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.”
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.
When I was in China last summer for a feature writing study abroad class, our University of Miami group discussed the Internet, freedom of speech and censorship with a number of the Chinese journalism students. What we learned and gleaned from their perspectives was quite interesting.
As you can tell from my occasional China posts, I am very interested in these topics, especially speech/press-related issues. (Shameless plug: Check out our class blog and my stories from the trip).
Here is an excerpt from a New York Times article, Great Firewall of China Faces Online Rebels:
“In recent months, China’s censors have tightened controls over the Internet, often blacking out sites that had no discernible political content. In the process, they have fostered a backlash, as many people who previously had little interest in politics have become active in resisting the controls.”
During our stay, I found a few proxy sites to get around some of the censored sites. One of the strangest sites that was completely censored was Wikipedia.
I don’t have a problem with the Chinese people or China in general. I found the country fascinating and the trip the most enlightening I’ve ever taken. My problem is with the lack of freedom: Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to peaceably assemble and to protest the government for redress of grievances.
Journalism and free speech are improving with time, mostly due to the power of the Internet. (mobile phones are also playing an important role). The government may continue clamping down in response, but people are gradually pushing back.