam or a highly edited segment.

To plan a video story there are a few different ways to do it.

1. Breaking news: capture reactions from witnesses, investigators and the scene.

2. Press conferences: single, stationary subject that has good lighting because of other news teams.

3. Hightlight clips (in sports): just get actions shots that help convey the story.

4. Documentary-style video: you have more control of what you want the audience to see. You decide which interviews and scenes will make the most impact with your audience.

“A good ratio [of different shots],” comments Briggs, “would be 25 percent wide-angle, 25 percent close-up and 50 percent medium or mid-range shorts for the general footage.”

You can build these shots in five steps:

1. Close-up on the hands

2. Close-up on the face

3. Wide shot

4. Over-the-shoulder shot

5. Creative shot

If you want to start creating video content but you don’t have a video camera, here are some guidelines:

1. Media type: the camera could download to its hard drive, a memory card(or solid-state media).

2. High Definition: practically every camera at any price range comes with HD, so there’s no point not to.

3. Software: Final Cut Express HD, Adobe Premium Elements, Sony Vegas Movie Studio, Corel VideoStudio Pro X2, Pinnacle Studio Ultimate.

Must Haves

Tapes and Batteries

Microphones

Tripod

Headphones

Lighting

With a video story, Mark Briggs recommends to:

“Define your story in the first 20 seconds; hook the audience.”

“Make sure you have a beginning, middle and end.”

Don’t let the viewer have a chance to be bored.”

“Focus on one central idea and stick with it.”

“Remember that characters make stories. The better your characters, the better your stories will be.”

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C-SPAN video conference with Chuck Todd and Marjorie Hershey

Posted in Video Conference Blogs with tags , , , , , on March 4, 2010 by

Chuck Todd, the MSNBC White House Correspondent and Indianan University political science professor Marjorie Hershey joined students participating from the George Mason University Video Studio alone with Steve Scully, the political editor for the C-Span networks, and students from the University of Denver and Pace University.

Both Chuck Todd and Marjorie Hershey reinforce that the American people are still trying to find their balance within the political spectrum of what they want politically or who they want to represent them.

“I think it’s remarkable,” states Chuck Todd, MSNBC White House Correspondent, “that we could have our third straight change election.”

Neither the Democratic and Republican parties have a secure footing in the upcoming elections. The American people understand that mid-term elections are change elections.

“We know and have known for 70 years that what ever party has won the most recent presidential election is going to lose and sometimes lose pretty substantially the next time around,” explains Marjorie Hershey, Indianan university professor, “and we haven’t seen so far that is going to be anything different.”

The election of a Republican to Ted Kennedy’s seat is a possible preview to what could happen in the elections in November.

“Anybody is vulnerable at this point” explains Chuck Todd.

The possibility of a third party immerging from the economic turmoil and political anger is a possibility as it always has been, but it is not likely to take a majority for a long time.

“It’s that 19 percent of the electorate that is swinging back and forth for the last 20 years,” states Chuck Todd, “And that they’ve been providing the margins of victories sometimes. And sometimes they are populous, sometimes it benefited the Republicans, sometimes it has benefitted the Democrats. But they haven’t sorted themselves out.”

“I agree that the seeds are there, but the ground is inhospitable. There is very little sun and no water” argues Marjorie Hershey a political scientist professor from Indiana University.

“When we talk about third parties we have to be really frank about what it takes for either a third party or an independent candidate to succeed” states Marjorie Hershey, “And the fact that one has not since the Republicans in 1860. We have had a very long dry spell. And there’s a good reason for that, and that’s because the Republicans and Democrats are the ones who make the rules as to how you get on the ballot, and how you raise money, and how you do virtually everything in American politics.”

So the American public is going to have to deal with the Republicans and the Democrats in the upcoming election and the issues that are already on the table. It is as if the public is stuck between a rock and a hard place because there are no good solutions out in the political world right now.

The distance learning course, which is produced by C-SPAN, is a unique opportunity for students to interview guests via video conference. The course airs on C-SPAN3 on Fridays at 5 p.m. and also streams online (http://www.c-span.org/distance_learning/).

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C-SPAN video conference with Chris Cilizza

Posted in Video Conference Blogs with tags , , , , on March 4, 2010 by

The Democratic Party was turned upside down when the “People’s Seat” was taken in an election by Republican Scott Brown.

The Democratic Party had been strutting around Washington DC for the past year considering what they were doing something for the people. The people, on the other hand, had a different idea.

The campaign of Martha Coakley, the democratic nominee in the Massachusetts election, was pasted together at the last minute and showed her in a different light than new-comer Republican Scott Brown. It was not a good light to be standing in.

“Steve Rothenberg a friend and a political handicapper said,” explains Chris Cilizza of TheFix in The Washington Post, “ that it is the biggest upset of his lifetime..so that spans about 50 odd years.”

