Understanding Multimedia Journalism: Evolution and Modern Practices

let's start the next session with talking about multimedia journalism and how what it is that you're going to do

on this course or this Workshop should I see how it fits in a broader context of where we are with multimedia journalism

right now I'd like to start with this image um as an illustration of a uh a fact that people

often think that multimedia journalism is something that's new but it's actually something that's been

U been happening for a long time mainly since the invention of the the high8 camera where photojournalists back in

the 1990s like myself started to shoot video as well as shooting um uh Stills and back in those days uh I was working

with almost The Identical kit the one difference I had a wide lens I have a long lens it's still how I always work

two camera bodies um the difference is is that the video camera has actually gone inside inside um the the DSLR

camera that we're using but essentially the practice of working in multiple visual formats is not something um that

is new so um I call myself a multimedia journalist and when I do that often I get a sort of mixed reaction and we had

this conversation um with Saleem over lunch that multimedia journalism is something that is very difficult to Def

to Define I think you've written an MA thesis on it and many other people have sort of grappled with the idea of what

is multimedia journalist but I like to sort of start with what is a multimedia journalist because that's what I am and

I need to kind of understand who I am and what I do now in my practice as as a uh trainer as somebody who goes around

um to different media organizations who' brought in as a consultant one of the things that I've realized is that the

department of multimedia in a traditional media TV stations radio stations

newspapers is actually the department of everything else that is in a newspaper it's often video because they have

photographers and they have writers so the the multimedia Department are the people that make

video in a TV station where I'm now working the multimedia department is mainly writers we've hired 40 new

multimedia journalists recently and pretty well all of them are writers because the TV station already has

visual journalists and very good at visual storytelling but they don't have text and as they go online they need

different things so the multimedia department has become very different in different media organizations the same

with um radio stations and the other thing is that the citizen as we as you know we we talk a lot about the citizen

journalist has also changed the kind of perspective and the way that I like to see it is the citizen journalist more as

a citizen reporter as one of the things that is now apparent is that if an event happens that we're going to have

multiple people taking pictures of that event purely from the fact that everyone's carrying um cameras around in

their pocket something that I'm sure you know all a lot about but what they're effectively doing is not journalism they

are reporting a fact they're reporting what they see they see the plane go down in the Hudson River they take a

photograph and they upload it they say this is something that's happened but they don't know why and something that I

think the journalist does in my definition of multimedia journalism is the journalist is the person that

actually asked the why question and our role has increasingly been more about doing the in-depth reporting behind the

news stories rather than just taking the images of things as it happens because that has been done so well by people who

are there right going in the wrong direction okay so there are three major changes this comes from clay shery from

the New York University three major changes in what has happened as we've moved from those traditional

platforms um radio television and print into the digital space to to what I call digital

Pages the first is that we've changed our structure from the one to many the one um newspaper who have the power to

buy the print press and to deliver the news out to U the masses it was a one-way um uh negotiation one-way

communication and now we're in this realm of the many to many uh something that is very difficult to get your head

around but the idea is that anybody can be this Central publisher just with a computer or even a mobile phone now and

they can send out to a small network of people who then if they like it they'll send it out to their networks and we

have this concept of the viral news where it starts spreading but it gives the power the opportunity for people to

do that this is a diagram I did on the plane coming here to try to explain to the TV station where I'm now worked is

how things are different and this is the way that the TV station is currently working in the old media section and I'm

trying to describe to them how we need to work with Media Partners to to to find connected networks that exist

already and play into them and let them spread um what we do second thing is that the digital digital devices that we

consume our media um that is phones tablets computers also have the capability to create

media so the the places where people read the news if they're reading the New York Times on their New York Times app

or New York Times website on their phone they have the ability to also create media and send it back to the New York

Times and this has brought about this concept of trying to to create communities where you want somebody if

they see the plane go down in the Hudson River if they're a New York Times reader you want them to send a picture of the

plane going down in in Hudson River to back to the same to the New York Times and the way they do that is they do it

using the same app that they've used to consume news and this is a really different way of thinking which a lot of

the old media found it difficult to get their heads around that we're now in a place where the place where we put our

media and this goes for you guys too when you do your projects the places where you your your media will uh appear

will be on devices where people can respond with media not just with a comment or a letter or email or whatever

they can create video and visual media and send it back to you as well or send it into the community something worth

considering the third thing and the third major difference is that for the first time on a digital page

the digital page can show all media in traditional media we were stuck in print with

photography static graphics and text on TV we're stuck with video and radio we're stuck with audio but on these new

pages all media is possible everything any type of media we can put into the same

page okay let me try and illustrate that so this is a story um from back in September I was doing a

workshop similar to this but in Malaysia with Asian journalists all writers and we were doing it on lanari

which is this beautiful island in Malaysia and we came from quala Lumpa we got off the plane in lanar the bus took

us to the hotel the the the everyone came off the bus we all came into the fo and there's this beautiful scene in

front of us as the water sort of um there an open foyer um open reception area of the hotel but what everyone did

bearing in mind these are all writers is that they didn't rush to the souvenir shop and buy a postcard and start

writing about this beautiful scene is they all naturally picked up their phones took a photograph and shared it

why because photography was the natural means of telling that story when all media is

possible I like to tell the story of going to a party this is how I like to illustrate it best if you're going to go

to a party say of people you at school with and you haven't seen them for a long time before you go to the party you

will probably share that news on Facebook on Twitter or whichever social network you use with text you will tell

people I'm going to that party why because text is the most natural way of telling people that you're going to a

party you don't have any other form of media to to to to spread that news but when you get to the party and you see an

old friend and you say oh you know I've not seen you for a while you're kind of snuggling to yourself because he's put

on a bit of weight and you take a photograph and you then send that up to your social network to Facebook or

Twitter or wherever why because photography is the most natural means of telling that piece of information to

your other friends of spreading it later on maybe you have a few too many drinks and people start doing funny dance

somebody gets up on the table and starts doing a funny dance you pick up your your phone and you shoot video because

video is probably the best way of communicating that particular action so we naturally gravitate to the most

natural form of communication when all forms are possible and this again is something that's been very hard to

impress on traditional journalists who always think that I am a photographer I'm a writer going back to the Malaysia

Workshop the next morning when I started with a photography session then their reaction to me was we're not

photographers we're writers you know that's not something that we do and yet when they wanted to

tell their friends about this beautiful place they arrived they didn't write they took pictures because that in the

in the social space that was something that they did naturally but at the workplace they suddenly had a different

way of thinking and that again is something that you might want to consider in the multimedia space about

how you you try to embrace some of the other media types in order to tell your stories