In journalism writing classes, students learn: “Show, don’t tell.” When we provide a visual, that maxim carries even more weight. The less text or audio that an image needs to be understood, the better it is.

Some photojournalists think it’s best to let photos stand alone. Some like to publish their portfolios with no captions at all. This is a pet peeve of mine: I want to know more. I always want to know who, when, and where. Always! For me this is part of authentication, which is part of what makes it journalism and not interpretive art. A photo without a caption is not journalism.

Rule 1: Include basic factual details as needed for credibility. These might appear at the end of a linear presentation (video or animation), or below or beside a still image or graphic.

Another basic difference between journalism and art is literal truth. Whether the camera is shooting video or stills, the journalist behind the camera must not direct. As soon as you tell people what to do, you’ve changed the scene from fact to fiction. Portraits are the exception; they usually require some direction from the photographer.

Rule 2: Any reasonable assumption a viewer would make must be true. When we see a portrait, we assume it was posed. When we see someone jumping, falling, or raising a flag, we do not assume it was a re-enactment.

Where does the storytelling come in? It is possible for one image to tell a story, but it may be useful to think of the single image as an iconic work (think of the World Trade Center with dark smoke billowing, or Eddie Adams’s famous image in which a Vietnamese general shoots a man in the head) — a symbol, a condensation of meaning. A child who sees Adams’s photo today sees only one man shooting another — not the whole long tragedy of the Vietnam War.

Rule 3: A visual story requires more than one image.

In his chapter about photo stories, Ken Kobré wrote: “How does a picture story differ from a collection of pictures on a topic? A picture story has a theme. Not only are the individual pictures in the story about one subject, but they also help to support one central point” (Photojournalism: The Professionals’ Approach, 6th ed., page 232).

Like Kobré, I encourage students to write a headline for their visual story even before they go out to shoot. I go further and urge them to include a subject, active verb, and object in their working headline. “Scenes from the life of a medical student” is too vague to make a good story. “Medical student confronts all-night cram sessions, microscopes, and corpses” assures me that this story has a chance to be interesting.

Rule 4: Know what the story is before you start making images for it.

Visual stories can transport us — not only to another place, but inside another person’s life.

Visual stories often leave out a lot. This is part of their power, part of what makes them so effective. The best visual stories are compact, visceral, evocative.

Visual stories should be able to stand alone and make sense on their own. That does not mean they must be complete. I think this is one of the hardest things for journalism students to negotiate. If they try to cram in too much information, the visual story stalls, dragged down by the weight. If they fail to supply sufficient information and context, the story floats loose, inconsequential, pretty but meaningless.

Rule 5: Edit ruthlessly to pare away all that is unnecessary to the essential story. Background and context can be supplied in a linked text, in other separate components.

Rule 6: Ensure that the story makes sense if it stands alone. This does not mean it has to tell everything or “show both sides.” (I put that in quotes because it’s a huge fallacy to assume there are only two sides.)

Sometimes a visual story needs illustrations, charts or graphs, maps, diagrams. One of my favorite examples of great visual storytelling is a story from National Geographic and MediaStorm that integrates still photography, video, and information graphics in a tightly edited video format: Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma. Specifically I recommend the animated map sequence that starts at about 5:33. I think you will realize this as the map animation progresses: Nothing else, in any format, would tell this segment of the story as effectively.

Telling a story entirely with graphics is different from telling a story with photos or video. This too can be journalism.

Rule 7: A visual story does not require a camera.

When I was watching a 25-minute news program a few days ago, I experienced a small moment of sheer delight that was purely visual. It keeps coming back to me. The reason the three-shot video sequence was so successful was because first it showed me something appealing (a child’s face, at 14:25), and then a fuller view of something that seemed very familiar (a kiddie Ferris wheel, at 14:30), and then it surprised me by showing something unexpected about the same subject in the previous two shots (at 14:35).

Recently I watched the film The Story of the Weeping Camel, and I noticed how often a new sequence started by showing a close-up of someone’s hands or feet (or even an extreme close-up of a face) before cutting to a wider shot that revealed what was going on. In a quiet story set in a remote rural area, where not much happens, this technique worked really well to hold my attention.

Rule 8: Show things the viewer has not seen before, or show things in a way that is unfamiliar to the viewer.

Rule 9: Keep changing what the viewer is seeing. The visual brain will become bored if the image stays the same. Vary the angle and the distance — especially if the subject remains the same!

Finally, what makes a story a story? It has to move along an arc. If it’s flat — if it’s just a sequence of images and/or facts and/or events — it does not have the shape of a story. The shape is a mountain on which we travel upwards. The storyteller conveys us up that mountain, and when we reach the top, there has to be something there for us that made the journey worthwhile.

Ira Glass calls this the moment of reflection — when we stand on top of the mountain and see something.

For me, this is a hell of a lot more helpful than telling students their stories need to have a beginning, middle, and end. What does that mean? Every person’s day has a beginning, middle, and end — that doesn’t mean there’s a story in it!

The story must start with something (a strong visual) that makes us want to go up the hill. That’s the open. Then the story must hold on to us to keep us moving up, up, up (see Rule 9, above). Ira Glass says we do this by raising questions and answering them, one after another, until we reach the top. This question-and-answer process can be done visually: Show us something that’s not usual or typical (question; see Rule 8, above) and then show us a fuller or more complete version (answer). For video, the Five Shot Method provides a template.

The top of the mountain is the climax of the story — but it’s not the end. Don’t cut us off suddenly — don’t throw us off the summit! Make sure you leave us with a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of conclusion. Bring it to a point. The closing image should make us feel like we have really reached an ending. It can give us hope, or it can convey a sense of hopelessness. It can make us feel like this story continues, or the chapter is closed. It should leave us with a feeling of some kind.

Rule 10: Tie a single string from the beginning to the end. Pull it taut and high just before the end. Then release gently, stopping at the firm final knot.

For some people, “visual storytelling” means photographs. For others, it means film or video. An epic movie such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy may spring to mind — and few would disagree with that as a fine example of visual storytelling.

In journalism writing classes, students learn: “Show, don’t tell.” When we provide a visual, that maxim carries even more weight. The less text or audio that an image needs to be understood, the better it is.

Some photojournalists think it’s best to let photos stand alone. Some like to publish their portfolios with no captions at all. This is a pet peeve of mine: I want to know more. I always want to know who, when, and where. Always! For me this is part of authentication, which is part of what makes it journalism and not interpretive art. A photo without a caption is not journalism.

Rule 1: Include basic factual details as needed for credibility. These might appear at the end of a linear presentation (video or animation), or below or beside a still image or graphic.

Another basic difference between journalism and art is literal truth. Whether the camera is shooting video or stills, the journalist behind the camera must not direct. As soon as you tell people what to do, you’ve changed the scene from fact to fiction. Portraits are the exception; they usually require some direction from the photographer.

