WHAT: The Society of Professional Journalists’ Digital Media Committee is proud to present an evening of exploration into the much talked about topic of “hyperlocal journalism.”

To give you an idea of the topics that will be discussed, here are a few questions that the panelists will be asked:

• How do you make money selling local news?
• What is a day in the life of a Patch reporter like? What about the editor(s)?
• What content on Patch sites is being consumed the most?
• What, if any, multimedia skill sets is Patch looking for when they hire reporters?

The end of the evening will be Q&A with questions from the audience. Questions via Twitter and e-mail are encouraged for those individuals who cannot attend in person. Send your questions to spj_dmc@yahoo.com or use the hashtag #spjpatch

#spjpatch

WHO: 4 staff from Patch (we will update this information with specific names as it becomes available)

WHERE: Illinois Technology Association
200 South Wacker Drive
15th floor
Chicago, IL 60606

WHEN: 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

LIMITED SPACE: The Illinois Technology Association has generously donated the space for our event. However, seating is limited to the first 125 attendees to sign up. Tickets are FREE! Please bring your ticket with a valid form of ID in order to be admitted into the building.

Get your tickets now -

http://hyperlocalnews.eventbrite.com

WHO SHOULD ATTEND: Journalist, citizen journalists, hackers, programmers, professors

What is PATCH? (in their own words):

“We’re a community-specific news and information platform dedicated to providing comprehensive and trusted local coverage for individual towns and communities.” Read more…

Plagiarism is an ugly word.  Have you ever wondered if you are a victim of web content theft? 

A few months ago, I happen to get on a new internet news site where contributors get paid by the click on their story.  I also happen to discover that a story posted by a babysitter-turn-news contributor actually was written by a reporter friend of mine who works for a major newspaper.

The woman who copied and pasted parts of my friend’s story did not credit him.  Sure she only took parts of his story, but it was taken word for word.    Why the news site managers didn’t look into this; that’s another story.   Of course, I told my reporter friend, and he took care of the rest.

At a social networking conference, I learned about a site called Copyscape.  It’s a free plagiarism checker.  Simple to use and right now appears to be the only web tool out there targeting plagiarism.

How does it work? Just put the URL in the search box that you want to check for plagiarism and submit.

Copyscape does the search for free.  It even offers a banner that you can put on your own website that warns people that you use Copyscape for checking.

If you want more bells and whistles you have to pay for it, but that includes a service that is constantly looking for your work for plagiarism and alerts you.

Copyscape has had several favorable reviews by major publications and internet news sites.  http://www.copyscape.com/press.php

Rebecca Aguilar is a freelance multimedia reporter based in Dallas.  She has 29 years of experience and has numerous awards for her work, including several Emmy awards.  She’s also on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.  Rebecca conducts reporting workshops around the country (Finding Sources and Stories, Networking, Live Shots, Getting the Best Interview, Writing to Video, and The Basics Of Multimedia.) She can be contacted at aguilar.thereporter@yahoo.com.

Last month, I was at the mall when I saw some security guards tackling a woman with a baby in one arm and a purse stuffed with clothing on her other arm.   At that moment, I wished I had my Sony Cybershot camera with me.  I never thought I’d see  a struggle in front of my eyes.

What I do know is two things; that video of the security guards and woman could have come in handy on a story on shoplifting, and I should have had a Flip camera in my purse.

Most of us will try to use the best video camera we can on a story, but in a pinch—a Flip camera is not a bad tool to have in your bag.  There are several versions of this small camera, including the Flip Ultra HD that costs about $200.

It’s easy to use, because you press a button and you’re recording.   It’s very convenient when you need to upload your video right away, because it has a flip out USB connector.  You can plug your Flip camera right into your laptop. Yes, it’s that easy. 

You can also buy an underwater case for your Flip camera.  This is great if you want to take shots in a pool.  I bet it would come in handy right now for those reporters covering the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.   

