Adobe Flash is quickly becoming an important tool in a journalists arsenal. The powerful multimedia program can create slideshows and movies as well as stream video and audio files and has tremendous potential to tell stories new ways and present a depth of information in ways that traditional media could never show.

The software is already utilized heavily around the internet in advertisements and streaming video and audio players. Most media outlets are already beginning to use Flash to put tv and radio style stories on the internet. A vast, free archive news of content is slowly becoming available to anyone with a high speed internet connection.

Media outlets are also finding new ways to use Flash to present traditional media like photos, video, text, and audio and combine them in visually rich ways. Flash projects range from the simple yet potentially powerful audio slide show to data rich infographics that feature pop up boxes and frames. Slideshows simply juxtapose an audio file and sequence of photos that sometimes feature captions. A basic slide shows works like videos, using a static soundtrack and a sequence of photos while others are as simple as a collection of photos that accompany an NPR style story or as complex as a collage of photos and matching soundbites.

Slideshows are practical for a changing media environment that looks ahead to a market dominated cell phones and smart phones. The files load quickly and allow a user to interact with the show by flipping through slides. They can be downloaded faster and take up less memory space than video files.

Flash can also be used to create a wide range of info-graphics with drag over “pop-up” content. The program can be used to fit a multi-page presentation onto one page, or stuff tons of data into a single image. Roll-over graphics are quickly becoming popular because they allow a user to take an in-depth look at the data, or not depending on where they run their cursor. Boxes full of poll results, a short text piece, links, or even a video or audio file can be fit into a single page.

Like the slide-show, the roll-over graphic takes up little memory space and can download quickly. The graphic would also work well in a smartphone or touch screen environment by placing a lot of information into a single page. The presentation allows the user to a tremendous amount of interaction without requiring them to navigate away from the page.

These are just a few of the hundreds of options that lie in the powerful Flash content creation software. There are still plenty of interactive projects that we have yet to explore and use on a mass scale. As young journalists, we should focus on experimenting with new ways to use the program and perfecting the techniques already being utilized

Like on my last assignment I found myself shooting on a muddy, uneven field around a bunch of baseball players who are just trying to practice. I tried to get the best shots I could without interfering with practice, and I think I did a pretty solid job of that. It was harder than I thought to get solid, steady shots of the players who were constantly moving in and out of my frame. I found myself chasing players and making poor pans, but I did get a good amount of what I considered to be useful video at the time.

When I got back to Walter Williams and started editing I realized that I didn’t have the best shots. I had a lot of detail and medium shots, which I lacked on my last assignment, but I was missing the wide shots and establishing shots needed to make a good sequence.

Regardless, I broke my interviews down into soundbites and set about writing my script. After sleeping on it and asking for help from Prof. Stern, I put together a script that worked and tried to record a calmer, slower voice over. I think it was better than my audio story, but I am apparently a mumbly, mushmouthed person and can’t pronounce words like “consistencey” or “Phillips.”

After cutting out a redundant detail here and there, I started to build my sequences. I really liked the ones I put together in the second half of the video, where I talk about pitching, defense, and coaching and have shots of pitchers, fielders, and coaches. In the first half I talked about the off-season and last year, so I wasn’t able to reference my script. Instead, I tried to give the viewer as much info about the practice as I could visually. I kind of feel like there were some parts where I was just trying to fill gaps.

I feel like this expierence will help me with both my shooting and producing. Knowing how to put together a good sequence is just as important in the field as it is in the editing lab. I need to strive to get the shots I need to put together good stories.

In order to produce better video stories, I have to study the work of professionals. For this post I looked up a video from KSHB 41, an NBC affiliate in Kansas City, to examine a story from a larger market than Columbia.

The story I watched was “What Is Next for KCMO Schools?”   http://www.nbcactionnews.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoid=592428@kshb.dayport.com&navCatId=4295

The story starts with a reporter doing a stand up exposition of the story then transitions into her voice over the video sequence as she explains the numerous cuts discussed by the KCMO school board. The sequence of shots goes from wide to medium to wide to medium to wide again with very little detail shots. The organization of the sequence is odd, but the videographers were covering a school board meeting that doesn’t lend itself to chronological or action based organization.

The video cycled through shots of school board members and the audience. They committed the cardinal sins of using shots of signs and recycled the same shots of two school girls walking down a hall then a school board member playing with his mic.

The video closed with Covington explaining the reasoning behind the cuts and the reporter giving an out-tro.

The referencing and the information presented by story was very good, but the editing and shooting was lacking. The crew didn’t have the most visually appealing subject matter, so I can let that one slip. However, I will not forgive them for not getting detail shots, recycling shots, splicing in random shots of children looking despondent, and making rookie editing mistakes.

The story could be greatly improved by adding some detail shots to break up the monotony of shot of crowd, shot of crowd, shot of speaker, shot of building, shot of classroom, shot of school board. It would keep the story visually interesting and increase the over all appeal of the story. I also believe the story would benefit from some better editing.