Rule 2: Any reasonable assumption a viewer would make must be true. When we see a portrait, we assume it was posed. When we see someone jumping, falling, or raising a flag, we do not assume it was a re-enactment.

Where does the storytelling come in? It is possible for one image to tell a story, but it may be useful to think of the single image as an iconic work (think of the World Trade Center with dark smoke billowing, or Eddie Adams’s famous image in which a Vietnamese general shoots a man in the head) — a symbol, a condensation of meaning. A child who sees Adams’s photo today sees only one man shooting another — not the whole long tragedy of the Vietnam War.

Rule 3: A visual story requires more than one image.

In his chapter about photo stories, Ken Kobré wrote: “How does a picture story differ from a collection of pictures on a topic? A picture story has a theme. Not only are the individual pictures in the story about one subject, but they also help to support one central point” (Photojournalism: The Professionals’ Approach, 6th ed., page 232).

Like Kobré, I encourage students to write a headline for their visual story even before they go out to shoot. I go further and urge them to include a subject, active verb, and object in their working headline. “Scenes from the life of a medical student” is too vague to make a good story. “Medical student confronts all-night cram sessions, microscopes, and corpses” assures me that this story has a chance to be interesting.

Rule 4: Know what the story is before you start making images for it.

Visual stories can transport us — not only to another place, but inside another person’s life.

Visual stories often leave out a lot. This is part of their power, part of what makes them so effective. The best visual stories are compact, visceral, evocative.

Visual stories should be able to stand alone and make sense on their own. That does not mean they must be complete. I think this is one of the hardest things for journalism students to negotiate. If they try to cram in too much information, the visual story stalls, dragged down by the weight. If they fail to supply sufficient information and context, the story floats loose, inconsequential, pretty but meaningless.

Rule 5: Edit ruthlessly to pare away all that is unnecessary to the essential story. Background and context can be supplied in a linked text, in other separate components.

Rule 6: Ensure that the story makes sense if it stands alone. This does not mean it has to tell everything or “show both sides.” (I put that in quotes because it’s a huge fallacy to assume there are only two sides.)

Sometimes a visual story needs illustrations, charts or graphs, maps, diagrams. One of my favorite examples of great visual storytelling is a story from National Geographic and MediaStorm that integrates still photography, video, and information graphics in a tightly edited video format: Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma. Specifically I recommend the animated map sequence that starts at about 5:33. I think you will realize this as the map animation progresses: Nothing else, in any format, would tell this segment of the story as effectively.

Telling a story entirely with graphics is different from telling a story with photos or video. This too can be journalism.

Rule 7: A visual story does not require a camera.

When I was watching a 25-minute news program a few days ago, I experienced a small moment of sheer delight that was purely visual. It keeps coming back to me. The reason the three-shot video sequence was so successful was because first it showed me something appealing (a child’s face, at 14:25), and then a fuller view of something that seemed very familiar (a kiddie Ferris wheel, at 14:30), and then it surprised me by showing something unexpected about the same subject in the previous two shots (at 14:35).

Recently I watched the film The Story of the Weeping Camel, and I noticed how often a new sequence started by showing a close-up of someone’s hands or feet (or even an extreme close-up of a face) before cutting to a wider shot that revealed what was going on. In a quiet story set in a remote rural area, where not much happens, this technique worked really well to hold my attention.

Rule 8: Show things the viewer has not seen before, or show things in a way that is unfamiliar to the viewer.

Rule 9: Keep changing what the viewer is seeing. The visual brain will become bored if the image stays the same. Vary the angle and the distance — especially if the subject remains the same!

Finally, what makes a story a story? It has to move along an arc. If it’s flat — if it’s just a sequence of images and/or facts and/or events — it does not have the shape of a story. The shape is a mountain on which we travel upwards. The storyteller conveys us up that mountain, and when we reach the top, there has to be something there for us that made the journey worthwhile.

Ira Glass calls this the moment of reflection — when we stand on top of the mountain and see something.

For me, this is a hell of a lot more helpful than telling students their stories need to have a beginning, middle, and end. What does that mean? Every person’s day has a beginning, middle, and end — that doesn’t mean there’s a story in it!

The story must start with something (a strong visual) that makes us want to go up the hill. That’s the open. Then the story must hold on to us to keep us moving up, up, up (see Rule 9, above). Ira Glass says we do this by raising questions and answering them, one after another, until we reach the top. This question-and-answer process can be done visually: Show us something that’s not usual or typical (question; see Rule 8, above) and then show us a fuller or more complete version (answer). For video, the Five Shot Method provides a template.

The top of the mountain is the climax of the story — but it’s not the end. Don’t cut us off suddenly — don’t throw us off the summit! Make sure you leave us with a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of conclusion. Bring it to a point. The closing image should make us feel like we have really reached an ending. It can give us hope, or it can convey a sense of hopelessness. It can make us feel like this story continues, or the chapter is closed. It should leave us with a feeling of some kind.

Rule 10: Tie a single string from the beginning to the end. Pull it taut and high just before the end. Then release gently, stopping at the firm final knot.

Right now I’m in the midst of a four-week module where I teach green young journalism students to tell a story with Soundslides. Fortunately, they’ve just finished four weeks of gathering and editing audio. Unfortunately, most of them have no experience with photojournalism.

Gathering Audio. Part 2: A Practical Guide. Brian Storm and Jim Seida wrote this guide years ago, and I think it’s still the best. I was just re-reading it earlier today, and man, it rocks. It’s 4,000 words, or about 10 pages single-spaced, and I would bet most of my students don’t take the time to read it — even though I assign it every semester. What a pity. It’s like gold.

So I’m blogging it here in case you’ve never read it. Or maybe you read it a long time ago and forgot how great it is.

Which should I work on first, pictures or sound?

That depends. If there’s sound that I think might be gone in a few minutes, I’ll probably break out my MiniDisc and start recording. If the light is perfect but fading, I’ll most likely make pictures first.

There’s no right way to do it, and there’s always a tradeoff. You have to accept the fact that when you are recording, you’ll miss some great images and when you are shooting you’ll miss some wonderful sound. I’ve tried doing both at once, it doesn’t work very well. Getting good sound takes just as much skill, energy and focus as getting good pictures; it’s tough to do both things at the same time.

– Meredith Birkett, Special Projects Multimedia Producer, MSNBC.com

That’s just a taste. Ha, we don’t use MiniDiscs any more (thank God!), but all the advice still fits. There’s lots more, just as good as that bit.

I was asking around recently, among my friends at other j-schools who teach photojournalism. Yes, they are still teaching Soundslides. The No. 1 reason is almost unanimous: It’s a great transition from making stills to making video. I think it also helps — a lot — with teaching storytelling.