I found this video blog by a citizen journalist who uses a Flip camera for her reports.  It’s an excellent tutorial:

http://dev.freevlog.org/

Here are some basics on the Flip:

FLIP ULTRA

-Fits in your pocket

-Records about 2 hours of video on 4GB

-Uses double A batteries

-Any standard tripod can be used with Flip

-Also has microphone

FLIP ULTRA HD

-Fits in your pocket

-Captures about 2 hours of HD video on 8GB built-in memory

-It comes with rechargeable AA battery pack

-Also has a microphone

-Any standard tripod can fit the tripod mount

Search YouTube for more tutorials on the Flip camera.  Good Luck!

Rebecca Aguilar is a freelance multimedia reporter in Dallas.  She has 29 years of news experience and has been awarded numerous awards, including several Emmy awards.  She’s also on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.  Rebecca conducts reporting workshops around the country (Finding Sources and Stories, Networking, Live Shots, Getting the Best Interview, Writing to Video, and The Basics Of Multimedia.) She can be contacted at aguilar.thereporter@yahoo.com.

This is the third and final post in a series of mini-tutorials on the basics of shooting video. If you know how to turn on a video camera and press record, this series is intended to help you take it to the next level for better news video results.

When it comes to video, there are three basic areas worth focusing on that will bring the quality of your final product up a notch to look and sound much more professional than Uncle Bob’s 2008 Christmas footage. Technique, planning, & publishing. This post deals with the topic of publishing. Publishing video is all about delivering your video to a “potential” audience of millions. Sure, you can slap the video up on your news organization’s website and cross your fingers for pageviews to go through the roof. The better alternative is to consider a variety of “platforms” for publishing your video in order to reach viewers where they are. These days, video publishing is about more than just posting your video. It’s about making it embeddable, subscribable and mobile. Here are some tips for maximizing news video publishing:

• Understand that the current trends in digital video distribution now include 1) the web; 2) internet-enabled TVs and; 3) mobile devices (Smart phones, iPods/mp3 players, iPads, etc.)
• Know which distribution tools will help you reach audiences through web, TV and mobile channels. I recommend the free platforms YouTube.com or Blip.tv. (Paid platforms such as Brightcove.com or Episodic.com offer a bounty of features and publishing capabilities worth checking out if you have a budget).
• YouTube by far has the most traffic and is the most popular video hosting and sharing site on the planet. It is worth having a presence on YouTube even if you use another video hosting service. Benefits of YouTube, beyond the visibility, include detailed analytics, customizable players, and near universal portability and integration on other websites and mobile devices such as the iPhone. Drawbacks include video uploads limited to 10 min. which rules out longer form newscasts, shows and interviews. Blip.tv is free and designed specifically for regular programming including newscasts, shows, and feature videos. There is no time limit on videos and the Blip.tv player is even more customizable than YouTube’s. Blip.tv is also designed with the modern video distribution landscape in mind. Through your Blip.tv account, you can have one click access to publish your video to iTunes, most WordPress, TypePad, Movable Type, Blogger and Tumblr blogs, TiVo, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Blip.tv is also working to bring its videos to internet enabled televisions.
• Make sure your news videos are portable. This means making the hyperlink to your video a part of the news story. Don’t just post the video on some obscure page on your site. Make sure you use hyperlinks to “point” visitors to your video from the story page and home page of your site. It’s also beneficial to make your news videos embeddable. This means allowing visitors access to the embed code so they can put the video on their own blogs and websites. Some newsroom leaders worry this is giving their content away, but I believe that strong branding in the video itself works for your organization when you allow others to embed the video on their sites. If there is a logo, watermark or “bug” on the lower righthand corner of your  video, then your brand is being represented where ever viewers come across your video. Lastly, make your videos downloadable (syndicate them). This means enabling sites like YouTube and Blip.tv so that visitors can download or subscribe to videos. Blip.tv syndicates to iTunes, an online music and video store where people can subscribe and download audio and video for use on their iPods and other portable devices. We are entering the era when people are demanding this kind of portability. If your content is professional and relevant, folks will want to put it on their iPods.
• You can also “livestream” your video content. This means using services like Ustream.tv or Livestream.com to cover events or broadcast live to the web. With the right advertising and promotion, it’s possible to get a high number of viewers for live events on the web. Especially panel discussions, prominent speeches and political debates and events.