“It is never just one thing,” comments Cilizza.

The myriad of problems with in Martha Coakley’s campaign, from her leaving to go on a ten day vacation during the campaign to meeting with lobbyists in Washington DC, were not helped by a great ad campaign run by Scott Brown.

“What he did,” said Cilizza, “effectively cast him as both a different kind of Republican and someone who understood the average concerns of the people of Massachusetts.”

Scott Brown portrayed himself as the outsider, and he effectively cast Martha Coakley as an insider who met with lobbyists and would do what the Democratic Party wanted her to do, instead of what the Massachusetts people wanted her to do.

This point was reinforced when President Obama went to Massachusetts to stir up support for Martha Coakley.

“So I hear her opponent is calling himself an Independent,” says President Obama, “well you’ve gotta look under the hood because what you learn makes you wonder.”

“It was in some ways a recognition by the president of how effective the ad has been” argued Cilizza, “The fact that the President of the United States 48 hours before voters were going to vote had to feel as though he had to rebut the image Scott Brown had set in the ad from the podium, shows the impact that it had in the race.”

In order for a political campaign to be successful the nominee needs to carry a continuous message from the time they start to the time the election comes around. It is necessary so the public will trust the nominee and understand his or her views.

Chris Cilizza is a blogger for The Washington Post and he joined students participating from the George Mason University Video Studio along with Steve Scully, the political editor for the C-SPAN networks, and students from the University of Denver and Pace University.

This is a distance learning course, which is produced by C-SPAN, is a unique opportunity for students to interview guests via video conference. The course airs on C-SPAN3 on Fridays at 5 p.m. and also streams online (http://www.c-span.org/distance_learning/).

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“Building a Digital Audience for News”

Posted in "Journalism Next" Chapter Blogs with tags , , , , , on March 4, 2010 by

Journalism Next by Mark Briggs Chapter 11

The internet is a whole different animal than print. The internet is full of things to pull the audience away. So how do you get them in, in the first place?

Well you track the progress of your site and see which and what is getting the most traffic. This can be done through programs that count the page clicks. But most sports stories or celebrity stories are going to leave every other story in the dust. That doesn’t mean editors are going to make everyone do sports or celebrities.  It does mean though that editors are going to learn from how those stories grow to make your stories grow.

If you get a small percentage of the daily user community coming to your story online then great! Track it!

“Developing a culture to track and measure your work product is essential to competing in this data-driven world,” explains author Mark Briggs”…So, producing that product on a regular schedule is vital to a functioning business.”

Once you’ve identified the key things you need to track then you can track them with software called web analytics. This complies a database for you of click views on each page, if that is what you want.

After you’ve complied the data and see what you need to work then work on packaging your story to how the audience wants it. I’m not saying change it completely, just cater the headline so search engines can pick it up.

Then you can grow your audience through a multitude of things:

1. Content is king

2. Linking is queen

3. Title tags

4. HTML tags

5. video

6. and a little ‘tude.

Always be promoting your self.

” the top three priorities of Web publishing are distribution, distribution, distribution.”

If you link your articles to your Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, ect. more people will have access it and more people will read it. Send it out. Let people know. Social media is now a marketing tool that can be used to promote and as a news medium as well.

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“Managing News As A Conversation”

Posted in "Journalism Next" Chapter Blogs with tags , , , , on March 4, 2010 by

Journalism Next by Mark Briggs Chapter 10

It has always been said that a journalist’s dream is having their writing create a conversation. A two-way street of ideas and knowledge flowing back and forth. However, with the web taking over, people don’t always read through an article online or even find it to begin with.

“The most significant way that it [the internet] has change journalism,” says Patrick Thorton of Beatblogging.org, “is in how journalists and their communities can cover a beat.”

The interaction between the journalist and his/her information (the audience) is how the news gets out there faster.

When the audiences comments is when things get a little tricky. Due to the anonymity of the web, people feel that they can say whatever they want to matter how offensive it is.

The majority of comments are not useful to look at, but that one comment that hits home, editors have decided it is worth it. This is because the audience feels that the barrier is broken down now between them and the journalist and they like it!

“The audience,” writes Jack McElroy editor of Knoxville News Sentinel, “always choose the kind of journalism it wants–and it always will.”

To interact with the community journalists must take in this rule, because not everyone will contribute: the 1-10-100 rule.

“1 percent of the user community-including the journalists on news sites- create the content.”

“10 percent of the user community will “synthesize” the content by posting a comment, e-mailing a link to a friend, authoring a blog post on a separate site and linking back to it, voting it up or down, ect.”

“100 percent of the user community will benefit from the actions of the first two groups.”

Those rules above are the reasons why comments are allowed and how the user community affects everyone in it.

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