Examples of the Web Protest Against SOPA

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a bill in Congress that has pitted Hollywood against Silicon Valley.

The movie studios want a law the forces Interest Service Providers to stop linking to websites that host boot-legged movies, TV shows, and other entertainment.

Many digital media companies want "net neutrality," that means that everyone is treated the same on the Internet. These companies say there is another to stop entertainment piracy. Just give us time, the Silicon Valley firms say, and we will develop a way that satisfies everyone.

Click here to see screen grabs of some of the websites that joined in the Jan. 18 protest.

UPDATE: The online protest seems to have worked. Check out this story from the Los Angeles Times.

Everyone makes mistakes ...

But we should be extra careful when writing and publishing on the web.
Here are two mistakes that should have never happened. The first is a mistake that can only happen on the web. Someone wrote a description of a photo and that description should have never been made public. Remember, whenever you write something that is attached to a photo, a video or a story that is going to be published on the web, make sure that you won't be embarassed--or you publication won't be embarassed--if and when people see it. This goes for material that you believe will never make it out on the web. Trust me, it will get out.
The editor of laobserved.com said it best, "Tags, URLs and alt text all count as editorial content these days, for better or worse."
The second mistake is something that good research should have prevented. None of us can know every scrap of information that the world contains. That's why it is OK to check, and double check your research before publication.

Why We Are Emphasizing Video This Semester

One of the goals of the Spring 2012 News Production & Management is to get everyone involved with video. We all should leave the class with at leas one video experience.
This experience can be you in a news video (either telling a story or using video as a companion to a written story).
You can interview someone in a video. You can have two people debate in a video.
A few weeks ago, the New York Times announced that it is "embracing" video as a primary reporting tool. That's right, a print product is going to stress video, at least for its online components.
If it is good enough for the New York Times, it's good enough for the Menlo Oak.
Check out the Beet.TV interview with the Times editorial director of video & TV on this shift.
Also, click here to for a story and video on how the non-profit group  One Laptop Per Child is developing a low-cost(in some cases around $100)  tablet so kids in the world's poorest countries can connect with technology, and the organization hopes, a brighter future.
Please watch the video. I think it is too long at six minutes, but it is a good online video, even with all the crowd noise in the background. I bet the writer is using his smartphone camera to shoot the video.

Anyone interested in experimenting with audio clips?

Adding audio to our stories is a great way to provide the human touch and context (two elements from the First Five Graphs).
In the digital media world, we all need to know a little about a lot of tools to tell stories. Now it is becoming easier to add audio to our stories.
According to an article on poynter.org, the Poynter Institute is xxxxx..... " Everyone who has a smartphone doesn’t just have a camera in their pocket, but a microphone. And unlike video, you can listen to audio you and others create when you’re doing other things.
Journalists should at least experiment with online audio – whether they work in radio or not."
Here's a link to the complete Poynter story.
One of the audio apps mentioned in the Poynter article is SoundCloud. Here's how Jay-Z recently used SoundCloud.
 Glory - Jay-Z feat. Blue Ivy Carter by Warhol2011

This is a practice post for the final project

This is what we can do.

We can use this as our shell.  Students can write their introduction here and then use links to their multimedia presentation.
They can use GWC flickr page to create photo slideshows.
They can use GWC YouTube channel to post video.
It can all go here on class blog.
Let's test the link to flickr right now.

Notes and Links for Guidance on Final Project

What is a multimedia story?

A multimedia story is some combination of text, still photographs, video clips, audio, graphics and interactivity presented on a website in away that complements each part, but does not repeat content. .

So instead of having a text version of a story accompanied by a video clip that essentially tells the same story, different parts of a story are told using different media. The key is using the media form - video, audio, photos, text, animation - that will present a segment of a story in the most compelling and informative way.

What isn't a multimedia story? 

CNN, the Washington Post and MSNBC.com are examples of multimedia sites. They have text. They have video clips. They have audio. They have still photographs. They have interactive graphics. But the main stories on these sites are often produced in either text or video or audio to stand alone. Photos are used with  text often  photos the same way they would be used  in a newspaper or magazine. The video is usually the same version that appears on television. Rarely are video, text, still photos, audio and graphics integrated into the same story. Usually, they are stand-alone stories, each produced for a different media about the same subject, that are then aggregated into multimedia packages.

That's not what we want to do in the final project.

Storyboarding

Why do a storyboard?

A storyboard is a sketch of how to organize a story and a list of its contents.

A storyboard helps you:

• Define the parameters of a story within available resources and time 
• Organize and focus a story 
• Figure out what medium to use for each part of the story 

How to do a rough storyboard

Divide the story into its logical, parts, such as:

• an opening paragraph, that tells why this story is important 
• snippets of profiles of the main person or people in the story 
• time, place of the event or situation 
• examples of a process or how something works 
• pros and cons (this is good if you are going to tackle an issue)
• the history of the event or situation 

Here are some examples of good multimedia storytelling:

Story Shell: (Classic NPR Style) Hurricane Katrina Aftermath

Story Shell: (Narrative emphasis) JD Learns to Cook

Issues Shell: Protest Movements in Oakland

Story Shell: Guerrilla Art Galleries in San Jose

They covered up 'radio' in the sign at NPR headquarters

It's about time.
This photo was tweeted by a Los Angeles-based NPR producer.  “A picture tells a thousand words: ‘National Public Radio’ painted over by NPR at HQ,” the tweet stated.
In 2008 Jane Stevens led workshops with NPR  staff on how to shift from being a radio-centric journalism organization into a web-centric journalism organization.
Basically, Stevens and others asked the NPR staff to rethink how they tell stories and how their stories reach their audience.
It is an understatement that there was resistance to the whole idea. If the LA producer's tweet is any indication, there is still some anger about the shift in emphasis.
"Back in the days that there was just radio, your station was the only point of entry to all this content," Robert Spier, director of content development for NPR Digital Media told writers for the American Journalism Review. "You couldn't get NPR except through your station because it was only available on radio, and radio was time and geographically bound." Today, of course, "the user expects to be in control of his or her experience."
That has NPR rethinking how it operates. That's a good thing and what needs to be done if NPR is to survive in the digital age.
According to poynter.org, an NPR spokeswoman said the panel reading “National Public Radio” has been covered for several years. The new permanent sign has NPR’s logo and address.
The NPR staff, really, the entire journalism community, needs to embrace the digital age. There is no going back to the good old days.