Sights and Sounds of Christmas!

Nicole and I have chosen to highlight the Sights and Sounds of Christmas festival for our multimedia project. Sights and Sounds encourages volunteerism, supports local business and has many attractions for the growing family demographic in the San Marcos area. We feel it would be an great opportunity for a project because not only does it do the things listed above, but the festival also increases commerce and brings visitors from all over the state of Texas to the area. We think it will be a fun and interesting project that we could take in several directions. Look forward to hearing your thoughts in class!

Multimedia Journalism

After taking this course, I sincerely believe anyone who wants to enter the journalism field have multimedia knowledge. It’s the direction of the industry, and I’m glad I know more about these aspects of journalism.
I enjoyed the Bobcat Living projects.
My favorite was the SoundSlides project. I’ve worked in SoundSlides before, and I think it is a great tool for telling stories in a visually compelling way. It also gives you the opportunity to add audio and text.
I’ve thought a lot about how multimedia plays into journalism this semester. In the past, I hadn’t given it much of a glance. I just wanted to write.
But I am currently wrapping up an internship at 210 SA, a weekly publication in San Antonio. Originally, my job entailed writing stories. As the internship progressed, I took on multimedia assignments. My first was shooting video of an AIDS walk. Afterward, I was shooting and editing my own video on things like costume shops around Halloween and San Antonio chefs cooking with pumpkins.
Now, I have my own podcast with 210 SA that I record, edit and produce every week. It's called Art Attack, and it was a concept that I conceived and have carried through to the end. I consider myself fortunate to work in an environment that allowed me to do this. And I am glad that I learned the skills to apply my knowledge to a practical application. That has been the most rewarding experience for me this semester.
During one of our recent classes, many students said they were glad that they’ve learned how to shoot videos and make podcasts because of this class. But they said they still didn’t feel confident or prepared enough to ask for a job with these skills. I feel that my fellow students just need to bite the bullet and do it. We're just as capable of doing this stuff as the other journalism students and job-seekers out there.
I didn’t know how to edit a podcast earlier this semester, but I wanted to learn how to do it, and I learned. If my classmateas are capable of creating podcasts for class, then they have a great opportunity to apply those skills in a professional environment. The more we try and work at something, the more we will learn.
I guess my hope is that I see more of my fellow classmates taking advantage of the new prospects they have created for themselves by taking a class like this. We are at a new age of sharing and distributing information, and we have a wonderful opportunity as journalists to tell the stories we have been telling. The stories are the same. We still are guided by the same code of ethics. We are still journalists. It's our way of telling those stories that have changed.

Viewing the online journalism award winner

“OnBeing” is a seemingly simple topic approached in a grand sort of way. Its simplicity, though, is what makes the Washington Post multimedia poignant storytelling through multimedia. The videos are well-done and a great way of exploring what makes people. It reminds me of NPR’s StoryCorps, which the public radio organization describes as a way of telling America’s oral history. Both are brilliant and powerful because of their simplicity.

As for the winning piece, I’ve tried to load “Not Just a Number” several times now, and it has not worked. I'm curious to see it, but my computer is too slow.

The hip-hop piece was just plain cool. Even the way the multimedia loaded on the screen incorporated hip-hop elements. I love the idea of all of this. I love that this incorporates everything from graffiti to breakdancing. The turntable is a clever way to display different topics. The Web page has a definite hip-hop style. There’s also a The overall piece sheds light on the evolution of hip-hop and views the subject with more depth than it’s usually given at face value.

The student pieces are well-done and a reminder that multimedia is something not limited to the experts with expensive equipment and seemingly unlimited time. It’s obvious that the work isn’t the same quality as something produced by ABC News or the Washington Post, but it is commendable multimedia journalism. I think people need to keep in mind the resources, time and experience that student journalists have when evaluating their work.

