Freelance Unbound

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Session 1: 11:20 – 12:45

Multimedia journalism

How to produce successful multimedia content for television, radio and online.
Panel: Adam Westbrook, freelance journalist and multimedia producer; Steven Phillips, broadcast journalist, BBC London; Justin Kings, radio journalist and media consultant.
[vimeo width=”266″ height=”200″]http://www.vimeo.com/7742500[/vimeo]Adam Westbrook kicked off extolling the beauty of audio slideshows. I’m not a big fan of the medium usually, but his slideshow about former-prisoner-turned-legal-campaigner John Hirst was very well done.
Key message: Audio slideshows are quicker, cheaper and involve less messing around than video.
[vimeo width=”200″ height=”150″]http://vimeo.com/8787951[/vimeo]Justin Kings suggests the top ten skills for multimedia journalists.
The top skill is simply be a great storyteller – don’t let technology get in the way.

Steven Phillips, broadcast journalist, BBC London, outlined the station’s use of Twitter and Audioboo for travel updates.
From the audience, Cynthia O’Murchu and Robert Minto from the Financial Times interactive division flagged up interactive data as the missing piece of the multimedia jigsaw. See it in action here illustrating CEO pay in the oil industry.

• Key point: Don’t rely on your own IT department to do multimedia data graphics – create your own within editorial. Look at the resources you already have .

There’s a beginner’s guide to Flash for journalists at Flashjournalism.com.
What the bloggers said:

• Rosie Niven blogs the session here in some detail.
• Suzanne Kavanagh liveblogs the session here.
• News:rewired blogs some points from Adam Westbrook’s presentation here.
• Sarah Booker offers a summary of Adam’s presentation.
• Alex Gamela has a general round-up of the multimedia session.

Social media for journalists

How can we efficiently use Twitter, Facebook and other social networking tools for productive journalism?
Panel: Mariana Bettio of TimesOnline; Robin Hamman of Headshift; Mark Rock of AudioBoo; Jessica Reed of Comment is Free, Guardian.co.uk.
Jessica Reed of Comment is Free, noted that the site gets 11 million page views per month, 30-40 posts a day – 50% of traffic is from the UK.
Here’s Robin Hammam interviewed on Audioboo about how media organisations can benefit from using third-party social media sites:

And here’s a dire Qik video of Mark Rock explaining how Audioboo works. (Better, possibly.)

What the bloggers said:

• Alexander Walters offers a good insight into this session and the fractious Crowdsourcing panel.
• Robin Hammam has some notes and links from his talk on Cybersoc.com.
• The Guardian highlights the contradiction in Mariana Bettio’s embrace of Google with NewsCorp’s official anti-Google position.
• Kristine Lowe has her favourite quotes from this session here.

Troubleshooting panel on online journalism

Expert advice on specific online problems and digital puzzles.
Panel: Adam Tinworth, editorial development, Reed Business Information; Jon Bernstein of the New Statesman, Robin Goad of Hitwise and internet consultant Malcolm Coles.
Here are the five things Adam has learned about journalism in the new digital world.

Below is an Audioboo recording clip of Adam Tinworth from the same session:

• Exploit tiny niches online
• Reconnect with your readers – they are very close and very knowledgeable
• Go mobile – get out and meet your beat
• Learn to be flexible (use different media)
• Learn to market your content via the platforms people use (Twitter, Facebook etc)

Robin Goad – Local media traffic is stagnant, despite searches for local info rising.
Malcolm Coles – Check your stories; check your site; check Google; check what people are saying about you. Suggests Guardian news is waiting for everyone else to disappear behind a paywall so they can scoop up users.
What the bloggers said:

• Dina Rickman liveblogs the session here.
• Rosie Niven focuses on the use of Twitter and other social media tools by local BBC stations.

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