Innovation Roundup
Learn from us!
News21 is meant to be not just a collection of well-reported stories presented in interesting ways, but an incubator for innovation within the news media industry. Students were challenged to develop methods and approaches that help readers and viewers interact with content in ways that haven’t been tried before. Of course, innovation means different things to different people. What seems ground-breaking to one journalist may not be to another. At News21, we came up with our own simple definition. For us, innovation could be any means of reporting or presenting news that has not been tried before — or has been tried only sparingly or with rudimentary execution. We added the requirement that these new methods should improve the experience for our audience. Some of what we came up with revolves around technology – video players that allow users to interact with content in unusual ways, motion graphics, time-lapse maps and Twitter widgets calibrated to bring in discussion on specific topics. One school came up with a working prototype of a national database for reporters to share hard-to-find data about cities. Other innovations deal with how content is visually consumed. Students tried new ways of weaving multimedia into text stories and experimented with non-linear storytelling. Finally, we learned that innovation is as much about newsroom culture and structure as it is about mastery of technology and presentation. It requires new approaches to multimedia storytelling that are as simple as putting reporters and developers in the same room so they can learn from each other and as complex as embracing failure, recognizing that being innovative means that some ideas simply won’t pan out – and that’s an opportunity for learning, too. Along the way, the students also blogged about their experiences, many of which are aggregated at innovate.news21.com. Here are some of the things we learned: GET THE STORY FIRST
We found that some of our reporters became enamored of new ways of presenting stories without figuring out whether those methods fit the story. It is best to do the journalism first — report and outline the story without worrying too much about technology, multimedia or presentation. If you master the story first, it’s easier to come up with innovative ways to report and present it. REPORT IN TEAMS
In our experience, reporters who worked in teams were more efficient and better able to handle the stresses of an intense reporting project. Team members were able to lean on each other and help each other out. Our team members, sometimes serendipitously, had complementary skills and knowledge. The team members also held each other accountable for specific tasks and deadlines. HIRE DEVELOPERS AND PUT THEM IN THE NEWSROOM
Innovative newsrooms should hire highly skilled programmers and Web developers who have mastered programming languages like Python and PHP as well as programming frameworks like Rails and Django. Developers should be skilled enough in these languages and frameworks to build applications "from scratch" – not to simply copy and modify work done by other developers. Paraphrasing ASU Web developer Caige Nichols, it is the difference between building something with Legos or building the Legos themselves. Developers also should be skilled in basic Web design and production techniques and applications, and they should be in the newsroom, working with the journalists, teaching them and learning from them. We found that developers who got this opportunity picked up on the journalism quickly – and offered some of the best ideas. UNDERSTAND DEVELOPERS AND THEIR TOOLS
Reporters and editors should learn what developers and their tools can do and what they can't do. They also should know how much time basic development tasks take. They should know enough about Web production to be able to help developers publish and edit content. For example, if a developer builds a Flash application that is controlled by an XML file, reporters and/or editors should understand the format of the XML file and how to modify it. Reporters and editors should understand how HTML and CSS works and be able to make basic edits and modifications to the code. HIRE JOURNALISTS WITH BASIC VIDEO AND PHOTOGRAPHY SKILLS
Newsrooms should be hiring reporters and editors with basic video and photography skills and who are willing to continue developing those skills. The best projects benefitted greatly from having people with skills in video. PROVIDE THE BEST CURRENT EQUIPMENT AND SOFTWARE
The "best" will change from year to year and decade to decade. At the University of North Carolina, students used Adobe CS4 software suite. At ASU, students editing video had had access to a Storage Area Network with high data transfer rates. THINK VISUALLY
At its heart, multimedia relies on visual presentation of information, and you need someone in the room who really understands how to think visually and who can help reporters and editors do the same. It’s not enough to bring in one visual expert when a project is nearing its end; that’s far too late. Visual thinking at the outset often shapes how the reporting is done and what kind of reporting is done. GET EVERYONE IN THE SAME ROOM
It sounds simple, but the best work came out of collaboration, and that required people to be in the same room – sometimes late at night. We found that this kind of newsroom provided organic opportunities for collaboration – and inspiration. EMBRACE FAILURE
