Multimedia Journalism

This page contains all the links and resources from Mindy McAdams for the 2008 Poynter seminar for college journalism educators. Mindy's blog Teaching Online Journalism may also prove useful. You can search categories such as blogging, teaching, or Flash.

Transforming the Journalism Curriculum

Presentation (PPS file, 3 MB; includes all links to examples and blogs)

Teaching with Blogs

Free blogs for you and your students: Blogger or WordPress
Use of FeedBurner and Site Meter enhances your understanding of your blog's audience
Using RSS feeds makes you (and your students) a better blogger -- here is a good how-to you can use to get started; I use Google Reader for all the feeds to which I subscribe
Blogging Between the Lines: This AJR article summarizes newspapers' experiences wth blogging
Example: Mindy's semester-long blogging assignment for journalism students
Example: Mindy's two-semester teaching blog used to communicate with students enrolled in the course -- it cross-links to the online syllabus
Examples: My UF colleague Ron Rodgers, who teaches newspaper editing, uses three different blogs in his teaching:
- JOU 4201 Newspaper Editing (Blogger)
- JOU 4201 Advanced Editing (WordPress)
- In his third blog, he posts "Stories Written and Edited by Editing Labsters" (WordPress)
Example: Mark Johnson at the University of Georgia is using a Blogger blog in his new experimental multimedia journalism class -- see his first post to the students in January 2008. Like me, he often posts links to examples of online journalism there.
Blogs have changed how I do my job, for the better: A column by an Albuquerque Tribune reporter
Why journalism students should blog -- a blog post explains it
Blog Reflection Rubric: A grid to help with assessing and grading students' work on blogs (from professors at San Diego State University)
Blog research: Lots of links in case you feel like conducting a scholarly study of blogs
More specific tips for using blogs in teaching journalism

Flash in Journalism

Refer to your CD from the workshop for the exercises and files we used on-site.

Here is the exercise we did in the session.

Here are the 10-minute Flash tutorials.

Here is information about how to put Flash video online.

Get more Flash tips and tutorials.

Even if you do not learn to make things with Flash, you can begin to understand the ways Flash is used. What are the elements of a finished Flash package? These uses of Flash can be identified and discussed in any journalism course:

Slideshows: Bicylces, Beer and Bratwurst in Bavaria (simple slideshow using Soundslides Plus, not Flash); When the War Comes Home (Washington Post; 7 min. slideshow, made with Flash, not Soundslides)
Chaptered slideshows: My Body Myself (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle; Soundslides Component used in Flash); these consist of multiple stand-alone slideshows bundled together
Animated infographics: Homicides in Boston in 2006 (Boston Globe; very simple); California wildfires, 2007 (Newsweek; this is simpler to build than it may appear); Sector Snapshots shows up-to-date economic data, powered by a database that is read by the Flash graphic (New York Times; dynamic data); Deadly Rampage at Virginia Tech (New York Times; awesome visual storytelling)
Big packages: Liberians in Minnesota (Star Tribune; this has a great navigation interface); Being a Black Man (Washington Post; this is rather too large but still demonstrates how Flash can be used to combine a lot of disparate elements in one place)
Interactivity: BBC Electricity Calculator (illustrates soaring need for power in Britain); Manufacturing Chocolate (from the Field Museum, Chicago)
Interface: Folk Songs for the Five Points; the timeline segment within Churchill and the Great Republic -- both of these are unique; they will help you see the real potential of Flash and multimedia journalism

Often when journalists refer to "an interactive," they mean a package built with Flash.

Flash is an application from Adobe (formerly Macromedia). The file type it generates for the Web is a SWF (pronounced "swiff"). The editable file (like a PSD in Photoshop) is a FLA (pronounced "flah").

The Flash player (currently at version 9) is used by more than 90 percent of all Internet users. The player is free; the application (used to make SWFs) is expensive. To view a Flash file on the Web, your Web browser uses the player as a plug-in, and you see the Flash content in-line on the Web page.

My book can be used in journalism classes for hands-on Flash instruction and assignments: Flash Journalism: How to Create Multimedia News Packages (Focal Press, 2005).