Jeff Achen is an interactive media strategist for the Minnesota Community Foundation, The Saint Paul Foundation and GiveMN.org, nonprofit organizatons in Minnesota. He is also a consultant, freelance photographer/videographer, and blogger at www.mnvideopro.wordpress.com. You can follow him on Twitter.com/jeffachen or email jeffachen@mac.com.

Are you a journalist looking to pick up some practical multimedia skills? Are you tired of reading about all the cool new stuff in this new-media world and thinking, “I wish I knew how to do that”?

Look no more. SPJ has just what you need.

The SPJ Digital Media Committee — the group of people who contribute to this blog — has published its Digital Media Handbook, Part I. And it’s available here, now, online — and at the low, low price of FREE. (Download it for free as a PDF directly from this site, or you can see it here on Scribd.com.)

Want to know how to Twitter? Start a Facebook page? Make an online slideshow? Use Google Wave? Screencast? You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers — on those subjects and more.

We hope to bring you more in a second part later in the year.

UPDATE: (2/22/10) The company Page.ly offers a one-stop shop for self-hosting blog set-up. Leave the technical guesswork to them. Service is about $15 a month. They’ll get you blogging and will install all the SEO, plug-in, meta-tagging, social bookmarking gadgets for you.

UPDATE: (2/22/10) I came across this article, which has the steps for moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org.

You don’t have to be a coding guru or Silicon Valley veteran to start blogging with some bells and whistles.

I started from scratch last year and my goals were simply to have a blog or site where I could post text, embed links, upload multimedia, and while I was at it, add some of those social media and bookmarking buttons to easily share my pages.

I don’t know much about metatagging or SEO, have no idea what FTP sites have to do with anything, and CSS is beyond me.

This blog post is about my recent experience with WordPress.com and GoDaddy — no special treatment for those companies, they are not paying me or anything, it’s just what I use and know. Do a Google search for “domain registration” and “web hosting” for other companies to work with. Typepad and Moveable Type are other blogging companies similar to WordPress. The key is finding a one-stop shop place to connect your domain and site to a host.

First, I secured several domain names with GoDaddy and then I opened a WordPress.com account, where I keep my online news directory InOtherNews.us. Through WordPress.com, I easily connected that domain to the blog. The instructions are clear and it can be done in a few clicks. WordPress.com hosts the blog.

After several months of getting familiar with WordPress.com functioning, I started noticing limitations, namely, customization. I wanted to “trick-out” my blog with widgets and plug-ins and play around with themes. I also wanted to add social media buttons to posts and sidebars. WordPress.com blogs allow for those, but the selection is relatively small.

So I went over to WordPress.org — note: it’s DOT ORG — which is the natural next step to custom blogging. With WP dot org, you have to find a host elsewhere, and once you do, there are thousands of site design themes to choose from and a plug-in for just about any function you would want to add to your blog.

And this brings me back to GoDaddy, where my domains are registered. GoDaddy offers site hosting packages, I chose the $6.99 a month Deluxe plan. The hosting can be used for myriad blogging and Website frameworks such as Joomla and Drupal.

Once the hosting service transaction is complete, follow the quick GoDaddy process for downloading a WordPress blog and connecting a domain to it. I did this and was soon playing around with sophisticated themes and browsing hundreds of plug-ins for my new site (and I mean new — it’s a work in progress) NewsRedux.us.

The one-stop shopping at GoDaddy removed a lot of anxiety and frustration with getting my new self-hosted blog on the internet.

And if you get stuck, there’s always the 24/7 tech support phone number.

NetWorked committee member Jessica Durkin is a former old-school print reporter going new-school. Jessica is the founder and editor of InOtherNews.us, a directory of online, independent news sites around the country. She is based in Scranton, PA, and is a regional director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

In television news you quickly learn what makes a good video story and what should be information put in a script for the news anchors to read.

Video stories have become a vital part of online and newspaper multimedia reports, but not every story should be turned into a video report.  I thought I’d ask three television news videographers to help us in our quest to figure out what makes a good video story and when should it only remain a story in print.