Innovating means taking risks, and that means some ideas are going to fail. Newsrooms need to accept – if not embrace – failure as part of the learning process. We tried to encourage risk by making it clear that we didn’t expect every idea to work out; we just expected that we would learn something that would help us succeed next time. Here are some of the specific innovations that newsrooms might try: NEW EXPERIENCES WITH VIDEO
›A video player allows users to access text and graphics that provide more information about the story without exiting the video. › A media player allows viewers to use “tags” or key words to decide which videos to watch. The tags grow larger if multiple interview subjects raised those topics. › A reporter personally introduces a policy oriented story through a green screen presentation that allows her to appear within the story package itself. › Video about the experiences of farm workers is embedded in a map of Southern California. › A video player incorporates a live search feature that allows users to find specific words or phrases and instantly jump to that location within the video. The search feature uses the video file in conjunction with the audio transcript, as shown in this story of an Alaskan village losing its land to errosion. ENGAGING AUDIENCES › Specially programmed Twitter modules encourage participation in a live, open-ended discussion about immigration policy. See Analyzing Amnesty. › In the BARThood project, users can locate their metro station and share their own experiences. Includes custom feeds that combine up-to-the-minute Google blogs, Google News, Twiter and Yelp posts specific to each station. › The “Shift” site presents information in a casual, personal way that draws on blogs, podcasts and social networks. › Readers are invited to make a soap Webisode as part of a project that looks at young people and their connection to technology.
NON-LINEAR STORYTELLING
› A mixed-media player has linear video at the top while displaying items such as maps, photos and text in non-linear fashion at the bottom. See the profile of Allensworth, Calif. ›A multimedia religion story with a "looking forward/looking back" theme allows the viewer to scroll left or right – as if moving through time – in order to interact with the story. › The Virgin of Guadalupe project is told in story “pods,” allowing for the experience of serendipitous discovery. ›A bank of photos allows readers to choose interviews with young people describing their experiences being gay in America. › Unique photo slideshows are imbedded in a story, adding a new dimension to a narrative about young people and their dreams for the future. MIXING MEDIA
›Photos, videos and maps are integrated into the text, bolstering the central narrative about efforts to revive a small part of the Mexican economy. As the reader scrolls, multimedia content appears and disappears, depending on where you are in the story. › Audio is integrated into a text story about young women facing the proverbial glass ceiling. › A “talking bar chart” embeds audio (and later, video) of people talking into data visualizations to bring statistics to life. › A special animation and video presentation weaves data and narrative together – personalizing statistics by telling representative stories of real people behind the numbers of U.S. military personnel. › The story of the new town square is told in a video that combines voice-over narrative and animation. › An introductory graphic explains America’s energy use with voice-over animation and photos. ›Portraits of families and their energy use gain depth and means of comparison with voice-over aninimation, graphics and photos. INTERACTIVES DATABASES AND EXPERIENCES
› A working prototype of national database allows reporters to access hard-to-find information about the communities they cover and upload their own data to share. › A energy calculator challenges users to track and reduce their power usage. After filling out a brief survey, users get a set of energy-saving tips unique to their living situation. As a tool for conservation it encourages repeat visits and continued action. INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS
› An unusual motion graphic follows how a typical American meal is produced. › A 360-degree “portal” span of one intersection offers macro- and microscopic looks into property battles, commerce, diversity, transportation and urban landscaping. › A map allows readers to choose from a series of stories about demographic shifts in communities across the Southwest. › A multimedia map, infographic and timeline capture the explosion of charter schools from zero to 4,600 over the last two decades while providing a history of the charter school movement and overview of major trends. › An interactive timeline allows users to compare energy use and the U.S. population over time. › An interactive map shows California energy projects and federal land. › An rollover map reveals possible islands of single-race public schools. › The introductory motion graphic guides viewers understanding of energy conservation issues by blending animations with a tightly edited audio track and compelling music. › A historical approach to electricity production and use of a slider provides a visual representation that is striking and instantly decipherable. It's a model of a universal method of comparison that can be applied to all sorts of projects.