Right now I’m in the midst of a four-week module where I teach green young journalism students to tell a story with Soundslides. Fortunately, they’ve just finished four weeks of gathering and editing audio. Unfortunately, most of them have no experience with photojournalism.

Gathering Audio. Part 2: A Practical Guide. Brian Storm and Jim Seida wrote this guide years ago, and I think it’s still the best. I was just re-reading it earlier today, and man, it rocks. It’s 4,000 words, or about 10 pages single-spaced, and I would bet most of my students don’t take the time to read it — even though I assign it every semester. What a pity. It’s like gold.

So I’m blogging it here in case you’ve never read it. Or maybe you read it a long time ago and forgot how great it is.

Which should I work on first, pictures or sound?

That depends. If there’s sound that I think might be gone in a few minutes, I’ll probably break out my MiniDisc and start recording. If the light is perfect but fading, I’ll most likely make pictures first.

There’s no right way to do it, and there’s always a tradeoff. You have to accept the fact that when you are recording, you’ll miss some great images and when you are shooting you’ll miss some wonderful sound. I’ve tried doing both at once, it doesn’t work very well. Getting good sound takes just as much skill, energy and focus as getting good pictures; it’s tough to do both things at the same time.

– Meredith Birkett, Special Projects Multimedia Producer, MSNBC.com

That’s just a taste. Ha, we don’t use MiniDiscs any more (thank God!), but all the advice still fits. There’s lots more, just as good as that bit.

My first thought is that if you have weak skills in CSS (or no CSS skills at all), you can’t even think about using jQuery. You would need to improve your CSS skills before you tackled jQuery.

With that out of the way (sorry if that ruined your day), let’s note that:

• jQuery is JavaScript.
• jQuery is free and not a commercial product.
• The home and source of jQuery is jQuery.com. You can download it there.

As an introduction, I really liked this: jQuery Tutorials for Designers. It shows you what jQuery makes possible on today’s Web pages, and even if you don’t want to look at the code, you can open each of the 10 examples and click and see what it does. So in about 15 minutes, you will have a better idea about jQuery’s usefulness.

This example is my favorite: Image Replacement. It’s simple, and it’s really easy to apply this to all kinds of visual journalism situations that an online designer might encounter.

Many of the other examples are things I wouldn’t bother to do on Web pages, even though they look cool. I was reminded of how a lot of people are saying Flash is unnecessary because you can do all the menu effects and flyovers with JavaScript instead. These examples prove that. Of course, my view of Flash is not to use it for eye candy (like most of these jQuery examples), but instead to use it for complex explanatory journalism, like this.

For a very nice slideshow built with jQuery, see this tutorial: Create a Slick and Accessible Slideshow Using jQuery.

There’s also a nifty jQuery plug-in for making a slideshow: Coda-Slider (thanks to Lauren Rabaino for that link!).

Here’s another good tutorial for a slideshow: Automatic Image Slider w/ CSS & jQuery.

For the geeks among you, read why you should link to Google’s copy of jQuery instead of using a version on your own Web host.

And finally, the ever-helpful Chrys Wu (@MacDivaONA) recommended these free video tutorials for learning jQuery.

With all this talk about the so-called death of Adobe Flash, the future of HTML5, etc., I thought I should take a closer look at jQuery. This post is intended to give you an overview and help you decide whether you too should take a closer look.

My first thought is that if you have weak skills in CSS (or no CSS skills at all), you can’t even think about using jQuery. You would need to improve your CSS skills before you tackled jQuery.

With that out of the way (sorry if that ruined your day), let’s note that:

• jQuery is JavaScript.
• jQuery is free and not a commercial product.
• The home and source of jQuery is jQuery.com. You can download it there.

As an introduction, I really liked this: jQuery Tutorials for Designers. It shows you what jQuery makes possible on today’s Web pages, and even if you don’t want to look at the code, you can open each of the 10 examples and click and see what it does. So in about 15 minutes, you will have a better idea about jQuery’s usefulness.

This example is my favorite: Image Replacement. It’s simple, and it’s really easy to apply this to all kinds of visual journalism situations that an online designer might encounter.

Many of the other examples are things I wouldn’t bother to do on Web pages, even though they look cool. I was reminded of how a lot of people are saying Flash is unnecessary because you can do all the menu effects and flyovers with JavaScript instead. These examples prove that. Of course, my view of Flash is not to use it for eye candy (like most of these jQuery examples), but instead to use it for complex explanatory journalism, like this.

For a very nice slideshow built with jQuery, see this tutorial: Create a Slick and Accessible Slideshow Using jQuery.

There’s also a nifty jQuery plug-in for making a slideshow: Coda-Slider (thanks to Lauren Rabaino for that link!).

Here’s another good tutorial for a slideshow: Automatic Image Slider w/ CSS & jQuery.

For the geeks among you, read why you should link to Google’s copy of jQuery instead of using a version on your own Web host.

And finally, the ever-helpful Chrys Wu (@MacDivaONA) recommended these free video tutorials for learning jQuery.

Blogs and Journalism
This presentation surveys the ways in which professional journalists are using blogs to enhance their reporting, reach wider audiences, extend their influence, and encourage two-way communication with the public. The implications for teaching journalism students about blogging are clear; students need to gain experience with writing, researching, linking, and managing comments on blogs.

Resources for Adding Online Journalism to Your Curriculum
This presentation offers seven multimedia and online skill sets for journalists and recommends simple ways to add basic skills instruction into existing courses such as reporting, photojournalism, editing, and magazine journalism.

I gave a couple of presentations to U.S. journalism educators in St. Petersburg, Florida, yesterday and today. For each presentation I made a page of links to resources, examples, etc. The PowerPoint for each presentation is also online.

Blogs and Journalism
This presentation surveys the ways in which professional journalists are using blogs to enhance their reporting, reach wider audiences, extend their influence, and encourage two-way communication with the public. The implications for teaching journalism students about blogging are clear; students need to gain experience with writing, researching, linking, and managing comments on blogs.

Resources for Adding Online Journalism to Your Curriculum
This presentation offers seven multimedia and online skill sets for journalists and recommends simple ways to add basic skills instruction into existing courses such as reporting, photojournalism, editing, and magazine journalism.

Reporter’s Guide to Multimedia Proficiency (PDF; 536 KB)

This 42-page document is fully linked and usable online in most Web browsers, or in Adobe Reader, or in Preview on the Mac OS. In other words, you don’t need to print it. But if that’s what you want, go right ahead.

If you’re viewing the RGMP in Adobe Reader (free for Windows and Mac), you can click around in the expanded table of contents if you open the Bookmarks navigation pane (below, seen at left): View menu > Navigation Panels > Bookmarks

On the Mac, if you’re viewing the RGMP in Preview, you can click around in the expanded table of contents if you open the Sidebar panel (below, seen at right): View menu > Sidebar

The entire document is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. That means you are free to share, distribute, reuse and even remix it, but only if you fulfill the stated conditions in the license.

Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Here is the manner specified: Keep my name, Mindy McAdams, on any version or part of the work you copy, share, use, etc., and ALSO include the URL of my home page: http://mindymcadams.com/

Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. You cannot sell it or include it in something you are selling. If you are presenting a face-to-face workshop and getting paid to do so, you may use this document IF you attribute (as explained above) AND share alike (see below).

Share Alike: If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. THIS INCLUDES translations into other languages. If you translate this document or any part of it, you must attach the same license to your translation and make it available online without charge.

Please leave a comment here if you’re going to distribute it in your newsroom or use it with your students. I’d love to know!

Translations

En español (PDF; 600 KB) — translation by María Elena Brizuela, a journalist and journalism educator based in Córdoba, Argentina. (Posted Sept. 8, 2009.)

Auf Deutsch (one blog post will be translated each Tuesday) — translation by Ulrike Langer, a journalist based in Cologne. (Part 1 posted Oct. 6, 2009.)

In Russian — a translation sponsored by Deutsche Welle is appearing (one post at a time) on a training blog, кладезь знаний для журналистов.

If you create a translation, please let me know!

Many, many people asked me to create a single PDF version of all 15 posts in my RGMP series on this blog. It’s done.

Reporter’s Guide to Multimedia Proficiency (PDF; 536 KB)

This 42-page document is fully linked and usable online in most Web browsers, or in Adobe Reader, or in Preview on the Mac OS. In other words, you don’t need to print it. But if that’s what you want, go right ahead.

If you’re viewing the RGMP in Adobe Reader (free for Windows and Mac), you can click around in the expanded table of contents if you open the Bookmarks navigation pane (below, seen at left): View menu > Navigation Panels > Bookmarks

On the Mac, if you’re viewing the RGMP in Preview, you can click around in the expanded table of contents if you open the Sidebar panel (below, seen at right): View menu > Sidebar

The entire document is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. That means you are free to share, distribute, reuse and even remix it, but only if you fulfill the stated conditions in the license.

Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Here is the manner specified: Keep my name, Mindy McAdams, on any version or part of the work you copy, share, use, etc., and ALSO include the URL of my home page: http://mindymcadams.com/

Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. You cannot sell it or include it in something you are selling. If you are presenting a face-to-face workshop and getting paid to do so, you may use this document IF you attribute (as explained above) AND share alike (see below).

Share Alike: If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. THIS INCLUDES translations into other languages. If you translate this document or any part of it, you must attach the same license to your translation and make it available online without charge.

Please leave a comment here if you’re going to distribute it in your newsroom or use it with your students. I’d love to know!

Translations

En español (PDF; 600 KB) — translation by María Elena Brizuela, a journalist and journalism educator based in Córdoba, Argentina. (Posted Sept. 8, 2009.)

Auf Deutsch (one blog post will be translated each Tuesday) — translation by Ulrike Langer, a journalist based in Cologne. (Part 1 posted Oct. 6, 2009.)

In Russian — a translation sponsored by Deutsche Welle is appearing (one post at a time) on a training blog, кладезь знаний для журналистов.

If you create a translation, please let me know!

As a staff photographer at The Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle for more than eight years, Will Yurman has added audio gathering and editing, slideshow production, and video shooting and editing to his skill set. One of the (many) things he does for the newspaper’s Web site is a weekly panorama about a local topic; the 360-degree photo is accompanied by audio interview material, making it a multimedia vignette. He also creates some packages using Flash, such as a presentation about all homicide victims in Rochester in 2007.

I asked Yurman about the differences between shooting video and shooting stills.

“In some ways, video is easier,” he said, “because you’re always gathering audio and video of the same scene with the same camera.” If you’re shooting stills and planning to produce an audio slideshow, “you’re often putting down the camera to pick up the recorder.”

But video isn’t simple. “Video is a struggle because you are constantly processing how to compress time — making sure you have all your shots. And the reality is, you’re often thinking of the image or the audio, but not both at the same time, anyway,” Yurman said.

Because he has been shooting stills for decades, Yurman said, “it’s still easier for me to do that well. But for others the reverse may be true.”

Then he made an interesting distinction. “For a simple, good-enough piece, video is probably easier in many respects. If you just need to cover the facts, a house fire, a simple news story, I think video is easier. For really good, or great, they have their own equal challenges. If you’re trying to construct a narrative, they are equally difficult,” he said.

“Some stories work equally well in both — the results are different, of course, but not better or worse.”

The difference between motion and still images

Yurman’s done a bit of thinking about the factors that distinguish video and audio slideshows.

“Both media are time-based, as opposed to space-based. A print layout is about space — the eye wanders; the viewer controls the time and rhythm. Time-based, of course, means the show is driven by the audio and is viewed over time,” he said.

In being time-based, video and audio slideshows are the same, he said. “But they are more like cousins than simply two forms of the same thing. Video is about watching things happen over time. We watch a sequence of events unfold. Stills are about moments in time.”

When audio slideshows try to be like video, they fail, Yurman said. There are some exceptions such as the flip book, “which can work if done right,” he said. But generally, “good slideshows, I think, have a very different rhythm than video — less literal. Slideshows need to lean on the strength of the still image — these punctuated moments in time that visually meld with the audio.”

Yurman produces both audio slideshows (using Soundslides) and video for the Democrat & Chronicle, although in the past year he has done mostly video (two examples: local art therapy program;  man-on-the-street interviews). He said there appears to be a preference for video, coming from corporate parent Gannett. “I could do slideshows within Final Cut, but at that point I generally just do video,” he said. (Final Cut Pro is a video editing program; Soundslides is a program for creating audio slideshows.)

For the Rochester International Jazz Festival two weeks ago, he produced a daily audio slideshow on deadline using Soundslides and Flash — no video. He called Soundslides “a great tool for quick work.”

Without audio, you’ve got no multimedia

Like the other photojournalists I spoke to earlier this month, Yurman emphasized the key role of audio in multimedia stories.

“Photographers need to understand how important good audio is to the story. It’s two parts, like any process. There is the technical, of course — learning how to gather high-quality sound means understanding the gear, being aware of the space, asking good questions, and most important — listening!”

Getting audio that is engaging and compelling requires that the journalist understand what audio does best. “This medium is better suited to emotions and personal reactions and less well-suited to facts and numbers. It’s very hard to listen to a heavy number story. Hard to keep that in your head,” Yurman said. (For great examples of Yurman’s audio work, check out the slideshows he made from the 2009 Rochester International Jazz Festival. First-class work, and stories about feelings, not facts.)