Chuck Denton is a multiple Emmy Award-winning news videographer based near Los Angeles.   He has 23 years of experience and has been a long time freelancer for CBS, FOX, NBC, and ESPN. He’s also won awards for his video editing.

Bonnie Gonzalez works as a one-man-band for an Austin television station.  She’s been a reporter/videographer for more than five years, and admits doing it all has taught her to be creative and resourceful.

Jim Kent is another news videographer with a long resume.  Jim has 10 Emmys and has been awarded Region 10 Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association.  Jim has more than 20 years experience and has freelanced for Fox and ABC.  He owns his own company in Phoenix called ArtGecko Productions.   

What do you look for in a good video story?

Chuck:  Are there “visual” elements to help tell the story? Covering a city council or school board meeting can be a snoozer to watch unless you can use video to help illustrate the issue. Sometimes local news covers a crime and has no crime scene video from the night before. It can be a challenge. Are the interviews dynamic?  Are they compelling enough to keep folks interested in tuning in?

Bonnie:  Is there action and lots of nat sound or natural sound?  That’s the sound you hear within a story that really pulls you in and makes you feel like you’re there. For example, say I was doing a story on fishing. I’d want to pick up the sounds of splashes, the reel, a fisherman’s laughs or groans, and place a lot of emphasis on those sounds in the story. Watch a story with a lot of nat sound versus one without, and you can really tell a difference.

When do you know it’s just a good print story and not really a good video story?

Chuck:  It’s a good print story when there’s no real video to use or shoot to tell the story. Meetings come to mind!

Jim: TV is a visual medium, that’s a given.  I believe  a great still shot and a well written print story can’t be beat when the story is complicated and complex, and can’t be told in a minute and half in video.

How important is it to have good characters?

Chuck: Having good characters is always a plus, but boring interviews can be offset by compelling video and by keeping the sound bites short.

Bonnie: If you have an interesting character, viewers are going to pay attention. Journalists tend to look towards people who are energetic, emotional, etc.

Jim:  What do we all remember about our favorite stories? Is it the well written copy or is it that great opening or closing shot? Most likely it was that fantastic character that led us through the story. People relate to people, not reporters, besides we all know reporters aren’t people, right? Just kidding.

How important is it to have good sound bites and action?

Chuck: Great sound bites can portray emotion and incredible context of the situation/story you are trying to tell; a grieving family member, a witness to a crime, a victim of a scam, someone well-known who may say something outrageous or out of character. How many times have stories been made for television, because we have terrific home or surveillance video?

Bonnie: If there’s no action how interesting of a story is it going to be? I once did a story on the housing market. My video was only different shots of houses and my interviews.  Not too exciting is it? Maybe I could’ve connected with a realtor and got video of a person showing a house otherwise it was a better print story.

Jim: I never stop shooting until I know I have great sound to tell the story. It’s that important.

Here are some examples of their work:

Chuck’s stories on CBS Evening News “Going with the Grain” and “Fallen Hero’s Story Inspires.”  You can contact Chuck at chuckdenton@yahoo.com

Bonnie’s story on News8 Austin “Prehistoric Mammoths Debut in Waco” and “Junior Chefs Shine in Temple Culinary Class.”  Bonnie can be contacted at bgonzalez@news8texas.com

Jim was one of the videographers on ABC’s 20/20 report “Revenge Against A Religious Sect.”  Jim can be contacted at  artgeckojim@cox.net

Rebecca Aguilar is an Emmy Award winning freelance multimedia reporter in Dallas. She produces videos, digital slide-shows along with her reports. She can be reached at aguilar.thereporter@yahoo.com

O.K. -  so you just shot some footage with your digital video camera.

Now what?

Well, if you’re one of those kids who can’t afford a slick Mac, and you’re stuck with an ol’ PC (like me), you can still edit and produce decent videos with Windows Movie Maker. It’s a standard video editing program that comes with most Microsoft media software packages. Nothing fancy, just basic tools and enough features to allow you to create some nice-looking clips.  It’s a good program to practice on – once you know how to use one video editing program, you pretty much know ‘em all – IMHO, they all pretty much work the same way.

