Flashy Journalism

First I must point out my use of the word flash. Because my computer/internet/programming vocabulary is limited, I refer to everything that moves on the internet as "flash." I am such an amateur that I can't identify eye-candy created with this program from pretty stuff that was created in another program. So for the remainder of this blog everything from traditional animation to interactive websites that seem beyond my comprehension of construction will fall under the category of flash.

When I read an online newspaper, in addition to the two local papers, I choose the New York Times. I like the layout. I am familiar with the navigation. I love the photography. Best of all, lots of slideshows. Following the destruction of hurricane Katrina, the print articles could not provide that same emotion that the pictures of the gulf coast could. A great thing about NYTimes.com, they tend to put their pictures together with audio in a flash slide show. The combination of images and audio gave a denesion to the Katrina devastation that could never be achieved through print. It may be laziness on my part, but I really like the option to just sit and observe the information versus reading multiple page articles.

I know that this blog was supposed to be about the impact on the future and I focused on current application of flash but I think this current application, or some derivative of it, will have a huge impact on the future of journalism. I would like to see a news organization that supplements their flash slide shows and short streaming video with text rather than the current norm of newspaper websites with a pinch of interactive media. --Alex

Models and theories

Flash journalism presents a sparsely charted tundra of research opportunities for the up-and-coming graduate student. Though tracing a subject's eye movements or blood pressure for clues on how a Web page is received does not hold much appeal for me, plenty of fresh territory exists for exploration in terms of the philosophy, economics, sociology and mechanics of this (relatively) new packaging tool.
The closeted fantasist can devise new and exciting lands to present visitors in search of new or information, even custom-designing certain aspects of the experience to cater to individual predilections.
I love the idea of hard news being packaged into the virtual fantasy worlds of the gamer population bringing us these new technologies.
If we could ever get the Missourian and KOMU to love each other, our multimedia online packages could foster cooperative coverage by Mizzou media and even offer some opportunities to store institutional memory if the Web-based packages could be great perennial containers for the reporting sources/materials collected while covering popular and complex issues, such as ethanol production/economics, water quality, development, etc.
Under-emphasized areas we could expand into include links back to more original documents, sources and databases used in computer-assisted reporting, as well as including My Missourian debriefings by reporters.

Simplicity is best?

I like to read the newspaper. A real newspaper, printed on big sheets of gray paper. I like the traditional form because it contains lots of information but the colors are muted, advertisements don't jump in front of the text I am reading, it is easy to navigate, and the layout is always consistent. Sort of the same approach suggested in the reading for designing a website. Simplicity works best for me as a user; obnoxious flashing advertisements and animation flying across the page make me so frustrated. I do like sites with some color, great pictures and content with depth but I prefer defaulting on the side of simplicity rather than clutter. Fortunately my design skills prevent all the flashy animated stuff, but the reading did point out some simple layout ideas that I can implement to make my next site a little less amateur looking. --Alex

My instincts are off....

How refreshing (and terrifying) to find almost everything I encounter in this class to be unfamiliar territory governed by laws that often seem counterintuitive to me.
Humbling to know that by the standards of the authors we're reading for design instruction, I'd be inclined to center some things and flush left others depending on how the mood strikes me. And putting space between my headers and the coordinating text? Why not? Hit return a few more times, it makes you feel like you're accomplishing something.
All sarcasm aside, the checklists the articles included will serve as a handy guide for me and Wan Ju as we head in to this last couple of crazy weeks.
If we can manage to apply the suggestions with all the other madness going on, I'll be tickled.

Metamorphosis

To get a taste for how my heroes of journalism are using the Web as a platform for multi-media packages, I visited the sites of a few established reporting outlets to see what they had to offer.

PBS - Mostly offers materials to supplement its shows - extra interviews pictures and links. One Nova story about the conservation challenge facing some of the nation's oldest and most treasured documents, offered an interactive view of the Declaration of Independence. A viewer can click on any of the squares positioned on the various areas of concern for a more detailed explanation of that particular challenge.
Moving from the PBS page to Nova's homepage, I selected a story called Japan's Secret Gardens. The story had its own homepage and was billed as the Web companion to the show. The page features a menu indexing the main subjects of the story - I selected animal transformations and was taken to a page where five animals were listed with corresponding video clips. I chose to watch the omurasaki butterfly emerge from its cocoon.

