A not-so-old newspaper friend stopped by campus recently.
Allison Bezold-Diaz, who graduated from the University of Miami in spring 2007, spoke to my online journalism class last Thursday. She gave great tutorials on capturing/editing audio, photography/digital SLR basics and editing photos in Photoshop.
I sat down with Allison, a former Miami Hurricane photo editor, to ask her about the importance of multimedia and what advice she would give student journalists.
Here’s what she had to say:
I posted Monday about two journalism events for Comm Week 2008 (read it here); more details have since been released on two other events, a new media workshop and panel.
I will be participating in the workshop and liveblogging the panel. I will post the streaming feed for the panel and then the video once it’s posted. Stay tuned.
Details from the School of Communication Web site:
New Media Reporting: VIDEO WORKSHOP
February 15, 2008
10:00 am
Location: Communication International Building 2055
Panelists:
Ricardo Lopez, Miami Herald visual journalist
Brent McDonald, New York Times visual journalist
Will Payne, Current TV
The workshop is an introduction to video journalism. Lopez, McDonald and Payne will discuss the best gear for the job, basic elements new media reporters should look for while shooting, as well as editing techniques – what to include in a Web audio-visual news story and what to avoid.
PANEL: New Media Reporting – trends and challenges
February 15, 2008
11:30 am
Location: Communication International Building 2055
Moderator: Chris Delboni, UM / SoC
Panelists:
Suzanne Levinson — Miami Herald, director of site operations
Phil Lewis — Naples Daily News, editor & vice president of editorial
Ricardo Lopez — Miami Herald, visual journalist
Brent McDonald — New York Times, visual journalist
Will Payne — Current TV, College Outreach
Side note: Check out this video I produced after Suzanne Levinson spoke to my online journalism class.
Let the Web design blogging begin!
Will Wooten, visuals editor at The Miami Hurricane, has started a blog about online journalism, specifically the redesign of The Hurricane’s Web site.
Will is overseeing the aesthetic side of the project and will be posting updates and information about the redesign process. The blog will also act as a means for gathering feedback and discussing the new site.
And what is the name of this forum?
“Will’s Blog.”
Why such a simple name?
“The reason is, it is what it is. I don’t want anything creative.”
What about the design and color scheme?
“The serious bloggers are going to be using a reader anyway.”
Unrelated, my favorite quote from Will came as he was updating his resume last semester. As he was finishing, he realized something:
“I forget to put that I was Time Magazine’s person of the year in 2006 on my resume.”
Miami Herald metro reporter Evan Benn will begin speaking with a UM journalism class (CNJ 216 news reporting) in about a minute or so. I’m crashing the party with my laptop, digital recorder and point-and shoot.
He will be discussing online research and has a handout called “Finding people, getting stories.”
This will be my first real liveblog – the test one I did with Cover It Live doesn’t count.
Here are the points he will discuss:
1. Plug ‘Em In
2. Find public records
3. Call around them
4. Play dumb
5. Be yourself
I’ll be expanding these based on his talk as it occurs, so please be sure to check back for updates.
9: 42 A.M.: “Even when I first got into this business all we did is go out with a notebook and pen, but now it’s so much different.” Now, he has a Blackberry (for filing and photos), takes a digital recorder, etc.
He shot photos from courtroom with Blackberry, but they said they sucked, so he brought a point-and-shoot the next time.
Side note: I brought Evan to speak to our SPJ chapter last semester where he mentioned how he liveblogged the O.J. trial from Vegas.
“You really have to be fast and efficient and versatile, that’s always the linchpin of journalism.” (Hey! That’s the name of this blog.)
Tip 1: “There’s so much information available on the Internet,” that should be where you start. Use Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc.
Tip 2: Public records: “There’s a wealth of information you can find about people’s lives.”
9:58 A.M.:
Web resources:
Evan showed this entertaining video while discussing Bird Road Rudy (the Herald story is no longer online.
10:02 A.M.: We’ve moved on to blogging, yay!
“I think that’s important in this day and age.”
Evan gave an example of a recent post he wrote about an item from his hometown papers.
Tip 4: Play dumb.
“Don’t be afraid to say, ‘Can you slow down?’ “
“When you’re writing, pretend like your telling it to your friend.”
For difficult stories, such as deaths and tragedies.
“Be a human first, a journalist second. Often journalists are seen as vultures.”
“Be empathetic. It’s O.K. to not be a robot. Make a human connection, find some common ground. If you can find that human connection, you’ll find people are a lot more willing to talk to you and make you job easier.”
Question from student: Are blogs replacing columns?
No, Evan says he thinks they add to the conversation.
Question from student: Do you do your own radio work?
He takes all his own audio, uploads it, listens and edits before taking it to radio studio. He writes a minute-long script, voices it and they put it all together.
Suzanne Levinson, director of site operations at The Miami Herald, visited my online journalism class Thursday evening.
She discussed the Herald’s Web site, online journalism and what students need to know to get into the field. The webmaster, visuals editor and I took the opportunity to get her thoughts on the The Miami Hurricane‘s redesign plans, showing her two drafts wireframes.