Overall, the story doesn’t provide much information that couldn’t be presented in print. It gives some establishing shots so you know what a school board meeting looks like, but there were no tv-exclusive graphics or visually revealing content. All  the same information about the meeting could be presented in a print story and no information would be lost.

To me, this video demonstrates that no one, not even the pros can be 100 percent every minute of every day. We all make mistakes, but we have to learn from ours and the mistakes of others to improve our ability as story tellers.

But many journalists struggle with their loyalty to the truth. Most of the time, we make honest mistakes while trying to get our work done on deadline. But some “modify” the truth because they think they could get better stories by fudging the facts a little bit.

In print journalism, openly lying about happenings and people’s presence at events is easy to spot and stop. In photography and videography, that isn’t so much the case. Viewers and editors only see what the journalist has recorded. They have no way of being certain that their reporters didn’t ask their subjects to pose for pictures, or pretend to be doing their job or some other activity so they could get a better shot.

Some who stage argue that people behave differently every time they see a journalist. Just by being there we are changing their behavior and thus cannot report the truth accurately. I don’t buy this argument. A skilled journalist is aware that they change the situation simply by reporting on it, but they know how to make people feel comfortable so there is very little separation from the life we record and the life they live.

Good journalists don’t need to stage. They arrive on time, they stay as long as they need to, and they make their sources and subjects feel like people instead of zoo animals.

Staging in any form is not the truth. It is purely fabrication. It may not be easy to be a fly on the wall, or to get so comfortable with a source that you can put a camera right in their face while they do their job or live their life, but it is the right thing to do.

My story came out alright. It was far from perfect, but it wasn’t horribly awful. I suppose I’m proud of it in a strange way.

If I want to improve my ability as a broadcast reporter, I need to learn from the professionals. In my never-ending quest for journalistic knowledge I listened to “Adderall” by Justin Ray(?)

Ray’s piece is a great example of a well done radio story. He opens with an interesting intro that sums up the hectic feel of finals and avoids the information dump, and maintains a good tone throughout the story. The narration is particularly strong. Ray skillfully leads into sound bites and (for the most part) dodges the pitfall of explaining the soundbite before it even plays while he keeps his narration full of the information that gives context to his sound bites.

In addition to being stylistically impressive, Ray’s report is also a fantastic news story. He finds a diverse range of sources and uses investigative skills to locate and interview dealers and users. He also tells a large story without letting it get tangled up with facts and figures or letting it get to far out of focus. He keeps the story focused locally and interesting to the KBIA audience.

One of these new (to me at least) formats of storytelling is the audio slide show. The simple juxtaposition of images and sounds can be done in hundreds of ways. Some stories can be told using just natural sounds and self-explanatory pictures while others use pictures as a background for the narrative of the voice over.

For this blog, I watched “Crafting Beauty from Death” by Gianni Cipriano. This slide show is a near perfect example of a good audio slide show. The presentation is essentially just the owner of the funeral home talking about his business and death in general along with a few cuts of natural sound and gospel music you might hear at a funeral in Harlem.

The presentation transcends a “slide show” it doesn’t feel like a collection of pictures matching an audio track. They tell a story and reveal more detail in every scene. The presentation is an example of a great slide show because it is so well tied together without the use of explication by the reporter. The pictures and the commentary explain the story well enough and let the viewer hear directly from the source and see the workings of the funeral home. In effect, it lets every viewer become that reporter every time they watch the slide show.

The message is simple and clear. In my mind, that is the pinnacle of good reporting.

Since I am apparently not a special case, Prof. Mitchell has given us a crash course in photography and our lab leaders have shown us how to use a $400 camera.

Despite this, I still had no idea what exactly makes up a “good” feature photo.

For that reason, I imagine, we were assigned to look through David Snider’s Street Photos and the Photo Hunting .pdf. Snider’s more artistic pictures capture life candidly. His images are like the glances we all take as we move through the world. Snider’s photos have a great sense of being a spectator, while the photo hunt article focuses more on documentary photography. Rather than being examples of the strikingly mundane, the photos chosen are events, happenings, captured moments in life. The photo hunt explains that photojournalist should seek out the unusual, the exciting and the interesting images that not only document life, but convey feelings as well.

“The backpack journalist,” who can produce an entire team’s worth of audio, video, and written content by using a backpack worth of equipment is an invaluable asset in the new world of news.

Because deploying backpack journalists who can usually work alone is cheaper and the pool of talent is increasingly skilled and techno-savvy, I believe the backpacker is here to stay.

Some quality has been sacrificed in the past because reporters have had to adjust to new technology and produce top content at the same time. Now, some students are trained to use all the equipment and know the medium right out of school.

This trend will not disappear. In my opinion, backpack journalism will become the standard as new reporters arrive and existing staff continue to get comfortable with new technology in a new media.