Learning any of the multimedia skills — audio, photography, video, etc. — calls for both watching and doing, he said. Watching: “Look at good work, and try to deconstruct it — why do you like it, what works, listen hard to how it was put together.” Doing: “And then, go do. Try, experiment, fail, try again and fail again.”

For gathering good audio, he said, “I honestly believe THE most important skill is to truly listen.”

I asked him to expand on that: “I mean listen to your subject during the interview. Don’t assume you can just rewind the tape later, don’t be thinking about your next assignment — or even your next question. Don’t be thinking about what you need at the grocery store or how you’re going to edit the piece. I mean really listen to what they are saying and respond in the moment — follow up on what is interesting, stay engaged.”

Yurman said it is possible to get better at audio just by practicing and listening to good examples. “Of course, it helps to have teachers, mentors who can critique and guide. But for working professionals, that isn’t always possible. Yes, I think you can teach yourself that way.”

(See Will Yurman’s portfolio site.)

Photojournalists have stood at the center of the transformation in most newspaper newsrooms during the past 10 years. That’s not to say they always had a voice in how changes were made — but much of the new workload fell onto their shoulders.

As a staff photographer at The Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle for more than eight years, Will Yurman has added audio gathering and editing, slideshow production, and video shooting and editing to his skill set. One of the (many) things he does for the newspaper’s Web site is a weekly panorama about a local topic; the 360-degree photo is accompanied by audio interview material, making it a multimedia vignette. He also creates some packages using Flash, such as a presentation about all homicide victims in Rochester in 2007.

I asked Yurman about the differences between shooting video and shooting stills.

“In some ways, video is easier,” he said, “because you’re always gathering audio and video of the same scene with the same camera.” If you’re shooting stills and planning to produce an audio slideshow, “you’re often putting down the camera to pick up the recorder.”

But video isn’t simple. “Video is a struggle because you are constantly processing how to compress time — making sure you have all your shots. And the reality is, you’re often thinking of the image or the audio, but not both at the same time, anyway,” Yurman said.

Because he has been shooting stills for decades, Yurman said, “it’s still easier for me to do that well. But for others the reverse may be true.”

Then he made an interesting distinction. “For a simple, good-enough piece, video is probably easier in many respects. If you just need to cover the facts, a house fire, a simple news story, I think video is easier. For really good, or great, they have their own equal challenges. If you’re trying to construct a narrative, they are equally difficult,” he said.

“Some stories work equally well in both — the results are different, of course, but not better or worse.”

The difference between motion and still images

Yurman’s done a bit of thinking about the factors that distinguish video and audio slideshows.

“Both media are time-based, as opposed to space-based. A print layout is about space — the eye wanders; the viewer controls the time and rhythm. Time-based, of course, means the show is driven by the audio and is viewed over time,” he said.

In being time-based, video and audio slideshows are the same, he said. “But they are more like cousins than simply two forms of the same thing. Video is about watching things happen over time. We watch a sequence of events unfold. Stills are about moments in time.”

When audio slideshows try to be like video, they fail, Yurman said. There are some exceptions such as the flip book, “which can work if done right,” he said. But generally, “good slideshows, I think, have a very different rhythm than video — less literal. Slideshows need to lean on the strength of the still image — these punctuated moments in time that visually meld with the audio.”

Yurman produces both audio slideshows (using Soundslides) and video for the Democrat & Chronicle, although in the past year he has done mostly video (two examples: local art therapy program;  man-on-the-street interviews). He said there appears to be a preference for video, coming from corporate parent Gannett. “I could do slideshows within Final Cut, but at that point I generally just do video,” he said. (Final Cut Pro is a video editing program; Soundslides is a program for creating audio slideshows.)

For the Rochester International Jazz Festival two weeks ago, he produced a daily audio slideshow on deadline using Soundslides and Flash — no video. He called Soundslides “a great tool for quick work.”

Without audio, you’ve got no multimedia

Like the other photojournalists I spoke to earlier this month, Yurman emphasized the key role of audio in multimedia stories.

“Photographers need to understand how important good audio is to the story. It’s two parts, like any process. There is the technical, of course — learning how to gather high-quality sound means understanding the gear, being aware of the space, asking good questions, and most important — listening!”

Getting audio that is engaging and compelling requires that the journalist understand what audio does best. “This medium is better suited to emotions and personal reactions and less well-suited to facts and numbers. It’s very hard to listen to a heavy number story. Hard to keep that in your head,” Yurman said. (For great examples of Yurman’s audio work, check out the slideshows he made from the 2009 Rochester International Jazz Festival. First-class work, and stories about feelings, not facts.)

Learning any of the multimedia skills — audio, photography, video, etc. — calls for both watching and doing, he said. Watching: “Look at good work, and try to deconstruct it — why do you like it, what works, listen hard to how it was put together.” Doing: “And then, go do. Try, experiment, fail, try again and fail again.”

For gathering good audio, he said, “I honestly believe THE most important skill is to truly listen.”

I asked him to expand on that: “I mean listen to your subject during the interview. Don’t assume you can just rewind the tape later, don’t be thinking about your next assignment — or even your next question. Don’t be thinking about what you need at the grocery store or how you’re going to edit the piece. I mean really listen to what they are saying and respond in the moment — follow up on what is interesting, stay engaged.”

Yurman said it is possible to get better at audio just by practicing and listening to good examples. “Of course, it helps to have teachers, mentors who can critique and guide. But for working professionals, that isn’t always possible. Yes, I think you can teach yourself that way.”

(See Will Yurman’s portfolio site.)

Even though his newspaper, The Spokesman-Review, has pulled back from its earlier online ambitions, Colin Mulvany said today’s visual journalism students must be prepared for an online future. That includes both gathering and editing audio, as well as posting stories and photo galleries from the field.

Video remains important even though it’s time-intensive; Mulvany, a photojournalist/multimedia producer, said he’s confident that video “will pay off smartly in the future.” All visual journalists need to have strong video production skills, he said. “You might not use them every day, but big news stories will demand video attention.” (Here’s a blog post Mulvany wrote after layoffs at his paper.)

Tom Burton, photo editor and multimedia producer at the Orlando Sentinel, concurred. “We could use more people who can easily work with nonlinear video editing programs,” he said. Experience with Final Cut Pro is preferred, but someone who understands a different editing system could learn FCP “in an intense four-day course.”

The traditional j-school approach, which “teaches you to have a single skill set that fits into a larger organization,” doesn’t cut it today, Burton said. “Those organizations are falling apart, and the jobs for a single skill set are gone.”

Every journalist needs multiple skill sets “to be their own publisher, in a sense,” Burton said. “In our newsroom, you can get your work on the Web quickly if you can gather the assets (words, photos, video), process them and build the page yourself. Otherwise, you have to wait for another overworked person to help you.”