News21 is meant to be not just a collection of well-reported stories presented in interesting ways, but an incubator for innovation within the news media industry. Students were challenged to develop methods and approaches that help readers and viewers interact with content in ways that haven’t been tried before. Of course, innovation means different things to different people. What seems ground-breaking to one journalist may not be to another. At News21, we came up with our own simple definition. For us, innovation could be any means of reporting or presenting news that has not been tried before — or has been tried only sparingly or with rudimentary execution. We added the requirement that these new methods should improve the experience for our audience. Some of what we came up with revolves around technology – video players that allow users to interact with content in unusual ways, motion graphics, time-lapse maps and Twitter widgets calibrated to bring in discussion on specific topics. One school came up with a working prototype of a national database for reporters to share hard-to-find data about cities. Other innovations deal with how content is visually consumed. Students tried new ways of weaving multimedia into text stories and experimented with non-linear storytelling. Finally, we learned that innovation is as much about newsroom culture and structure as it is about mastery of technology and presentation. It requires new approaches to multimedia storytelling that are as simple as putting reporters and developers in the same room so they can learn from each other and as complex as embracing failure, recognizing that being innovative means that some ideas simply won’t pan out – and that’s an opportunity for learning, too. Along the way, the students also blogged about their experiences, many of which are aggregated at innovate.news21.com. Here are some of the things we learned: GET THE STORY FIRST
We found that some of our reporters became enamored of new ways of presenting stories without figuring out whether those methods fit the story. It is best to do the journalism first — report and outline the story without worrying too much about technology, multimedia or presentation. If you master the story first, it’s easier to come up with innovative ways to report and present it. REPORT IN TEAMS
In our experience, reporters who worked in teams were more efficient and better able to handle the stresses of an intense reporting project. Team members were able to lean on each other and help each other out. Our team members, sometimes serendipitously, had complementary skills and knowledge. The team members also held each other accountable for specific tasks and deadlines. HIRE DEVELOPERS AND PUT THEM IN THE NEWSROOM
Innovative newsrooms should hire highly skilled programmers and Web developers who have mastered programming languages like Python and PHP as well as programming frameworks like Rails and Django. Developers should be skilled enough in these languages and frameworks to build applications "from scratch" – not to simply copy and modify work done by other developers. Paraphrasing ASU Web developer Caige Nichols, it is the difference between building something with Legos or building the Legos themselves. Developers also should be skilled in basic Web design and production techniques and applications, and they should be in the newsroom, working with the journalists, teaching them and learning from them. We found that developers who got this opportunity picked up on the journalism quickly – and offered some of the best ideas. UNDERSTAND DEVELOPERS AND THEIR TOOLS
Reporters and editors should learn what developers and their tools can do and what they can't do. They also should know how much time basic development tasks take. They should know enough about Web production to be able to help developers publish and edit content. For example, if a developer builds a Flash application that is controlled by an XML file, reporters and/or editors should understand the format of the XML file and how to modify it. Reporters and editors should understand how HTML and CSS works and be able to make basic edits and modifications to the code. HIRE JOURNALISTS WITH BASIC VIDEO AND PHOTOGRAPHY SKILLS
Newsrooms should be hiring reporters and editors with basic video and photography skills and who are willing to continue developing those skills. The best projects benefitted greatly from having people with skills in video. PROVIDE THE BEST CURRENT EQUIPMENT AND SOFTWARE
The "best" will change from year to year and decade to decade. At the University of North Carolina, students used Adobe CS4 software suite. At ASU, students editing video had had access to a Storage Area Network with high data transfer rates. THINK VISUALLY
At its heart, multimedia relies on visual presentation of information, and you need someone in the room who really understands how to think visually and who can help reporters and editors do the same. It’s not enough to bring in one visual expert when a project is nearing its end; that’s far too late. Visual thinking at the outset often shapes how the reporting is done and what kind of reporting is done. GET EVERYONE IN THE SAME ROOM
It sounds simple, but the best work came out of collaboration, and that required people to be in the same room – sometimes late at night. We found that this kind of newsroom provided organic opportunities for collaboration – and inspiration. EMBRACE FAILURE
