Photojournalism From A Student’s Eye

Clip of the recently aired piece on the Santa Anita racetrack, which served as an assembly center for Japanese American internees during World War II.

Last Wednesday I took part in a chat on Twitter about web journalism. One thing that became clear early on, even within “web journalism” many roles and responsibilities are highly specialized. Answers to questions regarding what a web journalist is, what responsibilities people have, and what titles people hold varied greatly depending on their role in their organization. There were back-end tech people who manage databases and work with code, reporters who were starting to use Twitter and still cameras, editors who help to produce packages and train staff, etc.

This may have been the reality for many of last week’s participants (working in dedicated, albeit small, web/online teams) but it is not mine, and I doubt it is the reality for other Web editors in many small market, rural areas. So what do I do on a typical day at work?

From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. my day usually involves pagination and copy editing.

Copy editing: The aspect of my work most foreign to me, I will typically read through all of the days stories at some point in the day for content and/or for grammar/spelling.

Pagination: This usually involves paginating two local pages and, at times, two or three wire pages.

After 1 p.m. (we are an afternoon paper) my days usually involves a mix of posting content to the Web, blogging/social media management, training, podcasts, a mix of either shooting stills, creating audio slideshows or video, and the ever-present meeting.

Posting to Web: Fairly straightforward and not much different than any other CMS I’ve used it in the past whether it be College Publisher, Wordpress or SaxoTech. The new AP Marketplace does add a slight hiccup to my workflow and, on the off chance that some other Web editor reads this, if you know of a way to publish select content to Marketplace without auto publishing everything, but also without having to enter each field manually, I would love to hear it.

Blogging/Social Media Management: Upkeep of the Telegram’s photo blog (soon to be multimedia blog as soon as I finish this post). Keeping content fresh and interacting with users on Twitter, Facebook and our SWKTalk forums.

Training: Weekly new media training for reporters and photographers. I also maintain www.danielsato.com/gctelegram, where I recap our training sessions and provide links to other tutorials and examples.

Podcasts: I have even gotten in to the podcast world, hosting “Talk of the Town,” where I discuss some topic that is pertinent either to Garden City or southwest Kansas each Wednesday afternoon at our local coffee house.

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Stephanie Cole, of the Kansas Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, discusses the organization’s view on the 895-megawatt coal-fired power plant that is proposed to be built in Holcomb.

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Dave Sjeklocha, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at the Haskell County Animal Hospital, discusses the use of antibiotics in feed animals.

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USD 457 Board of Education president Mike Utz and board member Gloria Hopkins discuss the recent decision to join Schools for Fair Funding, which is considering the idea of suing the state for funding promised to schools. Schools for Fair Funding has since decided to proceed in its lawsuit with the state.

Photos, slideshows and video: Every now and again, I also get to go and play outside of the office.

The potential upside the amount and variety of work I do: I have experience in 9 of the top ten areas of expertise sought after by online media, and 17 of the 23 skills listed. Mark Shaver, who maintains the blog Depth Reporting, mentioned that his areas of expertise, computer programming and database management, were well down on the list, though I imagine they have gone up in demand since Serena Carpenter’s 2008 study, which the rankings originated from.

This post was written for an internal blog that I have been keeping for my work and was written for reporters with no video experience:

We all know the basics of what goes into a typical tv news piece:

• Interview and/or voice over narration
• Lots and lots of b-roll (footage to lay over interviews/narration)
  • Establishing shot
  • Medium shot
    
  • Detail shots (anything to do with hands, eyes, mouths talking, etc)

Some general rules of thumb for shooting (Again, these are just rules of thumb, and rules are made to be broken once you have a grasp of them):

• Use a tripod. Given the small size of our video camera, camera-shake while hand holding is almost guaranteed. Film your interview, establishing and medium shots and some details with the camera on the tripod. No one wants to feel like they are watching the Blair Witch Project. I can barely watch this video by ESPNwith commentators Michael Wilbon and Jon Barry (Apparently the video was so bad, they took it down)
• Take the camera off of the tripod. I know I just told you to keep it on the tripod. And you should, to gather all of the basic elements of your piece. For a photographer, this is similar to grabbing the shots you know will work in print. For reporters, I imagine it is getting the who, what, where, when and why in a story. Once that is done, you are free to get creative and find that well-composed shot.
• Change your angles. This applies mostly to when you take the camera off of the tripod. Place it up high, down low, frame your subject by shooting through something. Move back, get close. Try and avoid shooting from the same distance at the same height for each clip.
• When interviewing, control is key. As we discussed last week during the audio gathering training, you want to have control over your environment when conducting interviews. In the case of video interviews, whenever possible, you want both good sound and good light. Just as in audio gathering, this means moving your subject to a quiet location. As for light, window light works well indoors, shade outdoors.
• Avoid unnecessary zooming, panning and tilting. The most common culprit is the zoom while filming.
  
