Silent in the Morning

In this chapter, Briggs provides readers with ways in which one can make smart business decisions in order to survive in today’s age of  journalism.

He highlights the fundamentals of building an audience online, including:

– Tracking your content

As for tracking your content, Briggs brings up a starter list of content types journalist and newsrooms should be regularly tracking such as: total news stories per day, blog posts by specific blog, news updates, SMS or other mobile news alerts…and many more.

– Web Analytics

Deals solely with the tracking of Web site traffic. This allows newsrooms to know exactly what its audience is consuming and at what rate. Key points of traffic reporting systems revolve around pageviews, visits and unique visitors compared, and engagement and referrers.

– Search engine optimization

Briggs continues on to explain to readers how one can optimize their Web content in order for it to pop up on search engines. To become a professional in search engine optimization, one must first understand search engines. Search engines perform three functions. First, the send out spiders and robots to scan all the web pages for new information/pages and send reports back to the main search engine such as Google or Bing. Next, large, more powerful computer programs index the reports sent back from the spiders and robots and build large database files with references to all the content connected to the right links. From here, when someone types a keyword into Google or Bing, you are making a query of that search engine, for which the indexed websites are presented.

– Effective headline writing for the Web

Make headlines more eye-catching by using keywords, use conversational language, and don’t be afraid to inject a little attitude. All three of these will hopefully convince the reader to clink the link and read the content provided.

– Distribution through social media

Utilizing social media outlets such as Flickr, Blogs, and Twitter/Facebook for distributing media content is an essential step to survive in the world of journalism. Take for instance Steve Klein, professor at George Mason University, whose blog on the Detroit Red Wings was tweeted by a notable hockey reporter, only to result in a major increase in traffic from hockey fans all over the internet.

This chapter simply explains to readers how important it is for reporters and journalist to get out of their offices or abodes and go out and speak to people.

As the World of News Reporting changes everyday, it has become apparent that utilizing such community web pages like Facebook, and Myspace, which simply allows journalist to maintain social networks with a range range of people.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/group-of-people-talking.jpg

Likewise, Briggs explains to journalist specifically how important it is to be mindful that your represent more than just yourself.

Furthermore, Twitter has become a major outlet of information that can be updated by the second and be accessed by a variety of different people.

Thus, a journalist who maintains a twitter account needs to maintain his/her account at a respectable level, in cases your tweets reach levels that one thought were unreachable.

If you don’t get what I just said, I’ll put it best this way:  Watch what your saying on twitter because you never know who will look at it or even use it for their own project.

Simply put, this chapter open’s readers eyes to how important it is to maintain several social networks in order to connect journalist and reporters to the people and the information they can provide.

Well….this chapter right here explains my life in a nutshell.

I attempt to organize my daily/weekly tasks all time time using a variety of different outlets, however, nothing ever seems to work.

What Briggs provided in this chapter is the proper way in which one can utilize a variety of online databases to organize contacts, task, etc…

To highlight his instructions, he provides a eye-opening formula to ensure personal productivity:

What you need to manage + the right tools to manage it = personal productivity

Examples of what one needs to manage are: email, calendars, word processing, spreadsheets, databases, images….etc

As for the tools one can use to manage those above, Briggs mentions: Office Live, Zoho, Remember the Milk, Dropbox, and many more.

developmentnow.com

Now one ask how Briggs applies this to Journalism? Well Briggs explains how nowadays, Journalist have the ability to tell stories through data.

Utilizing the databases above, allow reporters to look at data that wouldn’t be considered necessary to tell a story, however, reporters have found that while researching through a variety of databases, several reporters have come upon jaw-dropping statistics that eventually lead to revealing stories of corruption, or improper salary distribution.

What struck me was how important the ability to read, dissect and convert data into words that readers understand and essentially journalist can reveal situations of corruption that are necessary for people to learn about.

After reading Brigg’s Chapter on “Telling Stories With Videos”, it struck me at how innovative and important videos have become in delivering people news and information.

A video to get you thinking…

While reading the chapter, several main points stuck out in my mind.

• Be selective in shooting. There are two good reasons for this: You don’t want to waste tape and you don’t want to waste time editing.
• Avoid panning, zooming. Stop recording when switching between wide, medium and close shots. Avoid zooming and panning if possible. Simply shoot a shot, stop recording, then adjust for the next shot and hit record again.
• Hold your shots. Since you can make a shot shorter in the editing process—but not longer—make sure to hold each of your shots for at least 15 seconds. Even if it’s a wide environment shot that you’ll likely use for 5 seconds, shoot the full 15 seconds. You’ll be glad you did.
• Be silent when you shoot. The camera will pick up every sound you make—a sigh, a cough, a chuckle or anything you say. So keep your lips zipped when recording because you won’t be able to edit out the unwanted audio later.

Video to start one off…

• Frame your subject carefully. When framing your shot, it is best to avoid a static composition by keeping the main subject slightly off center. To do this consistently, follow the “rule of thirds,” which recommends dividing the frame, using imaginary lines, into thirds both horizontally and vertically. If you position your main subject (usually a face) near one of the intersections of these lines, you will achieve a pleasant, active composition.
• Seek the best short clips. Understand that the best video stories are comprised of many short clips edited together, and your job is to get the best short clips. The best way to fully comprehend the array of clips you need to capture is to actually perform the editing—or at a minimum sit with the person who edits the video. It’s the only way to see what types of clips you shot work best and what types of clips you missed.

