Should multimedia journalism students be required to learn Flash animation?

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Mu Lin

Associated Press has an interactive piece today on the 2012 presidential race. This makes me wonder: shall we require J-students to take courses in Flash animation?

This AP piece is more of an editing work than a reporting work. The creator puts together data visualization, photos and other graphics with an interactive Flash interface. At its core, this is a Flash project. Chances are it was created by an editor and a staff designer, or an editor who can do both news editing and flash animation.

The concern is, if this is something people in the newsroom regularly work on, then shall we make Flash animation a required course for multimedia journalism majors?

Looking at the degree requirements at three universities that offer degrees in multimedia journalism, Arizona State University, University of Denver and University of Texas at El Paso, there is not an explicit Flash course or other animation courses, either as required course or as electives. This seems to suggest that journalism educators do not think animation is a core skill for multimedia journalism students.

In a separate post, I wrote about how a reporter can use a free online tool to create an interactive Flash interface for a multimedia project, without having to learning anything about animation and web design. I created another demo project to explore this tool’s ability to incorporate more multimedia story elements: article, audio clips, video, photo slideshow, and a map.

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Pinterest: Yet another social media tool for journalists to cope with?

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Mu Lin

Some reporters/editors are still struggling to figure out how to catch up with Facebook and Twitter. Now they have to deal with yet another social media tool: Pinterest. Continue reading →

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Video production should be a core course for all journalism students

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Mu Lin

A recent New York Times article talks about how more and more newspapers plunge into video productions, which include both field video production and live studio production. This is a wake-up call for those colleges where video is required of broadcast or TV track students but electives for other tracks. Continue reading →

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Writing for the web is different: Why and how

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Mu Lin

Anyone who regularly writes on the web should learn some basic web writing techniques – this is a belief that gets stronger and stronger with my daily reading of blog posts and online articles. Continue reading →

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A multimedia journalism textbook

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Mu Lin

Just found a multimedia journalism book published in February. The book is titled “Videojournalism: Multimedia Storytelling.” I will designate this book as a required textbook for my Convergent Journalism class.

I have been looking for a good text for my class for some time, but haven’t found one that meets my needs. Instead of the piecemeal style materials I have found for the students regarding the various aspects of multimedia journalism, I need a text that is systematic, hands-on and up-to-date.

This book covers the essential elements in a multimedia news story: the story itself, basic news reporting, video, audio, and photo slideshow. It even has an accompanying web page with all the sample multimedia works mentioned in the chapters.

The author of this book says in his blog that “According to its editor, it has already received more requests for possible college adoptions than any previous book published in the film/broadcast division of Focal Press.”

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Geotagged tweeting of a royal wedding: Combining geotagging news story with social media

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Mu Lin

A reporter at the British newspaper, The Guardian, produced an interesting report on the royal wedding day. He tweeted and posted picture, video and audio as he met people along the way. His journey was mapped out as he went. Continue reading →

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Sample multimedia journalism work: A good audio slideshow project

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Mu Lin

Climate Wisconsin is an educational multimedia project featuring stories of climate change. This project features a series of audio slideshows – each focuses on a specific impact of the climate change: ice fishing, farming, extreme heat, etc.

This is not a news story produced by a news media. However, these audio slideshows demonstrate a remarkable quality of multimedia journalism production: the photography, the background music, the interviews, the sound recording, the use of natural sound, the editing techniques, the mixture of photos and videos, etc.

Highly recommend. This is also why I tell students that they need to have a good knowledge of multimedia journalism even if they won’t be working for a news media – there are times that they may need to be involved in projects like this one.

Related posts:

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Using social media to market online degree program: Start a conversation on Facebook page

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Mu Lin

Some thoughts, borrowed from Facebook’s tutorial on “Building Your Business With Facebook Pages,” about how to best use the online program’s Facebook page. This is a continuation of a previous post on how Georgian Court University’s online programs can use social media tools for promotion and marketing. Continue reading →

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Writing for the web is different

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Mu Lin

A book I read when preparing for a writing class, The Web Content Style Guide, was published in 2001. Ten years may have made many web-bound materials obsolete; however, materials in this book still turn out to be relevant and useful guidelines for writing on the web.

Some key techniques discussed in this book:

  • Shorter is better. Documents intended for online reading should rarely be longer than 1,000 words. 
  • Be direct. In most web writing – especially business writing – the best way to begin is with the shortest and clearest statement you can make about your topic.
  • Write web headings and subheads
  • If you’re consistently writing paragraphs with more than 50 words, you should probably lighten up.
  • Keep your sentences simple and short

It amuses me a bit when reading the online excerpts of this book on the publisher’s website: it seems that some of the above-mentioned guidelines are not properly applied with these excerpts in the first place.

For instance, the author of the book advocates the use of subheads, which is a technique being echoed in some other, more current texts. This technique recommends that web writers use more subheads in their writings so that the readers can get a quick idea of the contents by just scanning for the group of heading and subheads. The subhead guideline itself is not being followed in the online excerpts of this book: there are few or no subheads in some really long parts.

In a separate post, I discussed some other specific techniques on writing online copies that are easy to follow and read.

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What does it take to produce a good multimedia story package?

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Mu Lin

Washington Post has a multimedia story about how some U.S. soldiers deal with traumatic brain injury from their deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. This story provides for a good illustration for what a multimedia story entails and, from a journalism educator’s perspective, what skills and expertise it takes to produce a project like this one. Continue reading →

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