Photojournalism

The reading for this week was on using photography to better tell a story. While I agree that pictures definitely help readers understand a story, I think there needs to be a balance. While reading this chapter (chapter 6 in Briggs' Journalism Next), I was somewhat creating a pros and cons list of using photographs in stories and/or blogs. Here is what I came up with:

PROs:
1. Pulls reader into story
2. Literally helps them see the action
3. Puts a face to the story, making it more personal
4. Takes up less space than text would in order to accurately describe the emotions (assuming that a picture is worth 1,000 words)

CONs:
1. If the picture doesn't fit the story, it is distracting to the reader
2. If there are too many pictures in a story, readers (or at least myself, when I am reading) are more likely to look at the photos and cutlines as opposed to reading the full text
3. Pictures can be misleading. If the story has multiple parts and the photo only captures one, then it automatically puts more weight on that aspect, even if it isn't warranted
4. It allows journalists to be lazy and let a picture do the work for them

If i had to choose, though, I think I am a fan of photojournalism. As long as the photography is done well, fits the story and isn't misleading, it can add a lot to the story. Oh, and, sometimes it's nice to be lazy and let a picture do the work for you :)

Lab #2 - Editing Interviews AKA Why I Hate MovieMaker

Today in class we paired up and interviewed students around campus on today's hot topics. I chose to interview Sofia Govarubias, a sophomore involved in organizations such as the Community Service Office and Schools for Schools, on how the earthquake in Haiti is affecting her life. She said that she was involved in planning a fundraising dinner for the American Red Cross, and wants to encourage Lehigh's population to remain interested in efforts for Haiti as the semester goes on.

The interviewing aspect of the lab was not that difficult - finding willing volunteers was surprisingly easy, especially once we whipped out the camera and told them we'd be putting their interviews online - and the questions tended to flow once the interview got started.

It was the technical aspect that got me. Luckily, I have done video editing before so I understand the basics, but the MovieMaker program proved very difficult to use. I couldn't search through clips frame-by-frame in order to cut at the exact frame I wanted to, which led to some awkward cuts in the final copy. I also couldn't personalize transitions, so when I would fade two clips together, I would lose some audio/video in the process. While these problems could be overcome with wiser videography next time, I still miss the abilities of Final Cut Pro.

On a side note - I was wandering around blogger and found the blog "Bros Like This Site." While I am aware that I am not a bro, I did like that site. It is one of those sites that, while horrible and demeaning to both guys AND girls, can only be described as "it's funny because it's true."

Anyway, that was it for today. Below are the final versions of my interviews, again, please don't judge on the awkward transitions, it's MovieMaker's fault - not mine, okay?

Blogging!

Over the weekend, we were assigned to read two chapters on blogging from our books (Journalism Next by Mark Briggs and Be the Media by David Mathison). The chapters were very enlightening - mainly from the standpoint that they made me realize that I have absolutely no idea how to blog. Given the nature of this course, you can see how that might be a bit of a problem. After finishing the chapters, I followed the books' advice on how to become a successful blogger.

One of the suggestions that the books made was for me to familiarize myself with the blogging community. They suggested that I go to www.technorati.com and search the list of the top blogs to find something that I would be interested in, as well as a topic that I am not familiar with, in order to get a better grasp on what exactly I should be typing here.

At Technorati, I found a link to Boing Boing , a site which despite its obvious aim to be more carefree and relaxed, reminded me of CNN.com. There were tabs for all different sections of interest - much like a newspaper's site - top posts above the masthead and even a sidebar of recommended posts. The main difference that I noticed between Boing Boing and a professional news site such as CNN.com was the way that the stories were written. As opposed to the stiff, AP-styled-to-death stories of "old journalism," these blogs had a refreshing, welcoming style that made me realize exactly why more and more people are looking to blogs and "new journalism" as their news sources.

I also found Ben Smith's blog subtitled "A running conversation about politics." This epitomizes what blogs are all about: two-sided journalism. Gone are the days where journalists "talk at" the public, now every person has the ability to be a journalist and talk back.

I hope that as this course continues I learn to create blogs that people besides my professor will read...but as you can probably tell, Prof. Littau...I've got a long way to go.

First Lab

Today in J198 lab we worked with video for the first time. In order to get us acquainted with the cameras (we are using the Kodak zi8), we briefly interviewed our partners. After obtaining the footage, we uploaded and converted the files using Prism and edited them using Windows Movie Maker. Although the process was slow and more complicated than video uploading on on my Mac, it worked and I was able to successfully create a movie file. I then uploaded the file to my YouTube account, so now the whole world can hear Debbie talk about how her first party at Lehigh was a toga party (an homage to her favorite movie, Animal House).

The process of converting the footage from the standard .mov file to the Movie Maker .asf file was okay for today, but I am nervous for when we start working with longer, more complicated video files. I am worried that the Prism conversion of each file will take a lot longer and make this whole process a lot more time-consuming. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Here is the final product :)