Jen Friedberg, a multimedia producer at the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, said a journalist’s attitude counts for a lot. “Your curiosity and desire to tell the story should be paramount. Every visual journalist should know how to write a basic story in inverted pyramid form, shoot and edit a video that tells a complete story in about 1:30, gather and edit audio, shoot great images with everything from a cell phone to an SLR, turn it all out fast and get the information to where it needs to go online and to the people at your paper.”

Friedberg says today’s journalists should know some Web coding. Basic HTML will allow a photojournalist to add tags in video players and embed photos and videos in blog posts. Even though the newsroom content management system (CMS) shields the journalists from most of the code, “sometimes there are workarounds in the CMS, and if you have a basic knowledge of HTML, you can use them,” Friedberg said.

“Also, that way of thinking helps you understand what’s possible online and how to take advantage of the tools that are out there,” she said. “Not being afraid of HTML is a leg up.”

J-schools should teach students about the potential for innovative coding, Burton said. “If they have ideas, they can always find someone to collaborate with,” he added. Journalists who know how to code will find opportunities. “Almost no one in a newsroom has these skills today, but they are needed,” Burton said.

Tom Priddy is the multimedia editor at the Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal. “I don’t envision everyone requiring a one-size-fits-all journalist all the time,” he said. “But for the average working photojournalist, you’d better be able to write a caption accurately, handle a blog, edit audio and video, post directly onto the content management system and send back five grafs on a house fire.”

All those interviewed used words such as ingenuity, creativity, versatile and flexible when describing “the right stuff” for a journalist today.

“The most critical part is how to tell a story — and knowing when a story IS a story,” Priddy said. “Recognize when you come across a good story. You need to know that before you can know which tool is best to use for which story.”

Mulvany suggested that educators should lead students to “look deeper into the ways a story comes together” — what works, and what doesn’t. “They can take the photos, gather the audio, but they fail to make it into something compelling.”

Both Mulvany and Priddy have been training journalists in multimedia reporting in their newsrooms for a few years. Mulvany said we can teach storytelling only after the students feel comfortable with the tools, but Priddy said we can’t really teach them mastery of the tools. “They have to do it over and over and over again,” he said. The only way to feel truly comfortable with the tools is to use them — a lot.

Beyond knowing how to use the tools, a journalist must be able to assess whether a particular story will work well or badly in different formats. “A school board story is lousy for a photo gallery, but it could be perfect for a mash-up of schools facing closure,” Burton said. “A story that has compelling people can make a perfect audio slideshow or video, if you can get them in an interview. And that interview is going to be different than an interview conducted for print.”

The skills in storytelling and the use of the tools go hand in glove. Students will be inexperienced at both, so they’ll simply have to learn both at the same time.

The current crop of interns “could be better at audio,” Burton said, “but that is the weakest area I see throughout the industry. You wouldn’t have to be all that good to be the best audio person working for a newspaper. Bad audio is very, very difficult to fix in the edit.”

All the photojournalists at the Star-Telegram are good at both gathering and editing audio, Friedberg said. “That has been sort of a long battle, but they’ve had to do it now for several years. They are pretty quick with it.”

Mulvany pointed out that for video or audio slideshows, both reporters and photographers need to write scripts and voice their own narration. “Yes, some sound awful at first,” he acknowledged. “But I am amazed at how fast people find their voice. I have pushed a lot for producers, both reporters and photographers, to voice their multimedia. It has not been a battle at all.”

One thing seems very clear: There is no place in the newsroom for a photojournalist who doesn’t also report, write detailed captions, file copy from the field, and work on the Web.

“I firmly believe there will be no more just reporters or just photographers,” Mulvany said. “We all need to have crossover skills. The Web demands it.”

This article was originally printed in the Spring 2009 issue of Viewpoints, the newsletter of the Visual Communication Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

To find out what’s needed in today’s newsrooms, in mid-June I asked photo editors and multimedia producers at four newspapers which skills are still in short supply. Video editing, storytelling and audio skills led the list.

Even though his newspaper, The Spokesman-Review, has pulled back from its earlier online ambitions, Colin Mulvany said today’s visual journalism students must be prepared for an online future. That includes both gathering and editing audio, as well as posting stories and photo galleries from the field.

Video remains important even though it’s time-intensive; Mulvany, a photojournalist/multimedia producer, said he’s confident that video “will pay off smartly in the future.” All visual journalists need to have strong video production skills, he said. “You might not use them every day, but big news stories will demand video attention.” (Here’s a blog post Mulvany wrote after layoffs at his paper.)

Tom Burton, photo editor and multimedia producer at the Orlando Sentinel, concurred. “We could use more people who can easily work with nonlinear video editing programs,” he said. Experience with Final Cut Pro is preferred, but someone who understands a different editing system could learn FCP “in an intense four-day course.”

The traditional j-school approach, which “teaches you to have a single skill set that fits into a larger organization,” doesn’t cut it today, Burton said. “Those organizations are falling apart, and the jobs for a single skill set are gone.”

Every journalist needs multiple skill sets “to be their own publisher, in a sense,” Burton said. “In our newsroom, you can get your work on the Web quickly if you can gather the assets (words, photos, video), process them and build the page yourself. Otherwise, you have to wait for another overworked person to help you.”

Jen Friedberg, a multimedia producer at the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, said a journalist’s attitude counts for a lot. “Your curiosity and desire to tell the story should be paramount. Every visual journalist should know how to write a basic story in inverted pyramid form, shoot and edit a video that tells a complete story in about 1:30, gather and edit audio, shoot great images with everything from a cell phone to an SLR, turn it all out fast and get the information to where it needs to go online and to the people at your paper.”

Friedberg says today’s journalists should know some Web coding. Basic HTML will allow a photojournalist to add tags in video players and embed photos and videos in blog posts. Even though the newsroom content management system (CMS) shields the journalists from most of the code, “sometimes there are workarounds in the CMS, and if you have a basic knowledge of HTML, you can use them,” Friedberg said.

“Also, that way of thinking helps you understand what’s possible online and how to take advantage of the tools that are out there,” she said. “Not being afraid of HTML is a leg up.”

J-schools should teach students about the potential for innovative coding, Burton said. “If they have ideas, they can always find someone to collaborate with,” he added. Journalists who know how to code will find opportunities. “Almost no one in a newsroom has these skills today, but they are needed,” Burton said.

Tom Priddy is the multimedia editor at the Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal. “I don’t envision everyone requiring a one-size-fits-all journalist all the time,” he said. “But for the average working photojournalist, you’d better be able to write a caption accurately, handle a blog, edit audio and video, post directly onto the content management system and send back five grafs on a house fire.”

All those interviewed used words such as ingenuity, creativity, versatile and flexible when describing “the right stuff” for a journalist today.