Rebel by default

MY greatest motivation is to to be told - don't. So, when in class I am told don't pan or zoom I looked for examples on the web that countered the no pan, no zoom rule. Well I found it - and contrary to my desire it was not effective as I had willed it to be.

CNN's online video about stolen body parts (morgue employees allegedly stole organs and bones from dead people and replaced them with metal plumbing pipe) used all kinds of video effects that would have been better left out. It did't have a lot of fading from one shot to another but it did have several video overlays - one piece of video playing over another. I also noticed several of the shots seemed to be scripted. A shot of a lawyer walking down the hall, a shot of a remorseful sister at the location were her loved one's ashes were spread or a funeral home employee preening the flowers on a casket. It seemed obvious that the videographer said to the lawyer, "why don't you go into that room - then come out,close the door and walk down the hall." It seemed forced.

I know the point is to critique professional video but I can't help thinking easier said than done. I'm not sure I wouldn't shoot the same scenes if I were filming the this story. I really want to shoot pan and zoom shots, or a cliche shot of a funeral director fidgeting with the casket pillow. Like a damn kid, I may know the rules but I want to break them to see how far I can push the line --Alex

Focus, focus, focus

I have mixed feelings about this idea of story focus. I think I understand, but I have never had to execute it thus far in any of my journalism classes. Focus would apply if the subjects of our writing, audio or video assignments were issued with specific story subjects or angles. My experience has been when assignments and deadlines are issued the subject is left to the digression of the student/journalist. If, however, the assignment was more specific, like complete an audio feature on the Columbia school board meeting by Monday morning, focus and pre-planning would be more relevant. Not to say I aimlessly wander the streets of Columbia until I stumble across something interesting; I do, but not to the degree that this article by Fred Shook promotes. Of course I'm not complaining, I like the freedom to attack any subject I like, but the side effect is a go with the flow approach. I tend to have a rough idea of what I intend to accomplish but I am willing to change my angle at any time. Sure, this sounds like everything preached at this school, find the most newsworthy topics even if the story changes, but the discipline conveyed in the article seems significantly more structured than anything I have attempted. Perhaps all will change during the execution of this next video assignment. -- Alex

Playing dumb is NO problem

One of the suggestions for capturing great sound bites during interviews is to play stupid. Fortunately my speciality is being, I mean acting, ignorant and uninformed. For some reason this suggestion of ignorance conjures mental scenes suited for not yet made Monty Python movies.
Reporter: "And what do you call this game sir?"
Interviewee: "Baseball, ya dipstick!"
Reporter: "Baseballyadipstick? Well I've never heard of that.
I know, it much funnier in my mind.

During my interview simply saying, "tell me about..." or "talk about..." worked well for getting my interviewee to talk in complete sentences. Obviously this is not the same way I hold a normal conversation in everyday life. It would be odd to say to a friend, "Talk about your cat." In real life - "What's you cat's name?" The former feels unnatural and forced at this point, but it did work well for capturing quality audio.

The last suggestion of this reading is to have a coworker listen to your finished product. If it makes sense to them, then mission accomplished. My question is what happens if it does not make sense. Redo it? What about deadlines? As a journalist, do you mark it as a learning experience and air the piece anyway or do you go to the editor and explain that the piece is not up to snuff? --Alex

Writing for the short attention span

Reading these tips on how to write for broadcast, I find myself vacillating between excitement and distain. Am I just being elitist when I feel frustration at having to simplify the language or cut down hard-worked prose only to fit the needs of someone who is not really listening anyway?
Yes, probably. But still, the everyday stories cannot fully satisfy my journalistic spirit. Not that I don't enjoy doing them from time to time, but I like trying to make sense of more complex issues - the kind that are around us all the time, but we're too busy and uneducated (and a lot of us are uninterested) to figure out the world around us.
By focusing on science, environment and food issues, I hope to build some awareness and interest in these subjects. So perhaps you will understand my frustration when I read a sentence like "We don't often deal with complex stories as part of everyday coverage," as written on on page 4 of Tuggle's chapter 1. To me that underscores all that is distasteful about TV news.
Granted, I'm new to this medium and I've got a lot to learn about how and why things are done the way they are.
On the flip side, I don't like language when it is so esoteric it loses its roots, its style and its ability to rock somebody's world. So maybe there's hope afterall. Maybe this style will help me separate the trash from the treasures and end up with a better product.