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.

Entertainment Writers: My morning with my new heroes.

This morning I attended a Mass Comm. week event dealing with entertainment reporting. It was very informative and interesting to me, seeing as how this may very well be the field I want to go into. I’ve been writing for the University Star’s Trends section for going on a year and a half, so to get to talk to the writers that spoke was invaluable.

The panel consisted of three speakers, Gilbert Garcia, of the San Antonio Current; Dave Glessner, a freelance writer; and Hector Saldaña, of the San Antonio Express-News. Hearing from three different people, from three different backgrounds, writing for three different types of publications made this panel very diverse in discussion.

Saldaña started the discussion by telling the audience about how he got started doing entertainment writing, which was writing for the live music and comedy beats. If I could do something like that, that would be amazing. Live music and stand-up comedy are two of my favorite things in the world.

Glessner, who is actually a SWT grad (class of ’92), spoke about how he wrote as a side job, freelancing whenever possible. He stated that on very rare occasions can an individual make a good living from freelance writing alone.

Garcia, of the Current told the audience about writing for a weekly publication and writing more controversial articles. He said he once wrote an obituary for President Bush set years in the future speaking highly of Bush as everyone else was about Reagan at the time (this was around the time of President Reagan’s highly publicized death).

They then all shared their experiences about angry mail they had received for criticizing musical acts, or fictional obituaries. They also shared stories of proud moments and memorable interviews with famous people.

This event has reaffirmed that this is something I am genuinely interested in. And as I learned this morning, can be an fun, but will always be interesting.