“The most critical part is how to tell a story — and knowing when a story IS a story,” Priddy said. “Recognize when you come across a good story. You need to know that before you can know which tool is best to use for which story.”

Mulvany suggested that educators should lead students to “look deeper into the ways a story comes together” — what works, and what doesn’t. “They can take the photos, gather the audio, but they fail to make it into something compelling.”

Both Mulvany and Priddy have been training journalists in multimedia reporting in their newsrooms for a few years. Mulvany said we can teach storytelling only after the students feel comfortable with the tools, but Priddy said we can’t really teach them mastery of the tools. “They have to do it over and over and over again,” he said. The only way to feel truly comfortable with the tools is to use them — a lot.

Beyond knowing how to use the tools, a journalist must be able to assess whether a particular story will work well or badly in different formats. “A school board story is lousy for a photo gallery, but it could be perfect for a mash-up of schools facing closure,” Burton said. “A story that has compelling people can make a perfect audio slideshow or video, if you can get them in an interview. And that interview is going to be different than an interview conducted for print.”

The skills in storytelling and the use of the tools go hand in glove. Students will be inexperienced at both, so they’ll simply have to learn both at the same time.

The current crop of interns “could be better at audio,” Burton said, “but that is the weakest area I see throughout the industry. You wouldn’t have to be all that good to be the best audio person working for a newspaper. Bad audio is very, very difficult to fix in the edit.”

All the photojournalists at the Star-Telegram are good at both gathering and editing audio, Friedberg said. “That has been sort of a long battle, but they’ve had to do it now for several years. They are pretty quick with it.”

Mulvany pointed out that for video or audio slideshows, both reporters and photographers need to write scripts and voice their own narration. “Yes, some sound awful at first,” he acknowledged. “But I am amazed at how fast people find their voice. I have pushed a lot for producers, both reporters and photographers, to voice their multimedia. It has not been a battle at all.”

One thing seems very clear: There is no place in the newsroom for a photojournalist who doesn’t also report, write detailed captions, file copy from the field, and work on the Web.

“I firmly believe there will be no more just reporters or just photographers,” Mulvany said. “We all need to have crossover skills. The Web demands it.”

This article was originally printed in the Spring 2009 issue of Viewpoints, the newsletter of the Visual Communication Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

I think these distinctions are helpful for journalists to make. If you know you’re just putting together a bunch of pictures of baby animals, then you also know it’s not a story, and all you have to do is get the date and location and attribution correct on each photo. If you’re actually curating — if you’re going to add value and filter and offer up a story — then you should be culling the images carefully and adding real information in the captions.

Above: New York Times photo gallery

I was impressed by the page design of this slideshow. It really places the emphasis on the image, and yet the caption is nice and big and easy to read. I did not have to scroll, ever, to read the cation or view the full photo. The dark gray background enhances the experience. The ad is easily visible but does not detract from or compete with the photograph. (Although I have cut the bottom half off the ad here, on my screen I saw the full ad, also without any scrolling.) The page loads very quickly.

Earlier this week, I interviewed several photo editors and multimedia producers at U.S. newspapers of various sizes. (The largest was the Orlando Sentinel; the smallest was the Spartanburg [S.C.] Herald-Journal. Stay tuned for a future blog post about this.) They all said photo galleries are extremely popular on their Web sites — much more so than video. They also said they are more likely to produce a video than an audio slideshow nowadays, for a variety of reasons — most of them having to do with newsroom technology and workflow rather than story considerations.

Compare the Times photo gallery design and functionality to the photo gallery template used by the New York Times Regional Group newspapers:

Above: Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal photo gallery

Above: Gainesville (Fla.) Sun photo gallery

One thing you’ll notice if you click through these galleries is that you wait for some time before you get the next photo. Compared to the Times’s own gallery page, this wait seems like an eternity. I find it amazing that the galleries are so popular with site visitors when they are this slow — I would never have the patience to look at even eight photos at this glacial pace.

Another thing I learned from my interviews with photo editors and multimedia producers this week: Every graduating journalism student should know enough about photojournalism and the Web to be able to construct galleries like these, including resizing (in Photoshop), proper and accurate caption writing, and adding credit information. It doesn’t matter if you’re an online producer or a reporter — this is part of the job now.

I was looking at this Iran protest slideshow from The New York Times today. It does not have audio, and so I would normally call it a gallery — not a slideshow. But it is carefully captioned, with factual material that goes beyond what we see in the photos, and there is a story of sorts, so it is really more than a simple gallery.

I think these distinctions are helpful for journalists to make. If you know you’re just putting together a bunch of pictures of baby animals, then you also know it’s not a story, and all you have to do is get the date and location and attribution correct on each photo. If you’re actually curating — if you’re going to add value and filter and offer up a story — then you should be culling the images carefully and adding real information in the captions.

Above: New York Times photo gallery

I was impressed by the page design of this slideshow. It really places the emphasis on the image, and yet the caption is nice and big and easy to read. I did not have to scroll, ever, to read the cation or view the full photo. The dark gray background enhances the experience. The ad is easily visible but does not detract from or compete with the photograph. (Although I have cut the bottom half off the ad here, on my screen I saw the full ad, also without any scrolling.) The page loads very quickly.

Earlier this week, I interviewed several photo editors and multimedia producers at U.S. newspapers of various sizes. (The largest was the Orlando Sentinel; the smallest was the Spartanburg [S.C.] Herald-Journal. Stay tuned for a future blog post about this.) They all said photo galleries are extremely popular on their Web sites — much more so than video. They also said they are more likely to produce a video than an audio slideshow nowadays, for a variety of reasons — most of them having to do with newsroom technology and workflow rather than story considerations.

Compare the Times photo gallery design and functionality to the photo gallery template used by the New York Times Regional Group newspapers:

Above: Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal photo gallery

Above: Gainesville (Fla.) Sun photo gallery

One thing you’ll notice if you click through these galleries is that you wait for some time before you get the next photo. Compared to the Times’s own gallery page, this wait seems like an eternity. I find it amazing that the galleries are so popular with site visitors when they are this slow — I would never have the patience to look at even eight photos at this glacial pace.

Another thing I learned from my interviews with photo editors and multimedia producers this week: Every graduating journalism student should know enough about photojournalism and the Web to be able to construct galleries like these, including resizing (in Photoshop), proper and accurate caption writing, and adding credit information. It doesn’t matter if you’re an online producer or a reporter — this is part of the job now.

1. Evidence of blogging and interaction with a wide range of blogs
2. An understanding and active use of social media (Twitter, RSS, social bookmarking etc.)
3. The ability to tell an engaging story using still images and audio (audio slideshow)
4. Ability to shoot, edit and tell stories using video
5. Basic ability to create interactive story elements using Adobe Flash
6. Ability edit audio and produce podcasts
7. Ability to file from the field breaking news
8. Ability to moderate online discussion

Actually, Barnes said “online journalists,” but I think that means ALL journalists.

