Yes, Gina's job actually involves sending stuff to cell phones. Here's what she says:
"Each format has its own sweet spot for reaching the people formerly known as audiences. For television that would be live action, for radio that would be voice and audio, for newspapers that would be in-depth stories... For the Internet i think there are actually two sweet spots. What pulled us into it was interaction... The other would be connecting the dots."
Interaction is empowering people to do more with what we give them, connecting the dots is putting things in context.
Nora says a lot of people need to get up to speed with the issues and where are we with multimedia. She says most sites are pretty derivative - the newspaper is the Web site on paper and vice versa. They look alike with the column concept.
The road to innovation has been pretty bumpy. There's little support for R&D in news companies since 2000. There's not enough training in new skills. Then there's the assembly line production mode of print, which isn't the best for the new environment. The television mode works better. The newsroom culture is not one that adapts to change easily. And we don't necessarily understand the new news audience.
That audience uses multiple appliances, Nora says, and they receive news in multiple ways, phones, PDAs, computers, etc., etc.
"We knew what the product was before we knew how to display it, now it's up in the air. There's no real common vocabulary for this stuff," Nora says. For instance, "what does interactive mean?"
She and a grad student examined the elements of digital storytelling. There's multiple media - stories, photos, graphics, videos. Then there's multimedia, a tapestry where sound, video, text and graphics are interwoven and can't be pulled apart. Here's her example from the Times-Picayune.
There's also content action. Is it static or does it move to help tell the story in a new way? Here's an example from the BBC. Then there's user action. Here's an example from the Morning News in Dallas that requires the user to click to get content.
The third choice is about the relationship. With print, radio and television, it's relatively passive. With the Internet, you have to interact by doing.
Nora's list of rethinking storytelling:
From explaining to experiencing. The example is from MSNBC on baggage handling in which you're graded.
- From telling to exploring. An example from the Sarasota Herald Tribune by Nora's nephew using Flash.
- From informing to inviting opinions. An example for the Seattle Times on balancing the budget.
- From episodic to encyclopedic. An example for the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
- From reading it to playing it. The South Florida Sun Sentinel has a hurricane maker. It's involved, but if it's a long-lasting item it's worthwhile.
- From reporting it to databasing. You can let people find out about different aspects of the data, like in this Philly Inquirer homicide map.
Nora says there are a lot of newspapers that are doing a good job. Consistenly doing this are the New York Times, the Washington Post. Now the shift is that still photographers are being told to shoot video and use screen grabs for the stills. Someone mentions the Denton Record Chronicle in Texas. She notes the Minnesota Public Radio effort to get sources for use in news reports, as opposed
Now on to Peggy. She notes that she didn't even know how to instant message when she went to msn.com. Multimedia is fundamentally still storytelling. "With multimedia, there's other ways to get information that would have ended up on the cutting floor in."
But, she notes, multimedia does not fit every story. Is there something in the story that the reader would like to see? Do you have a ton of data but don't want to clutter your story with numbers?
Don't be afraid of the "webtalk." You don't necessarily have to be the one to do the Flash graphics - or even know how to operate the Flash software. "Oftentimes people through out the word but they don't know how to do it."
"Here's another untold story in multimedia land. There's a lot of talk ... about the one-man band... My prediction is that as things evolve and more and more advertising money flows in, most stories will not be done as one-man bands." She says there will be teams with different skills (this is similar to what the Arizona Star did with its package on immigration and the border with Mexico).
Unfortunately, there's often an ad tie in with video - advertisers are willing to pay a lot for those ads that run before the videos. Peggy expects once they can put ads into the interactive graphics, that will be a big sell too.
On video: Talking heads don't work - they're too boring. People want to see the people in your story, in context. She notes a story in the Boston Globe, where there's a great visual lede but only a standard newspaper refer to the video of her home. More effective would be in the lede a line that says "visit her home" you can click on. Or, Nora suggests, a video that appears alongside the lede.
Peggy strongly suggests if you're considering adding multimedia, think about it from the very beginning of the story. What is the most visual thing? Get it up high in the story.
Have a reason for the multimedia. "Not every story has to have 80 million things moving around on it."
Give viewers the control. Let them press play or roll over things. "If you build it, they will click."
A great question: Where are mobile devices going to take us? Peggy says for sure it's still evolving. Podcasts are going to be ginormous. Beaming to PDAs is going to be big. People may sign up for a weekly podcast of a columnist.
On gear: Have a good snapshot camera, get a small video camera. She says Flash software is tough to master. Pitch stories with multimedia ideas, they typically have people who can edit. Nora mentions SoundSlides is another good program, it's a $35 download. (OK, really it's $40; the new plus version is $70. Still a relative bargain.)
Others want more info on the JAWS Web site. Nora will be getting us info and we'll put it on the site.
How much does a good video camera cost? Roberta has a Flip Video camera for $100 at Target (i'll be there for that in the next day or two). Peggy notes that the quality of video on the Web doesn't need to be superfantastic - there's still a role for the well-produced television documentaries and it probably isn't on the Web. You do need some training to learn the basics of shooting and editing.
Question: Are audio slideshows here to stay? Peggy says its a good question. She doesn't see still photography dropping into the great unknown. The quality of photos here is often better. Nora says a video story is markedly different than an audio slide story - the conventions aren't established yet, though. Gina notes that half to two thirds of the hits at the AJC are on photos.
Peggy says even polls and quizzes are great tools you can use. They're easy to program in Flash (and lots of programs allow you to pop them up there)
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