As with any homework assignment I have done for this class this semester, I chose to focus on The New York Times while following a news site’s homepage for three days over Thanksgiving break. However the tryptophan got to me and I managed to consistently forget about this assignment so the screenshots I took are from all different points of the day. Continue reading
Wooden roller coasters may seem antiquated, but they make great visuals for web video.
Video journalist Michael Sternoff illustrated the “unique” story of Chad Miller, a roller coaster designer at Holiday World in Santa Clause, Ind., and wooden roller coasters in “Off the Beaten Track.”
It wasn’t too difficult to find a well-done web video on The New York Times website. “Small Presses Take Brooklyn,” produced by Erik Olsen, is a good example of a video that only works of the web, not for broadcast.
Erik Olsen’s video for The New York Times, “Small Presses Take Brooklyn,” is an example of a video that would only work for the web, not for broadcast.
Part of the reason why this video can only work for the web is the background music in it. Honestly, I didn’t notice this at first. But as I watched the video closer to find differences between it and broadcast, I heard the music.
Also, web videos allow for more creative shots to be used in the package. Many of the B-roll shots were very close and a few of the shots changed focus. While tight shots do work for broadcast, I feel that the type of tight shots in this video would not have translated well to a television screen. Also, changing the point of focus in a shot definitely would not work for broadcast. Continue reading
A New York Times close-up shot of mailed ballots in Florida. Credit: Sarah Beth Glicksteen for The New York Times.
1. Move in close with your camera:
Filling the frame allows you to hone in on your subject and remove needless background. Cameras all have helpful optical zooms, but shooting close-ups enhance the clarity and detail of your photos. This is especially helpful in audio slideshows about someone who works with their hands because viewers will be able to see their skill and dexterity.
Before I took JRN 320: Online Journalism, I was convinced that I wanted to go into print reporting. But then I got to class and dove into the world of multimedia. I saw how fun online journalism could be and I fell in love with audio-slideshows.
The New York Times audio-slideshow series Coming Out is a five-part series on the stories of gay and transgender teenagers in America.
The New York Times is my go-to place for all things journalism. So I immediately visited its website when I needed to find an example of a good audio-slideshow. In the series Coming Out, the Times looks at five stories from teenagers who are gay or transgender.
I watched all five stories and I felt that all were very good. However, I think two were stronger than the others.
My favorite is Gaining Confidence From God, the story of a 15 year old girl from Texas who just recently came out to those around her. She is a Christian and was worried about how others Christians, including her father, would accept her. Continue reading
The New York Times published “Romney Says Remarks on Voters Help Clarify Position” on Tuesday, a piece detailing Mitt Romney’s embracement of comments he made at a closed fundraiser in Florida in May.
Mitt Romney at campaign Tuesday in Salt Lake City
The Republican presidential nominee’s remarks claiming that 47 percent of Americans are too dependent on welfare were secretly recorded on video and prompted his campaign to go on the defensive.
The strength of the news story is its use of both print and video journalism. The multimedia piece includes the written story and video coverage to the left of the webpage entitled “Fallout Over Video.” The TimesCast video is over seventeen minutes of political news with most of it covering the Romney controversy. It offers news and insights into Romney’s comments and the presidential election as a whole.
My favorite movie is Despicable Me. When I move back to school each year, I make sure I have a new coloring book coming with me. I ask my friends to come play with me, instead of hang out.
Yes, I still act like a child sometimes. And just like any child, I love story time. So when I saw The New York Times Convention Storybook, I was ready for my story.
And that’s exactly what I got.
The New York Times Convention Storybook is an audio slideshow by Michael Barbaro analyzing the political conventions this past year. Above, the “front cover” of the piece.
This piece by The New York Times is a prime example of great multimedia use on the web. Instead of just writing an article about the conventions and accompanying it with a photo gallery, this piece uses audio recordings of the journalist’s voice – in this case, it’s Michael Barbaro – partnered with the classic photo gallery with captions to tell the story of this year’s conventions.
Literally, a political storybook. Continue reading
News websites had to make difficult decisions about running graphic images of victims in last month’s Empire State Building shootings. The controversial photos, taken by witnesses and posted to their social media accounts, showed the victims lying on the ground, bleeding from their heads.
News websites were divided over which photos to run. The New York Times, Reuters and the New York Daily News chose to run the graphic images, while The Wall Street Journal, and NBC News showed much less lurid ones.
“A ranger at Garamba National Park arranges a collection of elephant tusks, most of them from illegal poaching but some from elephants that died naturally.”
Now more than ever, Africa is engulfed in a crisis over elephant slaughter. Poachers, many of whom are African soldiers, are decimating tens of thousands of elephants a year to illegally trade ivory, a valuable resource that is easily converted into cash.
Tyler Hicks’ photo gallery of the elephant massacre is powerful and visceral. The New York Times journalist’s story illustrates the urgency and depravity of the conflict with gripping photos and detailed captions.
“Garamba National Park, in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, is a battlefield, with an arms race playing out across the savanna.”
The gallery’s establishing shot shows an elephant with large tusks walking across Garamba National Park. This shot is quite telling, as it depicts only one elephant alive in a continent where “tens of thousands” are being wiped out per year.
Each of the eleven photos offers something new and revealing to the story. Grisly images of slaughtered elephants depict the evils of the ivory underworld, while photos of armed wildlife rangers provide a sense of hope for combating poachers (although one photo points out that some of the rangers are poachers themselves).
“Park rangers discover a poached elephant, stripped of ivory, deep in the park.”
“A ranger in Garamba with a few of the tusks from the park’s collection.”
The final photo of the gallery is my personal favorite. It shows a young man smiling and holding three tusks. His facial expression underscores the thoughtless brutality occurring in Africa for tusks that can be “worth more than 10 times the average annual income in many African countries.”
It is my belief that if a news story doesn’t elicit a reaction from its audience, it has failed. And no, complacency doesn’t count as a successful reaction. Laughter, anger, jealousy, discontent, joy. These are reactions journalists should be striving for in their work.
And that is exactly what Donna Ferrato achieves in her work on domestic abuse.
Featured on The New York Times photography blog Lens is an article describing the work Donna Ferrato has done photographing domestic abuse.
The New York Times photography blog, Lens, published a piece on Ferrato’s work in early July, titled Leaving Abuse Behind. The article explains the decades of work Ferrato has put into her series and how she will culminate all these photos into a final project. Continue reading