• Keep your shots static. Related to the last item, compose your shot as if you were taking a still photograph. Let your subject walk into and out of the frame, rather than following him/her around.
• Storyboard your video ahead of time. Just as you have a list of questions you plan to ask before heading in to an interview, you should have a sense of what shots you want before you start filming. This will be a great help when you are back in the office editing, which is the real time-intensive part of video production. Having to sort through and make clips of five to 10 minutes of footage is far easier than 30 minutes of footage.

Some video examples:

One of my favorite multimedia producers. Katy Newton, and her husband Sean Connelly used to work up in the Bay Area. This ongoing multimedia piece features profiles of people that Katy finds on the Missed Connections area of Craigslist. They also have done a great package for the Oakland Tribune called Not Just a Number, which puts a name, face and, at times, a story, to all of the murders that happen in Oakland and the surrounding area. It is an amazing piece as well.

This post was written for an internal blog that I have been keeping for my work:

Here is a recap of our first multimedia training session, which focused on audio gathering and editing:

• Though video is important, it is not the revenue generating magic bullet that many made it out to be a few years ago. Also, we only have one video camera as compared to three audio recorders and four cameras. That said, whenever possible, we will be deciding what media to use based on what best suits the story being told.
  • To get an idea of how to determine what will work best, please read this post I wrote today (it will take a mere three minutes)

• Audio gathering tips
  • Control is key. You want as much control over the conditions in which you gather audio as possible. Good sound in = good sound out.
  • Be aware of surrounding noise when conducting interviews. Alter your location or move if it is too noisy.
  • Do not be afraid to
    • Turn off computers
    • Unplug refrigerators
    • Turn off lights, especially large banks of fluorescent lights
    • MOVE
  • When outdoors, consider shielding yourself from the wind by:
    • Hiding between buildings
    • going into your car
    • using your body to block the wind
    • going inside

• Audio gathering is more than just conducting an interview
  • You want your audio piece to be strong enough to stand on its own without any visuals or print accompaniment.
  • Gather interviews, ambient sound and detail sounds
    • Interviews – Watch your levels and hold the mic approx. 4 inches from subject. Yes, that is close, but subjects will understand that you are doing your job and trying to make them sound as good as possible. Have your subject say the question in the answer and avoid yes or no questions.
    • Ambient – Turn recorder on at location and record 30 seconds to one minute of sound from the environment. This will serve as the base for your audio project.
    • Detail sounds – Often overlooked, these include things like typing on a keyboard, a coach yelling, shoes squeaking, etc.

• Examples – From traditional to artistic, a few examples to get your creativity flowing and expand what you may think of as newspaper multimedia.
  • A more traditional piece, as far as structure and content, by Renee Byer of the Sacramento Bee. This won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007.
  • A feature piece by Mercury News photographer Dai Sugano. Notice there are no voice over or interviews.
  • Another feature, this time by Roanoke Times photog Josh Meltzer. This is an example of how a stand alone in print can be turned into an engaging multimedia presentation online. Things like this can be done by our photographers.
  • Another example mainly for our photogs. This shows that you can be creative with how you use imagery in multimedia presentations. Consider stripping photos in, making cutouts, shooting sequences, juxtaposing images, etc.
  • Two examples of using typography/infographics to help drive your story. First example. Second example.
  • This last piece is most likely to be emulated by the reporters. It includes a voice over of a reporter likely reading the copy of the story, on camera interviews of subjects, pretty standard video shots (nothing too artsy) and some basic infographics.

• Learn by doing
  • The best way to learn how to both gather and edit audio is to do it. Luckily for you, two of your coworkers were nice enough to gather sample audio and images today in order to practice editing in Final Cut Express. These files, and other sample files, will be available online in the next day for you to experiment with.