What I like about the Online Journalism Awards is that has separate contests for large and small publications. Sure, the Washington Post, New York Times and other high-circulation newspapers are in the forefront of multimedia journalism, but small newspapers are tackling this as well. Small newspapers often less funds, time and people to work with, and their efforts should not go unrecognized. These are my highlights from the awards.

Statesman.com

There was an article on statesman.com about Britney Spears' performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. Although people have already talked about it, using multimedia might have made the article even more interesting. The piece discussed the insults and defenses about Spears made on blogs throughout the Internet. It also brought up how hypocritical the public is to both cry shame at the skeletal state of most models and actresses and in the next breath call BitBit fat and disgusting.

The first piece of multimedia would have been easy: show the video of Britney's performance. It's pretty painful to watch, as you can see here, but it would have perfectly demonstrated why people were hurling insults at her. While to me Spears doesn't look fat, she certainly looks out of shape and practice, wobbling around on stage.



The second piece of multimedia would have been audio clips of people (normal people, not celebrities) who saw Spears' performance. Perhaps the AP writer could have made contact with some of the most critical and most defensive bloggers and made their comments available in audio format.

Third, I would have put an online poll next to the story. People could vote and see results right away of what the general public thought of Spears' little romp on stage. A) They hated it and she looked awful, B) It was bad, but give the girl a break, or C) I've been living under and rock and don't know or care what she does.

Lastly, Spears has had a history of bad public events. The baby on her lap, the crotch photos, the shaved head, her husband... An interactive flash choose-your-own-adventure package would be fun to see. Perhaps it could start way back at the beginning of Spears' career until the present, and along the way you would be able to choose options, as if you were Spears, to see where you end up. It'd be childish and a waste of time, but what else do you have to do at work?

New Approaches to Treating Tourette Syndrome; New Approaches to Relaying the News

I read an article from the San Antonio Express-News website about new treatments that are being researched for Tourette Syndrome. A 6 million dollar study is being done at six different universities, one being the UT Health Science Center, to research the effectiveness of behavioral therapy treatment. The study is attempting to find a non-drug solution to the tics and behavioral outbursts those with Tourette Syndrome experience. The behavior therapy teaches patients to recognize oncoming outbursts and try to mentally suppress them.

While I found the article very interesting, providing mulitimedia treatments could provide more information and color to the article.

In the article, David Retano, who suffers from Tourette Syndrome, provides a brief personal experience growing up with Tourette and it's symptoms. The article could include in it, a message board like feature, where others suffering from Tourette, or simply just people wanting to comment on the story or sydrome could do so. This feature would be not onlike the blog we use for class, and would add a more personal feel to the story by allowing the readers to share their own stories.

In the article, another article in "Newsweek" pertaining to the study treatment is named, but not linked. This article could benefit by adding links to it and thus providing the reader with more related information. This specific "Newsweek" article could be linked, as well as links to the UT Health Science Center, and other sites devoted to educating and supporting people with Tourette Syndrome.

Another multimedia piece that could be added is an interactive feature where the different types of already available treatments are listed and pictured, and upon clicking them a brief description of the treatment is given. This would include how common the treatment is, the price range of the different treatments, their effectiveness and side effects.

One last multimedia piece that could be used to make the article more personal and relatable to the reader is interviews with people suffering from Tourette Syndrome. I imagine the set up of this feature to be very similar to the Washington Post's "Being a Black Man" interactive feature. About ten different people suffering from Tourette Syndrome, of different ages, ethnicities, and age would be pictured. Upon clicking on any one, a different window would open with a few different topic choices for you to select. Ex. How has Tourette Syndrome effected your life and personal relations? What treatment if any are you currently undergoing and are there any negative side effects? You could then select a specific topic and see a video of that specific person's answer to the selected question. This would answer many of the questions the reader is perhaps wondering, and if could come from a patient first hand.

All these multimedia features that could be added to the article would allow readers to spend more time with the piece and the subject overall, past just reading the story. The more options and information you present to your reader, the more interested in your piece they will be.