Innovating means taking risks, and that means some ideas are going to fail. Newsrooms need to accept – if not embrace – failure as part of the learning process. We tried to encourage risk by making it clear that we didn’t expect every idea to work out; we just expected that we would learn something that would help us succeed next time. Here are some of the specific innovations that newsrooms might try: NEW EXPERIENCES WITH VIDEO
›A video player allows users to access text and graphics that provide more information about the story without exiting the video. › A media player allows viewers to use “tags” or key words to decide which videos to watch. The tags grow larger if multiple interview subjects raised those topics. › A reporter personally introduces a policy oriented story through a green screen presentation that allows her to appear within the story package itself. › Video about the experiences of farm workers is embedded in a map of Southern California. › A video player incorporates a live search feature that allows users to find specific words or phrases and instantly jump to that location within the video. The search feature uses the video file in conjunction with the audio transcript, as shown in this story of an Alaskan village losing its land to errosion. ENGAGING AUDIENCES › Specially programmed Twitter modules encourage participation in a live, open-ended discussion about immigration policy. See Analyzing Amnesty. › In the BARThood project, users can locate their metro station and share their own experiences. Includes custom feeds that combine up-to-the-minute Google blogs, Google News, Twiter and Yelp posts specific to each station. › The “Shift” site presents information in a casual, personal way that draws on blogs, podcasts and social networks. › Readers are invited to make a soap Webisode as part of a project that looks at young people and their connection to technology.
NON-LINEAR STORYTELLING
› A mixed-media player has linear video at the top while displaying items such as maps, photos and text in non-linear fashion at the bottom. See the profile of Allensworth, Calif. ›A multimedia religion story with a "looking forward/looking back" theme allows the viewer to scroll left or right – as if moving through time – in order to interact with the story. › The Virgin of Guadalupe project is told in story “pods,” allowing for the experience of serendipitous discovery. ›A bank of photos allows readers to choose interviews with young people describing their experiences being gay in America. › Unique photo slideshows are imbedded in a story, adding a new dimension to a narrative about young people and their dreams for the future. MIXING MEDIA
›Photos, videos and maps are integrated into the text, bolstering the central narrative about efforts to revive a small part of the Mexican economy. As the reader scrolls, multimedia content appears and disappears, depending on where you are in the story. › Audio is integrated into a text story about young women facing the proverbial glass ceiling. › A “talking bar chart” embeds audio (and later, video) of people talking into data visualizations to bring statistics to life. › A special animation and video presentation weaves data and narrative together – personalizing statistics by telling representative stories of real people behind the numbers of U.S. military personnel. › The story of the new town square is told in a video that combines voice-over narrative and animation. › An introductory graphic explains America’s energy use with voice-over animation and photos. ›Portraits of families and their energy use gain depth and means of comparison with voice-over aninimation, graphics and photos. INTERACTIVES DATABASES AND EXPERIENCES
› A working prototype of national database allows reporters to access hard-to-find information about the communities they cover and upload their own data to share. › A energy calculator challenges users to track and reduce their power usage. After filling out a brief survey, users get a set of energy-saving tips unique to their living situation. As a tool for conservation it encourages repeat visits and continued action. INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS
› An unusual motion graphic follows how a typical American meal is produced. › A 360-degree “portal” span of one intersection offers macro- and microscopic looks into property battles, commerce, diversity, transportation and urban landscaping. › A map allows readers to choose from a series of stories about demographic shifts in communities across the Southwest. › A multimedia map, infographic and timeline capture the explosion of charter schools from zero to 4,600 over the last two decades while providing a history of the charter school movement and overview of major trends. › An interactive timeline allows users to compare energy use and the U.S. population over time. › An interactive map shows California energy projects and federal land. › An rollover map reveals possible islands of single-race public schools. › The introductory motion graphic guides viewers understanding of energy conservation issues by blending animations with a tightly edited audio track and compelling music. › A historical approach to electricity production and use of a slider provides a visual representation that is striking and instantly decipherable. It's a model of a universal method of comparison that can be applied to all sorts of projects.
