Sound advice

Kristine King took her recorder out in the field and gives an excellent account of the experience on her blog. She is already putting into practice some of the sound advice we received last night from Jon Greenberg.

Tips that stand out in my mind:

1. Remember not to interrupt your interview subject with um hmms;
2. Jot down highlights from memory before reviewing your recording;
3. Maintain momentum by staying focused;
4. Beware of environmental background noise;
5. Record a separate track of environmental sound to edit into your piece.

Also please review his excellent interviewing tips.

Please let me know immediately if you experience technical or equipment problems.

Howard

The sound and the story

This week, Jon Greenberg , NHPR's executive editor, will talk to us about telling stories with sound.


I met Jon this year on the presidential primary campaign trail as he was working on his special report and website "Primary Place," which viewed the contest through the eyes of the town of Exeter, N.H.


Whether your goal is an audio story, Soundslide or Photo Story, quality audio can either make or break your project.


As we begin to discuss audio, here are some excellent resources. "Sound in the Story," is a comprehensive how-to guide on capturing and editing sound for multimedia projects. Mindy McAdams' "First lesson in audio for journalists" is a gem containing everything you'll need to know to get started.



I've also added McAdams' blog: "Teaching online journalism," and Dan Kennedy's "Media Nation" to our list of blog links.



How are you coming along with your class blogs? Be ready to discuss them when we meet in conference this week and in class on Wednesday.

Welcome to the blog for ENG 721

Welcome to the blog for ENG 721, an advanced reporting course in new and multimedia.

This will be a full immersion course. You’ve all had language classes where you were encouraged not to speak English. In this class we will try to live and learn online to the fullest extent possible.

On this blog you will find the class syllabus, assigned readings, suggested readings and resources. You will also create your own blogs for this class using Google’s Blogger software.

Click here to get started.

What is a blog?

Here is a good definition from Mark Briggs in his book Journalism 2.0:

"Blogs usually have several common characteristics:

"A frequently updated online journal, written in conversational style, with entries displayed on reverse chronological order (most recent stuff on top).

"Links to other news and information found on the Web comlemented with analysis from the blogger (or bloggers)

"A ‘comments’ link that allows readers to post their own thoughts on what the blogger is writing about. Not all blogs allow comments , but most do."

Please read Chapter 5 in Journalism 2.0 to learn more about blogs.

We will post each student's blog here as well as soon as they are created.