Now then, the only way to learn to edit video….(and sorry for sounding like a sneaker ad here)…. is to just do it.  Here’s how you can get started, in seven easy steps.

1.) First things first: Connect your camera to your PC and transfer your video footage to the computer.  Import the video files into Windows Movie Maker.

2. ) Once you have some video footage to work with, click and drag the  clips to the storyboard at the bottom of the screen. (If you have a lot of footage, it’s a good idea to write an outline ahead of time, so you know where the scenes should fall on the timeline. Oh yeah…and once you start editing, don’t forget to save your Windows Movie Maker project!)

3.) Trim and arrange your clips as necessary. To shorten a video clip, use the “split” button on the bottom right hand side of the screen. Delete the bits and pieces you don’t need.

4.) Add some audio. Mosey on over to the Movie Tasks Pane, look under Capture video, and click on Import audio or music. Drag your song of choice to the video clip where you want the soundtrack to kick in. (If you need to raise or lower the volume, right-click the music on your timeline, and then click on….can you guess?….Volume. Then adjust accordingly.)

5.) Or maybe you want to add a voice-over. To do that, you can record a sound track separately, or connect a microphone to your PC, click on the  Tools menu, and then click Narrate Timeline, and do it right there. You can record your voice to go with individual clips or do the whole movie all at once – it’s your call. But whatever you do – make sure you write a script beforehand. Seriously. Believe me, it’s worth it. If you wing it, and try to narrate your vid on the fly, it’s not going to sound good. (Believe me, I’ve tried. Don’t repeat my mistake. You will not save any time.)

6.) Add titles and credits.  To add written words to your video, just click on the clip where you want to add some text. In the Movie Tasks pane, under Edit Movie, click Make titles or credits. From there, you can choose how many lines the title will have and how it will move. You can also change the size and color of the text.

7.) Preview your movie. If you like what you see, then it’s time to produce your video. Use the Save Movie Wizard to save your project as a .wmv or .avi video file. Once your video file is ready, you can upload it to the web  for all to see. If you don’t have a place to show it off, you can always post it on a free video hosting service such as YouTube or Vimeo.

So that’s my 7-Step tutorial on Windows Movie Maker.

The main sources of information for this article came from the Windows Movie Maker product guide and tutorials on the Microsoft website, and from my own personal experience. FYI, I’ve been editing video for over five years now, and during that time I’ve used many different programs – Final Cut, Cyberlink PowerDirector, Avid, and (of course!) good ol’ Windows Movie Maker. But I must confess, Windows Movie Maker is not my first choice, and I don’t use it that often. So if I missed anything here, please let me know.  I’m especially interested in hearing from any regular users out there – if you have any tips/tricks/hacks to share, please comment below.

————————————————————

Emily Sweeney is a staff reporter at The Boston Globe. You can follow her on Twitter (@emilysweeney) and find her on LinkedIn among other places.

Quill isn’t just SPJ’s print magazine – it’s a multimedia resource for all journalists. To accompany his Digital Media Toolbox column in the January/February issue, videographer Jeff Achen made this brief training video on getting better video from a digital SLR camera. Enjoy.

Follow Jeff on Twitter, @jeffachen, or e-mail him at jeffachen@mac.com. And please feel free to share.

Argentine journalist, Sandra Crucianelli knew something was missing when she attended the IRE conference in Miami in 2008. She couldn’t find a book on digital media tools for journalists in Spanish.

Crucianelli has now written the book in Spanish called “Herramientas Digitales Para Periodistas.”  It’s been published by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, and is available for free in a PDF that can be downloaded. Here’s the link: http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/hdpp.php

I looked over this online book and strongly feel it’s a great resource for reporters who work in Spanish language newspapers or online news sites.  It’s also handy for reporters who are learning Spanish in hopes of someday working in Mexico, Spain, and South or Central America.

The book includes chapters on accessing databases and official documents, using social networks, video conferencing, photo galleries and blogs.

Rebecca Aguilar is an Emmy Award winning freelance multimedia reporter in Dallas. She produces videos, digital slideshows along with her reports. She is currently working on an Associate’s Degree in Multimedia Development.  She can be reached at aguilar.thereporter@yahoo.com