By Mindy McAdams

The Kinks ringtonesHootie and the Blowfish ringtones

Teaching Online Journalism

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Notes from the classroom and observations about today’s practice of journalism online

Archive for the “slideshows” category

First day with Soundslides

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

The journalists in the training session here in Saigon have impressed me with their enthusiasm.

Have a look at this Soundslides created by Nguyen Tien Giang of the Saigon Times on Tuesday night. He recalled this photo essay by one of the newspapers reporters (yeah, not a photojournalist) and persuaded another colleague (one in my workshop) […]

Cheat sheet for multimedia story decisions

Friday, February 15, 2008

As newsrooms everywhere struggle to adapt to the digital information environment, everybody in the newsroom needs to gain some multimedia literacy.
At the basic level, that means you understand what the media are suited for. Even if you do not know how to make an audio slideshow, you must understand what kinds of stories work well […]

Photojournalism: Benazir Bhutto assassinated

Friday, December 28, 2007

Stunning on-the-scene photos and a voiceover narration by photojournalist John Moore:
The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto (The New York Times)
I will venture to say that this collection of images — an audio slideshow without natural sound — is better than video. I also note the inclusion of several photos that are completely out of focus — […]

Appreciation for a great interview

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

I showed this to my students last week, and apparently most of them agreed with me — this is not your average Soundslides.
At 5 min. 27 sec., it’s much longer than what works best for most audio slideshows. Consensus among people who watch a lot of audio slideshows is that after 2 minutes, most of […]

Covering a murder trial in Kansas

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Someone shot a county sheriff to death on a January morning in 2005 while he was serving a warrant. Almost three years later, a capital murder trial is under way in Eureka, Kansas, a town about an hour’s drive from Wichita. Wichita Eagle court reporter Ron Sylvester sits in the courtroom daily, recording the details […]

Doing ‘Dragnet’ in Soundslides

Sunday, October 7, 2007

I remember liking the TV cop show “Dragnet” a lot when I was a kid. I was reminded of that “Just the facts, ma’am” drama while I watched and listened to this report from the Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal: Was It Suicide?
The audio is very effective, in my opinion. What do you think about the way […]

Slideshows take center stage

Thursday, October 4, 2007

This just in:
Slideshows at NYTimes.com account for an amazing 10 percent of all traffic to the site, according to its general manager, Vivian Schiller.
Source: MarketWatch, via Lucas Grindley.
Schiller did not provide more specific statistics about the success of the slideshows, according to MarketWatch.
Check out New York Times slideshows.