Rachel Nevares

We’ve all heard the expression “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Mark Briggs says, “Thanks to digital photography, words can easily be replaced with images, improving the experience for the audience and improving the efficiency of the journalist.”

Copyright: toothpastefordinner.com

Digital photography has become the norm in our culture. Digital photos are captured and expressed in pixels. Pixel is short for PICTure ELement. A pixel, according to Briggs, is the “visual representation of data in a digital image or graphic.”

Resolution is how many pixels are in any given picture.

Basic camera functions:

• Camera modes: controls shutter speed.
• Zoom: closeness to the object being pictured.
• Flash: give light to a photo, remove red eye.
• View/delete: see your pictures and remove ones you don’t want. 

According to Briggs, these are a few good steps to follow when getting an image ready for online publishing:

• Edit a copy of the photo — never the original.
• Crop the photo.
• Resize the picture.
• Modify the resolution.
• Tone and color correct the picture.
• Save a Web version.
• Keep it simple.

In conclusion, photography is a CRITICAL tool for us as young journalists and we must aspire to shoot, shoot, shoot! Pictures, that is. They are, after all, worth 1,000 words.

Tags: Briggs, Digital photography

“The four billion cellphones in use around the globe carry personal information, provide access to the Web and are being used more and more to navigate the real word. And as cellphones change how we live, computer scientists say, they are also changing how we think about information.” – John Markoff

“The audience is going mobile, so the journalism should, too.” says Mark Briggs.

Mobile journalism is the wave of the future, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. According to Briggs, one should bother with this new technological hassle for two main reasons:

1. A reporter on the scene doing eyewitness interviews and making firsthand observations produces a better story;
2. Today’s news audience expects to see and hear that story NOW, as it’s occurring, not tomorrow morning.

Journalism is all about instant gratification and getting to know what’s going on AS it’s happening. There’s no time to wait and the future is our present.

A list of some situations that render to mobile journalism are:

• Criminal and civil trials
• Important speeches
• Breaking news events of ALL types
• Protests, political rallies, parades, etc.
• Sporting events
• Grand openings

Some publishing options would be:

• Mobile microblogging
• Live blogging
• Mobile video
• Mobile multimedia
• Mobile audio

In conclusion, Briggs states, “Many smart people predict that mobile technology will change the media landscape more than the mainstream adoption of the Web did in the 1990s. So, get a jump on it now.”

Copyright: letsgomobile.org

Tags: Briggs, Mobile journalism

Journalists across all platforms have become incredibly obsessed with how many people are viewing theirarticle(s), as opposed to the next person. Has journalism driven away from it’s true purpose and turned into marketing?

This is the point that Joel Achenbach, a Washington Post staff writer, argues in his article titled “I Really Need You to Read this Aricle, Okay?”

Copyright: projects.washingtpost.com

He, as every other smart journalist, knows and realizes that journalism has taken a sharp turn for the Web. He jokingly expressed that because people are now able to see how many views they’ve gotten on a particular blog or article, this will change the way journalists do “business”.

I find this to be very true. Journalists are striving to be the best at their profession, and that’s what they should be doing. But at one point is it a competition instead of getting out good, solid, well-thought out information?

A very good quote from his article is when he states:

“Here’s a metric I think we ought to keep in the mix: Gut instinct. A reporter’s own sense of a good story. That means being willing to ignore the latest page views and use your professional judgment to produce great journalism.”

He concludes with, “News outlets will never get anywhere if they’re obsessed with chasing readers. They can, however, collaborate with them.”

I find this to be very true. Journalists as well as news outlets need to remember that they must write well, write what’s prevelant, and write for their audience.

Tags: Joel Achenbach, Journalism, The Washington Post

Submitting a news story in 140 characters or less? No problem!

That’s the new wave for journalists and this type of news publishing is called microblogging.

Microblogging is the fastest way for a news organization or journalist to report break news, promote other work, or just be an easier form of contributing information when blogging becomes intimidating.

The most popular microblogging website is… TWITTER. Twitter began in July of 2006 and has become a way to mantain a constant connection with the people around you.

Twitters rapid growth can be acredited to two things, it’s flexiblity and simplicity.

“In addition to making it easy for participate in the live Web, a microblogging platform like Twitter is an important social media tool that is critical for every journalist in the digital age.” – Mark Briggs

Microblogging has become an effective medium for breaking news. With the use of Twitter, subscribers can follow other Twitter accounts to get information rangings from weather, traffic, breaking news, sports statistics, and tons of other things that people are interested in.

According to Ellyn Angelotti, interactivty editor at Poynter Instritute, some guidelines to make your work stand out are:

• Be informative.
• Stay relevant.
• Be instructive.
• Include a link.
• Reflect your personality.
• Build relationships.

In conclusion of this chapter, if you have any hopes of becoming or being an effective journalist, START TWEETING and START FOLLOWING.

Tags: Briggs, Microblogging, Twitter

“News reporting methods such as crowdsourcing, open-source reporting, and pro-am journalism are become the focus for more and more news operations in the United States.” – Mark Briggs

This chapter focuses on these three main areas: crowdsourcing, open-source reporting, and pro-am journalism.

1) Crowdsourcing:Focuses on how community has power on a specific project and shows how a group of individuals who are committed to something can outperform a smaller group of experienced professionals.

• Crowsourcing was a term coined by Jeff Howe in 2006.
• It allows the readers to choose what should be covered.
•  It’s still an experiment in journalism.

2) Open-source reporting: The notion of using transparency in one’s reporting to provide some sort of benefit to one’s audience and in possibly get benefits in return from that audience.

• A sense of openness and collaboration within journalism.
• Welcomes the audience’s feedback.
• Removes bias away from stories and makes it more about what’s being reported.
• Beatblogging: a social network encompassed around a traditional reporting beat that bring everyone together.

3) Pro-am journalism: Unfiltered form that allows the audience publish on the same Web site that the professional journalists use when reporting their news.

• “Everyone is a media outlet.” – Clay Shirky
• Readers provide the “what” while journalists provide the “why.”
• Readers/audience contributes to a bigger network such as CNN’s iReport.

Examples of collaborative publishing: Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, craigslist, and Flickr.

All of these websites, and others, give news organizations and journalists an opportunity to collaborate with their audience and provide better information.

Tags: Briggs, Crowdsourcing, Open-source reporting, Pro-am journalism