So in today’s class we talked about continuous news and the way it would work in a multimedia environment. In traditional news environments, if it were tv the anchors would stay on air until the situation subsides or until there is no new information to report. If it were print, the paper would have already gone out for the day so they would immediately begin to prepare for the following day’s edition making sure to update readers from where they left off. But in a multimedia world, there’s a entirely different way of thinking.
Multimedia journalism allows journalist to update information as quickly as updates are received, using the web. Reporters can report things from the field and and either feed info back to the station of even stream and update the web themselves on site. So today’s task was for us to continuously update a blog on the topic of gas prices. Recently, gas prices have spiked after a hurricane unexpectedly hit the gulf coast.
The first step in multimedia reporting is storyboarding and figuring out exactly which elements would best convey the information to your audience. Unlike traditional journalism, we aren’t just limited to one medium rather we have the ability to combine different elements to make the final project more interactive.
So we decided since working with gas prices the best elements would include:
1. Public commentary because it would show how the public is dealing with issue.
2. A audio slide show showing alternative means of communication would be interesting.
3. A map showing where the cheapest gas station are located.
4. A tool that allowed users to report where they find cheaper gas.
Storyboarding is very important because it helps you be prepared when going out to report. The reporters already know what to look for so you’re not wasting time storyboarding in the field.
My partner, Sherron, and I figuring out the elements that will be used on our blbog before we went out to investigate
Multimedia Journalism 