Digital video camer

Video Camera

In this chapter, Brigg’s opens reader’s eyes to the importance of utilizing a mobile devices to publish news on the go.

From a journalist standpoint its important to use the phone to capture images, sounds, and even publish stories right from the palm of one’s hand.

As a result, Brigg’s outlines the gears, gadgets and services that journalist use on their mobile devices.

For example,

A gearhead for instance, in preparation of the day’s events would pack a laptop, camera, and audio recorder to name a few.

Whereas, a lightpacker, would only need his mobile phone.

From there either an individual could use their devices to mobile publish, mobile microblogging, mobile video, mobile multimedia or live blog.

*All of these methods could allow journalist to provide information and media right from the field, eliminating the need to return to the office.*

It is interesting to note how Brigg’s mentioned that many believe the mobile technology will change the media landscape even more than the Web did back in 1990.

We shall see…

In this chapter, Brigg’s outlines the new fad known as collaborative publishing. He presents different ways in which journalist can utilize a variety of new tools on the web, in order to ease their interaction with their readers.

Some of these tools include:

Crowd sourcing: is a relatively new term, coined by Jeff Howe in a 2006 article for Wired News. Think of crowdsourcing like outsourcing, the term from which it was born. The focus of crowdsourcing is usually ongoing production of information while distributed reporting relates more closely to a specific and fixed-time project, such as answering a specific question or reporting on a specific subject.

Open-source Reporting: is a form of transparency for a news organization. Traditionally, readers only learn about stories a news organization is working on when the articles are finished and published. While it is customary to keep a story idea secret to prevent the competition from running with the idea, the distributed reporting model requires a news organization to go public with a story idea early in the reporting process.

Pro-am Journalism: allows the audience to publish content onto the same website that professional journalist publish everyday news.

This chapter teaches readers how to shoot videos for news and feature stories.

To begin one must knowhow the different digital cameras are categorized.

Brigg’s seperates the cameras into two categories: 1 CCD and 3 CCD (CCD = charge coupled device).

These measures tell you whether the camera has one computer chip or three computer chips. Cameras use these chips to process color and, as you might suspect, having three is better than one. As a result, 3 CCD cameras produce much higher quality video but are also more expensive. A 3 CCD camera costs $1,500-$5,000 while a 1 CCD camera can be had for less than $1,000.

Other features that Brigg’s highlights in order to produce professional videos are: a charged battery and ample tape, as well as, external microphones, external lighting devices, a tripod and headphones.

www.hitandrunproductions.com

On top of that, Brigg’s explains how features like zoom, focus and exposure are important in providing viewers with the clearest, most detailed image. Moreover, having a good audio source is an underestimated feature in producing a quality video.

Later in the chapter, Brigg’s explains to readers how important it is to plan the shoot in order to produce the best shot possible. This step involves using a wide-angle, medium angle or close-ups shots, all of which can be used accordingly when shooting.

www.hitandrunproductions.com

Finally, he includes some other important steps to consider in order to successfully produce the best image possible. Such steps are:

1. Be selective in shooting.

2. Avoid panning, zooming

3. Hold your shots.

4.Be silent when you shoot.

5. Frame your subject carefully

6. Seek the best short clips.

members.virtualtourist.com/m/2e525/c70/

*This chapter was very insightful in providing me with the necessary steps to be a successful journalist in the every changing news reporting industry.*

The chapter itself revolves around the words of Phil Meyer in his book, “The New Precision Journalism,” where he exclaims, ““If you are a journalist, or thinking of becoming one, you may have already noticed this: They are raising the ante on what it takes to be a journalist.“1

As the days of dominant newspaper circulation and increased advertising revenue slowly dimmers away, editor and reporters are being asked to do more to alter the trend. Brigg’s explains that editors and reporters must embrace technology and use the power of the people to help with your reporting legwork. It will only make newsgathering much more efficient if you can jump start the process of finding background, data, sources and experts. Brigg’s highlights how reporters need to become as efficient as possible. They can accomplish this through the use of technology and a more open approach to gathering information, reporters, photographers and editors can elevate their talent for newsgathering and news judgment without sacrificing their values. Capturing keystrokes to build useful databases and using new reporting methods such as crowdsourcing and distributed reporting are becoming the focus for more and more U.S. newsrooms.

The main point of this chapter is  if you cut through the rhetoric you’ll find unprecedented opportunities to do better journalism by embracing technology and transparency; two essential qualities for amplifying the important work of journalism in the digital age.

Crowdsourcing: is a relatively new term, coined by Jeff Howe in a 2006 article for Wired News. Think of crowdsourcing like outsourcing, the term from which it was born. The focus of crowdsourcing is usually ongoing production of information while distributed reporting relates more closely to a specific and fixed-time project, such as answering a specific question or reporting on a specific subject.

Distributed, Collabrative, or open-source reporting: is a form of transparency for a news organization. Traditionally, readers only learn about stories a news organization is working on when the articles are finished and published. While it is customary to keep a story idea secret to prevent the competition from running with the idea, the distributed reporting model requires a news organization to go public with a story idea early in the reporting process.
1 Philip Meyer, The New Precision Journalism, 2nd Ed., Indiana University Press, 1991.