Blackberry Messenger, Google Maps, YouTube and other less conventional information hubs were put under scrutiny on the 21 January at the Frontline Club. Richard Pendry, a journalist and lecturer at the University of Kent, chaired the fully booked discussion titled: The Changing Face of News Gathering.
Well-versed in the art of unconventional news gathering and distribution, were a panel of speakers including; Eliot Higgins author of the Brown Moses Blog; Malachy Browne, news editor of Storyful; and Trushar Barot assistant editor at the social media and User Generated Content (UGT) at BBC News. The fourth panellist, whose true identity remained hidden, was the charity Videre’s head of operations who was referred to as Greg.
The categorisation of news gathering as traditional or non-traditional was flagged as problematic from the start. When asked if he considered himself a non-traditional reporter, Browne said:
“The source of information that we receive a few years ago would have been considered non-traditional, its primarily social media content that we work with… Its the application of traditional news values and journalism values to a new form of information.”
Browne continued,
“Storyful was founded on the idea that you can draw news from the noise… We filter the social web in a way so that we are able to monitor it very effectively.”
It was made clear that individuals are becoming citizen journalists by generating valuable content and presenting it to the public. Higgins is a good example of this, he became a well known journalist by gathering information on the weapons being used in Syria. Through online channels he effectively accessed and deciphered information which confirmed an arms smuggling route from Croatia through Jordan to the opposition fighters.
Barot gave us some perspective from within the BBC on the advancements of social media:
“Its changed a lot. Four years ago just finding a reporter who would take Twitter seriously as a journalistic tool was not easy… Now we have hundreds of reporters on Twitter.”
He went on to mark the 2011 UK riots as a point when Twitter really came into its own in conveying news as it happened. Barot said:
“As well as being a source of pictures, videos and eye-witness accounts we were feeding in real-time intelligence in terms of our news desks.”
Unlike some of the others’ approach, Greg’s organisation Videre, whose motto is “Seeing is Believing”, goes back to first-hand evidence collecting for various media and human rights organisations. Run like a secret intelligence core, Videre’s reporter’s identities’, as well as the information they collect, remain untraceable and their carefully gathered information is given away for free. Pendry outlined a potential concern:
“How does anyone know if any of this stuff is true? There is no transparency at all so it completely depends on everyone trusting you and the people that work with you.”
When asked why Videre does what it does, Greg answered simply, “To try to do good.”
It was made clear that the credibility of information and how to verify it is an issue which plagues new media sources. Higgins demonstrated how he pieced together information from anonymous Libyan footage to effectively map events. The already media savvy audience were eager to hear more tips on geo-location technology which Browne went on to outline. He emphasises the importance of investigating three questions; the source, date and location.
Browne went on to provide an example as to how his team of experts confirmed recent footage coming out of Dariya, Syria as well as how they traced the author of a video posted during the Boston Marathon bombing.
With the boundaries of investigative journalism being pushed in this way, the question of privacy became essential. Barot highlighted:
“Something these social media companies are pushing towards is that actually there is nothing wrong in being open and that privacy is a bit of an illusion.”
Evidently in Videre’s case privacy must be upheld at all costs and Greg summarised the high-tech low-tech balance well, he said:
“To understand when to use the the technology which enables you and when using it puts you and other people in danger.”
While exploring the open media platforms available to journalists is essential in todays world, Barot warned of the growing number of closed social media tools such as chat applications. While Barot could not predict what future technology in the media world would look like, he confirmed a far wider spread of mobile technology. He concluded:
“That is one of the things that is definitely going to be a big change over the next 18 months as mobile technology becomes so much more ubiquitous in the developing world.”
Watch or listen to the event here:
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]]>Your guide is Frontline Member, James Mullighan (Board Member of Encounters, Doc|Fest and LSFF Festivals, and ex chief of Shooting People and Edinburgh International Film Festival). The seminar will guide you through a series of case studies and practical examples (with a focus on documentaries) to help you get up to speed with many of the digital tools now available to storytellers. This seminar will cover these areas:
1.Digital Frontiers – Why is all this important? What’s new – in funding, crowdsourcing, production, marketing, audience-engagement, and sales and distribution.
2.Digital Strategy – How to design a website and social media campaign for your film. How social media and technology can help you, and how you can help yourself, stay on top of new developments and opportunities.
3.Crowdsourcing and Crowd funding – Using case studies, the seminar will ask: What is the difference? Who are the players? What makes a good crowd funding campaign, from the fundraising trailer to the length of time, the amount you are seeking to raise and your social media strategy to solicit donations? How to make a crowd funding campaign fit into the wider web campaign for your film?
If you’re feeling overwhelmed about social media and all things digital then Digital Bootcamp will show you how to create a manageable strategy and use available tools to get your films made and seen. You will learn how to reach and engage audiences in new and exciting ways, and you will learn how to measure the impact of your endeavours.
]]>This one-day workshop will help you achieve this, guiding you through the essentials of data journalism; from spreadsheet basics, finding stories within the numbers, to eventually building them into a visual representation.
The morning sessions will be covering the basics of data journalism and spreadsheets, with the afternoon being spent mapping the stories found within the data.
Participants will be required to bring their own laptop with a pre-installed copy of a spreadsheet software.
The workshop will be facilitated by data journalist and editor of The Guardian Datablog and Datastore, Simon Rogers. He is also author of Facts are Sacred: The Power of Data.
10-11.30: Introduction to data journalism
11.30-11.45: Coffee break
11.45-1.15: Spreadsheet basics
1.15-2.15: Lunch Break
2.15-3.45: Representing data part #1
3.45-4pm: Coffee Break
4-5pm: Representing data part #2 and questions
The workshop will be held in the Forum on the second floor of the Frontline Club,13 Norfolk Place, London, W2 1QJ.
