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 gonna do on this course or this workshop should I say

how it fits in a broader context or where we are with multimedia journalism right now I like to start with this image as an illustration

of a fact that people often think that multimedia journalism is something that is new but it is actually something that's been and has been happening for a long time

mainly since the invention of the HI-8 camera where photojournalist back in the nineteen nineties like myself started to shoot video as well as shooting

stills and back in those days I was working with almost the identical kit. The one difference I had a wide lens I have a long lens it is still how I always work

two camera bodies and the difference is in the video camera has actually gone inside the DSL camera that we're using

but essentially the practice of working in multiple visual format is not something that is new. so I call myself a multimedia journalist

and when I do that often I get a sort of mixed reaction and we had this conversation with Salim over lunch that multimedia journalism is something that is very difficult

to define I think you've written in MA thesis on it and many other people have sort grappled with the idea of what is multimedia journalist but I like

to start with what is a multimedia journalist because that's what I am and I need to come to understand Who I am and what I do now in my practice as

as a trainer as somebody who goes around and to different media organizations who is brought in as a consultant one of the thing 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 writer's so 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 fourteen 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 organization the same

with radio stations and the other thing is that the Citizen as we as you know we talk a lot about this as journalists has also change the kind of perspective and the way I like to see it

the citizen journalist more the Citizen reporter as one of the things that is now pound is that if an event happens that we're gonna have multiple people taking pictures

of that event purely from the fact that everyone's carrying a camera around their pockets something the I'm sure you know all a lot about. But what they are effectively doing is not

journalism they are reporting a fact they are 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 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 asks 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 is being done so well by people who were there I go in one direction okay so there are three major changes. This comes from Clay Shirky from the new york university three major changes

in what has happened as we moved from those traditional platforms, radio-television and print into the digital space to what I call digital pages

the first is that we've changed our structure from the one to many. The one newspaper who have the power to buy the print press and to deliver the news out to

the masses it was the one-way and negotiation one-way communication and now we are this round of the many to many something that is very difficult to get your head around but the idea is

that anybody can be the central publisher just with the 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 out to their networks and we have this concept to 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 the to TV station where I now work is how things are different, and this is the way that the TV station is currently working, the old media section. I'm trying to describe to them

how we need to work with media partners to to find connected network that exist already and play into them and let them spread what we do.

Second thing is that the data did digital devices that we consume our media; that is phones tablets computers, also have the capability to create media.

The places where people read the new, they are reading the New York Times on the New York Times website on their phone. They have the ability to also create media and send it back to the New York Times.

This has brought about this concept to trying to create communities where you want somebody, if they see the plane go down in the Hudson River, if they're New York Times reader, you want them to send a picture

of the plane going down in the Hudson River to the New York Times. The way they do that is they're using the same app that they've used to consumed news. This is a really different way of thinking.

The old media found it difficult to get their heads around. We are now in a place where where we put our media, this goes for you guys too when you do your projects,

the places where your media will 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 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 with stuck in print with

photography static graphics and text. On TV, we were stuck with video. On radio we were stuck with the audio But on these new pages

all media is possible, everything any type a media we can put into the same page. Okay let me try to illustrate that. This is a story,

back in September I was doing a workshop similar to this, but in Malaysia with Asian journalists, all writers. We were doing it on Lankawi, which is this beautiful island in Malaysia.

We came from Kuala Lumpur, we got off the plane in Langkawi, the bus took us off to the hotel. Everyone came off the bus, we all came into the foyer and it is beautiful scene

in front of us as the waters... it is an open foyer... open reception area at the hotel. But what everyone did, bury in mind that these were all writers is that they didn't

rush to the souvenir shop to buy a postcard and start writing about this beautiful scene. They all naturally picked up their phones to the photograph

and shared it, why? Because photography was the natural mean of telling that story when all media was possible.

I like tell the story of going to a party this is how I like to illustrated best: if your gonna go to a party, say of people you are 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 whatever social network you use with text you would tell people I'm going to that party. Why because

text is the most natural way of telling people you're going to a party. You don't have any other form of media to spread that news. But when you get to the party and you see an old friend

he says: "oh, you know I've not seen you for awhile" you kind of sniggering to yourself because he's put on a bit await and you take a photograph and you then then that up your social network, to Facebook or Twitter or wherever.

Why? Because photography is the most natural means of telling that piece of information to other friends. Later on, maybe have a few too many drinks, and people start to do

a funny dance some to get up on the table in starting 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 a possible. This 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 than their reaction to me was

we are not photographers we are writers you know that's not something that we do and yet when they wanted to tell their friends about this beautiful place there arrived

they didn't write they took pictures because that 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 the other media types

in order to tell your stories