Tag Archive for 'martin gee'

SND Las Vegas report: Embracing the social narrative

Published
by
Robb Montgomery
on September 11, 2008
in Blog, robbmontgomery and workshop
. 0 Comments


Slide from Andrew DeVigal’s SND session in Las Vegas. Andrew is the multimedia editor of The New York Times.

Photo by Ashley Dinges

This photo by San Jose Mercury News designer, Ashley Dinges, is perhaps one of the most compelling statements from among the almost 600 images posted to Flickr and tagged “sndvegas.”

I admit that I haven’t studied every last bowling party photo (Below are more photo galleries from SND staff bloggers) but this one from Ashley is a keeper.

Why? If you want to see where the future is heading - study these intersections closely. Andrew’s graphic is telling on many levels. It is good at focusing on pro journos pushing content out there smartly but I can’t see any evidence of enabling what I call the “Social Narrative” (Community news tips, comments, UGC, ratings, embedding, et all). The narrative elements that I strongly believe also must be integrated in any new thinking regarding integrating newsroom workflows. I talk a little bit more about this after the video segment.

Redesign video report

I filmed a lot of material in Las Vegas with the hopes of editing them into non-deadline pieces. I have interviews, for example with the editor-in-chief of a wildly successful newspaper that is published in Moscow, Russia . . . and an interview with a student who won an internship in the famous SND INTERN competition.

The footage from those upcoming films are cool because they were produced away from the casino. One filmed at Red Rocks Canyon National Park and the other - on the Las Vegas Strip.
So what? Well, I wasn’t planning producing a fast film to Web to report any breaking news.
I wasn’t until some spot news happened. Jonathon Berlin, Design director of the Chicago Tribune splashed a few pages of the redesigned newspaper on screen at the end of a talk he was giving about planning election coverage.

Reporting this breaking news event reminds me of the time when I was sitting next to IFRA guru Dietmar Schantin in the Kremlin in 2006 when a Bolshevik protest erupted 30 feet from me just as Vladmir Putin was about to speak.
In other words, grab your small camera, turn it on and hope for the best. That’s where online video journalism can shine.

Sneak peek at Chicago Tribune redesign

Find more videos like this on Visual Editors

Moscow protest (from June 2006)

Embrace the social narrative

And now more photo galleries from visual editors who photo-documented their experiences from SND Las Vegas. This is a strong visual narrative, but I also trust makes the point that the social narrative (the participation of the audience) must be part of graphic and every future session on the ‘future of journalism.’

Martin Gee

Bridget O’Donnell

Ashley Dinges

Jim Michalowski

Colin Bridge

Scott Goldman

Kenney Marlatt

Matt Erickson

Tyson Evans

Tim Ball

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Newspaper worker: Do you have an “Escape Plan?”

Published
by
Robb Montgomery
on August 28, 2008
in Blog
. 0 Comments

Martin Gee's new Facebook group.

There is a new group on Facebook called Newspaper Escape Plan and with all the layoffs and notices of layoffs it has mushroomed in less than two weeks. My Aussie and UK Facebook pals are also worried now that layoff fever has infected their environs.

Here is how the growth has been charted

  • 8/16/08: Start. 2 members
  • 8/17/08: 1 pm: Wow. Less than 24 hours old. 83 members.
  • 8/18/08: 1 pm: 194 members
  • 8/19/08: 5 pm: Holy cow. 393 members
  • 8/20/08: 7 pm: 555 members
  • 8/22/08: 1:30 am: 761 members
  • 8/23/08: 1:30 pm: 838 members
  • 8/24/08: 3:30 pm: 918 members
  • 8/25/08: 10 pm: 1,005 members
  • 8/26/08: 9:30 pm: 1,108 members
  • 8/28/08: 12:30 pm: 1,125 memners

The brilliant Martin Gee (himself recently departed from the San Jose Mercury News) created the group and asks

Did you leave on your own terms? Or did someone else make that decision for you? Were you “involuntarily separated?” Let’s help each other get through this!

Members include many still-employed journalists who are invited to

Post job listings, tips, resources and personal experiences. Rework that resume and cover letter. Get the skills you need.

I did my part by posting the media jobs app I created for Facebook last year.

MEDIA JOBS
– http://apps.facebook.com/journalism/

Not surprising in this age of turnover that it has attracted hundreds of subscribers already.

If just want the RSS feed that drives the widget, please subscribe to this link:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/mediajobs

Best of luck to Martin and everyone else headed to the fire escape.

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