Kathy Best – Seattle Times

Here is Kathy’s LinkedIn profile.

She is the Managing Editor at the Seattle Times

Please take a look at some of their multimedia – since this is what we’re learning!

Keep in mind that Ms. Best was a long time reporter/writer, so she doesn’t have details on what it takes to shoot and edit all of this – but she does know the commitment the paper has made to doing all of this work

A few interesting pieces: Immigrant, Kehinde Wiley, Black History Month Dance, Online Dating

Audio Workshop

First we are going to practice on Audition. If you want to use a different audio editor to complete the assignment, that is fine — Audacity, Garageband…plus there are some that are apps for devices. It just has to produce a file that can be uploaded to SoundCloud or AudioBoom for linking within your own site.

Please navigate to the shared Dropbox and download the Hobby Practice File (or download from this link). The download should land in your downloads folder on the desk computer.

Open Adobe Audition on your computer. Here is a great little tutorial to help you as you start in. Adobe Audition. He gives you the basics starting at about 2:15 and walks through how to edit easily.

We are going to edit this silly piece of audio (Hobby) for some work today so you can then interview your teammates and edit it for homework.

Listen to the three interviews here – cut the whole thing down to 2 mins (from 7) as best you can.

HOUR TWO – the interviews!

Here’s the audio assignment (it’s also under assignments) for homework.

Now you will interview your group to gather the audio.

These are the details for the in-class portion:

Audio Assignment (60 points)

You will interview those in your group for this assignment – during class. There will be a set of questions to choose from, so don’t worry too much about the topics.

  1. Recording: Use one smart phone or one of the recorders from the library. Make sure you know how to use the voice recorder. Test it out – before you do the actual interview try a few tests so you can check the quality.
  2. The Interview:

    Use the questions provided to get a sense of your classmates – take turns so that everyone has a chance.

    One person be interviewer, one interviewee and then pass the recorder on – running – and go to the next.

    Do the best you can to get a few stories out of them, but don’t let the time go for more than about 3-5 mins each. It might be good to assign a timer.

    Listen purposefully to what they are saying and ask good follow-ups questions. Sometimes it’s as easy as saying “tell me more about that.”

    When finished, load that big file to the You all have access, so you should be able to download that file.

    Decide who will edit whom in your group.

First Day Activities

A reminder that we’re going to be testing out Slack as a way to communicate within our JRN4121 newsroom, so please sign up if you have not.

It is a good idea to have accounts on the following if you do not already:

 

Analyzing Multimedia

Choose any story from this list of 2013 NPPA Multimedia Winners or take a look at the monthly winners so far and choose from there. Monthly MM Clips. Please choose a different story from the other students who posted before you did.

Read both Kern, Chapter 6, and Kobre, Chapter 12 before  you view the multimedia.

NOTE: be sure to select a STORY with AUDIO.

In a post on your blog, do all of the following:

  1. Provide the title of the story, and make the title a direct link to the main story page.
  2. Summarize the story (do not copy/paste anything; use your own words).
  3. Tell how the story made you feel as you watched and listened to it.
  4. Discuss the images (specify they are video or stills or both). You may compare them to images from some other visual media; for example, are they cinematic? Are they like print news images? Are they like TV news images?
  5. Discuss the audio – both its content and the way it contributes to the story.
  6. Separately, discuss the use of natural sound in the story.

Requirements for this analysis

  1. The length must be 300 to 500 words.
  2. Write intelligently so that a prospective employer, reading your post, will think you are smart and interesting.
  3. Write an appropriate and interesting headline for this post
  4. After you publish your post on your won blog, copy the URL of the post age and paste it in the comments section of this assignment.

Blog Post #1

In this blog post, publish your notes from Deuze’s What is Multimedia Journalism and the introduction to Achterman’s Multimedia in the Mainstream (Intro & Definitions). You may also refer to the Wikipedia entry for Multimedia. Your notes must appear in the form of two (2) numbered lists, one for each reading. Write a brief statement above each list to explain or summarize that list.

This is a standard blog post – just like you might see in a review of a book or product. The idea is to highlight or capture the ideas or information that resonated most strongly with you, in a format that other people might find interesting to read. If you want to seek out and add links that prove a point in the readings – that is a nice addition – but not required

The list is not meant to represent everything in the readings. It should represent what was most meaningful to YOU. Thus each student’s list will likely be different. Here is an example from a different course (that also uses one of our texts).

Requirements for your list items

  1. Write each note as a complete and grammatically correct sentence (or sentences).
  2. Include the relevant page number(s) from the reading with each individual item.
  3. Do not quote from or paraphrase  (you may quote a phrase of a few words, but do not reproduce whole sentences). Think for yourself. Process the idea and say it in your own words. Be brief. Be clear. Write well.
  4. Don’t list anything you consider totally obvious — but you may list things that we cover in class.

Requirements for your blog post

  1. The length must be (minimum) 200 to (maximum) 500 words.
  2. Write intelligently so that a prospective employer, reading your post, will think you are smart and attentive.
  3. Write an appropriate and interesting headline for your blog post.
  4. After you publish your blog post ON YOUR OWN SITE, copy the URL of your post page and paste it in a COMMENT to this post, here, on this blog. If you paste a complete URL on a line by itself, it will automatically become a working link. That is what I want.

Please refer to the criteria and grading on Blog Posts on the Assignment page as well.

Deadline: January 12@midnight (late night on Monday)