Multiplatform Journalism

So — a couple of you have contacted me regarding recording phone interviews for your audio piece.  If that’s the only way for you to do an interview for next week, go ahead.  But you’ll need to figure out a method — just using the Edirol isn’t going to do it.  This post has some great suggestions: read both the post itself and the comments about Skype.  In general, doing a Skype (your end) to phone (their end) call will be the simplest; you’ll need software like Audio Hijack Pro or some other recording software to record the call from your computer.  Note that some paid programs have free trials, so you can try them out on this call without investing in them.  You will have to buy Skype out minutes, but that’s a negligible cost.  Here’s more cheap or free technology for recording Skype calls; you can search around for more options as well.  Feel free to ask me general questions about this: I won’t be able to troubleshoot your specific setup, though, so experiment several times until you find something that works.

I’m also going to repost this link, which has great advice for audio newbies (and not so newbies).

UPDATE: Dominique also suggested the possibility of recording calls from a sound booth in the radio studio.  This might be a *great* option for those of you who want to do more interviews later in  the semester, but probably not something you’ll get to do by next Tuesday. I’ll check with Elias about availability.

Many of you commented on the differences in video quality between Talking To The Taliban and the Globe and Mail’s package on depression. We’ll talk more about this in class, but for those who are interested, here is a link to a recent post from MediaShift which frames the discussion nicely.

Another item that I wanted to bring to your attention: a new column by Mathew Ingram at the Nieman Journalism Lab.  If you don’t know about the Nieman Foundation, they, like the Poynter, are a good resource to know about — affiliated with Harvard, concerned with the future of journalism.  Ingram’s introductory piece is short, but it looks like he’s going to be talking about changes in the industry and new media from a Canadian perspective — thus providing a needed dimension to the conversation about the recent changes in the industry.

This is not an an assignment post: I just want to share selected articles that have come to my attention this week, all of which are quite relevant to the class.  If you’d like to comment on any of them on your blogs, that would be great, but it’s optional.  I do encourage you to read all of them, however — especially the piece on the times.

• Article from Read Write Web on the integration of social media and news media during the online inauguration coverage

• Article about CNN and the inauguration; really about the success of CNN’s online venture, which notes that online is the largest growth sector at CNN
• As long as we’re talking American politics, here’s a video which quickly shows a time-lapse of the NYT’s online election night coverage – a great visualization of the news cycle in online media
• And as long as we’re talking about the New York Times, a great article in New York magazine about the info-graphics folks at the times, responsible for bringing Times readers things like this.  If you’re really interested in these guys, you can contact them here until the 23rd: they are answering email questions related to the article.
• Had to add this from the Post: using a timeline as your media navigator…

If you’d like to set an Edublogs password you can remember, go to the Users section at the top right corner of your site administration page.  Click on it and find the “Profile” section.  You can change your password here (scroll down.)

Note that I’m expecting you to contact me if you have any questions or issues with using the blogs: do not come to class with your work unpublished and tell me you couldn’t figure something out!