Gateway » Inspiration

The New York Times’ Health Care in the U.S. Timeline

Dora — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:57:29 +0000

This is a good example of a timeline and its importance in journalism. Clearly, this one is interactive but it has the same gist as the one you were working on.

Lovely student photos

Isolde — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:00:23 +0000

Without reading Rachelle’s captions, I knew immediately what her story was about. Note how Rachelle — who has attended photography school — takes the images from different angles and doesn’t worry about getting too close. Though she was just in one place, she took several types of photos — didn’t stay with just one person. For your future assignments, you will need to focus your stories, but getting a variety of photos is still important. Follow your sources around — getting in the car, walking, marching, eating, conversing.

Today’s lecture: Movement in media

Isolde — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:08:52 +0000

Half the Sky (left) and the Girl Effect (below).

Last photo post: A photographer’s winter Olympics

Isolde — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:00:48 +0000

My former photo editor Troy Wayrynen shoots the Olympics every other year, lucky dog, and posted his images to this site. I wouldn’t normally post yet more photos, but what makes these ones interesting to you, dear students, are his captions. Troy explains what it took to get these photos — going for his own gold medal of sorts.

He tells us, the viewer, where he shot the photos and what camera he used to get the images.

Troy writes: “I kept low and kind of out of site so I could hold my position. My mind was so preoccupied by losing my position that I had a tough time getting sharp pictures of the skeleton start. I thought it was my camera or lens acting up at first. What it really was was concentration on the subject and keeping the focus point square on the helmet of each athlete. For anyone who thinks photography is a matter of pointing a camera and pushing a button I challenge you to try shooting skeleton.“

Don’t be a “low-rent Ira Glass wannabe”

Isolde — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:49:08 +0000

I asked friends on Facebook for audio visual inspirations, and college pal Katy Aronoff posted the following:

“There are some great examples from NPR of how well-produced audio can tell a story. I know everyone thinks of Ira Glass when this subject comes up, and I’m as big a fan of This American Life as anyone, but there are ways to do this that don’t involve mimicking that formula and sounding like a low-rent Ira Glass wannabe. There’s a guy on WBUR in Boston, David Boeri, who does amazing things with ambient audio within a more traditional NPR-type framework. He has a voice that would make you cry if you heard him read the phone book.”

(Wild West Coasters, before you turn up your noses at another East Coast-centric post, know that this man is true blood Alaska. He’s even gone whale hunting.)

Examples here, here and here.

Let me rephrase that. KENNEDY’S OBIT IS A MUST.

In a Word: Mediastorm

Isolde — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:00:14 +0000

So clearly I’m focusing on professional photography here, and clearly few are at that level. Still, it helps to examine what the pros are doing. In fact, I recommend looking through the best photography blogs as akin to reading good fiction and poetry if you’re a writer — any kind of writer, including journalist.

Also, check out these gorgeous photos by my friend Erika Schultz of the Seattle Times. The Seattle Times’ photo site also deserves attention.

For national and international photos of the day, peruse the Seattle P-I’s photo galleries on the upper right hand side. Click on “more galleries” to see the editor’s picks of the day. Or view their “In a Word” archives. The photographers were given one word as their assignment and told to depict it through photo.

NPR’s The Picture Show

Isolde — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:19:16 +0000

Strong captions, strong photos at NPR’s The Picture Show Blog. (Thanks to my friend KTA for the link.) Study these images and note that they’re taking from various heights, and that the photographer takes color into consideration. When you read the caption, take into account that it reads like a mini story — which is important because a lot of people read only the captions beneath the photos for their news.

The Amazin Jerkz.

Isolde — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:57:20 +0000

Video by my friend Casey Parks, Oregonian reporter who makes multimedia projects on her own time (caseyinpictures.blogspot.com). Check it out.

The Amazin Jerks from Casey Parks on Vimeo.

Making of Women of Troy

Isolde — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 02:39:12 +0000

Transom.org is a wonderful multimedia site and has this “making of” narrative worth checking out if you were taken by the gritty Women of Troy poetry-slam-audio-slideshow.

From the site:

About “In Verse” and “Women of Troy”

“In Verse” is a multimedia reporting project combining poetry, photography and sound. The documentary poems will be broadcast on Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen the weekend of November 6, 2009.

The first installment of the project, “Women of Troy,” documents the lives of working mothers in Troy, New York–once one of the richest cities in America, thanks to its role in the industrial revolution. Now roughly 19 percent of the population is living below the US poverty line.

Below are notes on the project from the collaborators–written comments from radio producer Lu Olkowski and editor Ted Genoways, combined with interview excerpts from poet Susan B.A. Somers-Willett and photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally in conversation with Transom’s Samantha Broun, and edited by Sydney Lewis.

What is it we assume people know?

Isolde — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:45:32 +0000

21st century media literacies from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Author and Stanford Professor Howard Rheingold contemplates literacy in our day. “What’s important now not access to hardware and access to internet but access to knowledge, 21st century literacy,” he says.

The tenets of literacy:
1. Attention
2. Participation
3. Collaboration
4. Network savvy
5. Critical consumption, or, he says, crap detection