I like the way she broke up the skill sets. I also liked reading the responses she received on her blog. Several people rated 1 and 2 very highly; some thought 7 was paramount; most put 5 in last place, and I would agree with that. After all, she’s asking for “most important” skills — for journalists across the board.

My ranking would be 3, 2, 7, 6, 1, 8, 4, 5.

I think that without the ability to do No. 3 well, the rest just falls by the wayside. Too many journalists have trouble recognizing (and ignoring) a tired old story that no one wants to hear. Too few have a knack (and the true curiosity) to sniff out a unique story that will catch almost anyone’s attention. You can’t do No. 7 properly or well if you have not mastered No. 3. Moreover, No. 6 is vital to both video and slideshows. If you can’t do audio well — gather, edit, format, equalize, and output — you can’t do video either.

One skill I would definitely add, for a new ninth item, is interviewing. This goes hand in glove with 3, 6, and 7. In listening to raw audio of student journalists’ interviews, I hear that they often ask terrible questions, fail to listen attentively, miss many opportunities for follow-up questions, and sometimes flat-out fail to ask the most necessary questions. Interviewing does not come naturally like breathing, and I think we’re neglecting it as a skill to be honed in many of our classes. Yes, we teach about interviewing — but how many journalism educators actually listen to their students conducting a one-on-one interview?

(Thanks to PhilChubb for pointing out Barnes’s post to me.)

Renee Barnes is a radio journalist in Australia; she also teaches online journalism there. In her blog News Frontier, she recently asked readers to rank eight skills, or skill sets, for new journalists:

1. Evidence of blogging and interaction with a wide range of blogs
2. An understanding and active use of social media (Twitter, RSS, social bookmarking etc.)
3. The ability to tell an engaging story using still images and audio (audio slideshow)
4. Ability to shoot, edit and tell stories using video
5. Basic ability to create interactive story elements using Adobe Flash
6. Ability edit audio and produce podcasts
7. Ability to file from the field breaking news
8. Ability to moderate online discussion

Actually, Barnes said “online journalists,” but I think that means ALL journalists.

I like the way she broke up the skill sets. I also liked reading the responses she received on her blog. Several people rated 1 and 2 very highly; some thought 7 was paramount; most put 5 in last place, and I would agree with that. After all, she’s asking for “most important” skills — for journalists across the board.

My ranking would be 3, 2, 7, 6, 1, 8, 4, 5.

I think that without the ability to do No. 3 well, the rest just falls by the wayside. Too many journalists have trouble recognizing (and ignoring) a tired old story that no one wants to hear. Too few have a knack (and the true curiosity) to sniff out a unique story that will catch almost anyone’s attention. You can’t do No. 7 properly or well if you have not mastered No. 3. Moreover, No. 6 is vital to both video and slideshows. If you can’t do audio well — gather, edit, format, equalize, and output — you can’t do video either.

One skill I would definitely add, for a new ninth item, is interviewing. This goes hand in glove with 3, 6, and 7. In listening to raw audio of student journalists’ interviews, I hear that they often ask terrible questions, fail to listen attentively, miss many opportunities for follow-up questions, and sometimes flat-out fail to ask the most necessary questions. Interviewing does not come naturally like breathing, and I think we’re neglecting it as a skill to be honed in many of our classes. Yes, we teach about interviewing — but how many journalism educators actually listen to their students conducting a one-on-one interview?

(Thanks to PhilChubb for pointing out Barnes’s post to me.)

Yesterday while grading some critiques by students, I watched Jessica Dimmock’s three-year project, The Ninth Floor. It’s not the first time I’ve watched it. I’ve got no question that it’s great photojournalism and has great production values. It’s real, it’s edited well, and it’s damn hard work to create something like this. I’ve got nothing but admiration for the work, the effort, the skill, the talent.

My question stems from how people feel about the story. It’s horrible. It’s depressing. These images show people at their worst, and you’ve got to wonder why they do this to themselves. Granted, Dimmock has structured the story in a way that leaves us some room to hope, at the end. But what stays with me is the ugliness, the awfulness. And when students critique this, their reaction is similar: This was so hard to watch.

It’s my impression, after years of viewing many, many photo stories, that these are the stories that photojournalists and photo editors most want to tell. Stories of depravity, of the worst side of humanity, or the saddest side — illness and death. And it’s what wins prizes too (surely there’s a connection).

I fully acknowledge the value in taking us where we do not want to go. We need to see scenes of poverty, death on the battlefield, victims of natural disasters. This is the duty of journalism, to take us there.

But I’m having a problem with stories about sick people, people with cancer or leukemia, and addicted people (also a sickness) that just take us down a hole and leave us there. I also think that far too many stories by student photojournalists are focused on these subjects. I start to think, “Oh, no, not another sweet little child with cancer …” when the slideshow starts.

Shouldn’t we be looking for other stories? What does anyone in the audience learn from seeing yet another child with a disease, and the grieving parents, the valiant fight? Effort be damned — what is the value to the public in these tragic tales? Is this what journalism is for?

I don’t want to start an argument, but I do want to see a discussion.

Yesterday while grading some critiques by students, I watched Jessica Dimmock’s three-year project, The Ninth Floor. It’s not the first time I’ve watched it. I’ve got no question that it’s great photojournalism and has great production values. It’s real, it’s edited well, and it’s damn hard work to create something like this. I’ve got nothing but admiration for the work, the effort, the skill, the talent.

My question stems from how people feel about the story. It’s horrible. It’s depressing. These images show people at their worst, and you’ve got to wonder why they do this to themselves. Granted, Dimmock has structured the story in a way that leaves us some room to hope, at the end. But what stays with me is the ugliness, the awfulness. And when students critique this, their reaction is similar: This was so hard to watch.

It’s my impression, after years of viewing many, many photo stories, that these are the stories that photojournalists and photo editors most want to tell. Stories of depravity, of the worst side of humanity, or the saddest side — illness and death. And it’s what wins prizes too (surely there’s a connection).

I fully acknowledge the value in taking us where we do not want to go. We need to see scenes of poverty, death on the battlefield, victims of natural disasters. This is the duty of journalism, to take us there.

But I’m having a problem with stories about sick people, people with cancer or leukemia, and addicted people (also a sickness) that just take us down a hole and leave us there. I also think that far too many stories by student photojournalists are focused on these subjects. I start to think, “Oh, no, not another sweet little child with cancer …” when the slideshow starts.

Shouldn’t we be looking for other stories? What does anyone in the audience learn from seeing yet another child with a disease, and the grieving parents, the valiant fight? Effort be damned — what is the value to the public in these tragic tales? Is this what journalism is for?