Image Credit: Oxford Internet Institute, (Dr Mark Graham, Scott A. Hale and Monica Stephens)
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What you will learn:
Narrative Storytelling
– Examples of successful projects
– Developing the best approach for creating effective multimedia stories
– Pros and cons of the various narrative approaches
Reporting Approach
– Using the best tools for the story
– Integrating still images, audio and video
The Business Model
– How to create a diverse model
– How to leverage the various distribution outlets
About Brian Storm:
Brian Storm is the founder and executive producer of MediaStorm (http://mediastorm.com), a multimedia production studio based in Brooklyn, New York.
MediaStorm’s principal aim is to usher in the next generation of multimedia storytelling by publishing social documentary projects incorporating photojournalism, interactivity, animation, audio and video for distribution across multiple media.
Prior to launching MediaStorm in 2005, Storm spent two years as vice president of News, Multimedia & Assignment Services for Corbis, a digital media agency founded and owned by Bill Gates. From 1995 to 2002 he was director of multimedia at MSNBC.com.
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What you will learn:
Narrative Storytelling
– Examples of successful projects
– Developing the best approach for creating effective multimedia stories
– Pros and cons of the various narrative approaches
Reporting Approach
– Using the best tools for the story
– Integrating still images, audio and video
The Business Model
– How to create a diverse model
– How to leverage the various distribution outlets
More about Brian Storm:
Join Brian Storm, Founder and Executive Producer of MediaStorm, to see how some of the top photojournalists have redefined their storytelling capabilities to include audio reporting and an eye towards publication in multiple media. Their work is capturing acclaim around the world in a time when reader’s attention spans are running short.
Storm was Director of Multimedia for MSNBC.com from 1995-2002 and Vice President of News, Multimedia and Assignment Services for Corbis based in New York from 2002-2004
More about Brian Storm:
Brian Storm is the founder and executive producer of MediaStorm, a multimedia production studio based in Brooklyn, New York.
MediaStorm’s principal aim is to usher in the next generation of multimedia storytelling by publishing social documentary projects incorporating photojournalism, interactivity, animation, audio and video for distribution across multiple media.
Prior to launching MediaStorm in 2005, Storm spent two years as vice president of News, Multimedia & Assignment Services for Corbis, a digital media agency founded and owned by Bill Gates. From 1995 to 2002 he was director of multimedia at MSNBC.com.
Storm received his master’s degree in photojournalism in 1995 from the University of Missouri. He lives in New York City and can be reached via brian@mediastorm.com.
]]>What We Will Cover:
* The difference between WordPress.com and Installing your own: What you can/can’t do.
* Installing WordPress: What you need and how to get it running on your own server.
* How the templates work: We will examine the templates in wordpress, how to change them, look at available themes and how to write your own.
* Plugins: What are the key plugins you should get running with your install.
* Maintaining: How to upgrade, backup, restore and generally run wordpress.
At the end of the day you will have worked through the key steps in installing, configuring and starting a wordpress install. You will be comfortable knowing how the templates work together to publish content. You will be able to install, maintain and configure plugins and also generally maintain a full wordpress install.
Notes and checklists will be provided. If you have your own laptop you will have a fully installed version to experiment with / develop with.
We will be targeting a Mac/Unix based platform, if you work with Windows please let us know before the day.
The course will also explore the various online media tools most useful to journalism and the best methods to implement and adapt them to your requirements.
The course will be taught by Mark Simpkins.
Mark Simpkins has worked online for the last 15 years, he has been a technical project manager at the BBC from 2001 until last year. He is currently Creative Technologist for Spring Digital. He has worked for AKQA, Accenture and Moonfruit and has been involved in MySociety and related projects. He blogs over at http://www.geekyoto.com/
Full Price £150/ Freelance rate £100
Saturday 20th August
10am – 6pm
For any enquiries please email training@www.beta.frontlineclub.com
]]>1. Digital Frontiers – Why is all this important? What’s new – in funding, crowd-sourcing, production, marketing, audience-engagement and distribution.
2. Digital Strategy – How to design a website and social media campaign for your film. How social media and technology can help you, and how you can help yourself, stay on top of new developments and opportunities.
3. Crowdsourcing is a big buzzword at the moment. We’ll look at some examples of crowdsourced projects and talk about the difference between crowdfunding (through sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo) and crowdsourcing production (like Amazon Studios are doing for example). Crowdsourcing production can bring up a range of issues and problems so we will talk about both the good and the bad aspects of this approach. Crowdfunding is proving to be perhaps the most exciting development for filmmakers and we will look at what makes a good crowdfunding campaign, from the fundraising trailer to the length of time, the amount you are seeking to raise and your social media strategy to solicit donations. We’ll show case studies of good campaigns and talk about what made them work so well. Finally, we will outline how to make your crowdfunding campaign fit into the wider web campaign for your film.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed about social media and all things digital then Digital Bootcamp will show you how to create a manageable strategy and use available tools to get your films made and seen. You will learn how to reach and engage audiences in new and exciting ways. And you will learn how to measure the impact of your endeavors.
Course length: 3pm-6pm
Fees: £50 corporate rate
£30 Freelance, Shooting People members, LSFF ticketholders
In association with –
Participants on this course may be eligible to receive funding (of 80% of the costs up to £800) through Skillset’s Multiplatform Bursary Scheme. Please visit www.skillset.org/multiplatformbursaries to check availability and see if you are eligible.
Price: £265
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