The Prologue is Past: Students Rejoice as Bootcamp Ends

Today is the final day of bootcamp. We have survived our three week trial of fire. We won’t have to deal with a nine to five, five days a week schedule for at least another year. Finally, we can sleep late most days like normal grad students. Errands can be run, and houses can be cleaned. I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited to get to the bank.

On this, our final day, we heard from three speakers. First, we heard from Pulitzer Prize-winner Jan Schaffer, the executive director of J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism. J-Lab’s slogan, “Transforming journalism for today. Reinventing it for tomorrow,” could just as easily be the motto for our School of Communication bootcamp. Like many of our earlier speakers, Schaffer stressed the changing media market and the absolute necessity of multimedia skills. Like Brady, Schaffer expressed frustration with the old media and their failure to adapt to new media. “You should have been doing this stuff five years ago,” Schaffer wants to tell publications now scrambling to adapt.

Schaffer feels so strongly about her new career as a guru of new media that even winning the Pulitzer is less important to her than her experience as a business editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer where she first experienced the possibilities of multimedia.

Next, we heard from Jeremy Stone, the son of the legendary journalist I.F. Stone. I.F. Stone, often considered the first blogger, is widely known as a fiercely independent journalist. For most of his career he published his own weekly newspaper, “I.F. Stone’s Weekly.”

Jeremy Stone announced the essay contest for the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence. The American University student who writes the best essay on the meaning of journalistic independence will receive $1,500.

Jeremy Stone shares his father's legacy with the class.

Jeremy Stone listed the qualities that made I.F. Stone such a successful and prolific writer.

• He knew history and used that knowledge in his writing.
• He loved the news business.
• He had a profound sense of integrity.
• He was a perfectionist.
• He had a great sense of humor.
• His poor hearing led him to read the actual transcripts of events, rather than relying on press conferences.

Many elites ostracized I.F. Stone for his idealism and leftist political views. Jeremy Stone became visibly emotional on this subject. “You have to be prepared for hostility and isolation if you want to do anything worthwhile,” he said.

Our last speaker, former CBS correspondent Thalia Assurias, believes that network news will survive the ongoing industry changes, although she acknowledged, “Network television news can no longer be just television.” Among the developments in new media, she finds the increasing number of journalists operating without a crew to be unsustainable. A reporter who shoots his or her own interviews, and edits their own pieces will not produce a quality product, Assurias says.

Assurias stressed two points that our almost all of our speakers mentioned over the past three weeks. First, it is critical to find a niche and an area of specialization. Second, we can not let fear of failure stand in our way. Out of all the information, lessons, lectures, and skills that our professors and speakers have thrown at us, it is these two pieces of advice I will remember most clearly.

Jim Brady: You’ve Got to Take Risks

Jim Brady recently left washingtonpost.com, after working five years as its editor, to blaze his own trail in the new media market. Brady feels that the traditional newspaper is obsolete. As the makers of horse buggies no doubt felt that the automobile was a passing fad, today’s newspaper publishers too often believe that their publications can survive the proliferation of the internet with minimal innovation. Even the online editions of these publications are too encumbered by the traditional model, and its employees are too often limited by their preconceptions. Also, the ability of the web to satisfy the specific demands of readers provides a major advantage over the daily newspaper.

Brady believes the new media journalists must become entrepreneurs. These journalists must be willing to take risks. Writers at old media publications often can’t take risks because their employers are protective of their established brand name. Independent, entrepreneurial journalists can experiment with new forms in the new media.

Entrepreneurial journalists must have a curiosity about all aspects of the journalism world, particularly the business side of the industry. They must be willing to build an audience using a variety of tools, including social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Success will also depend on innovation. For example, journalists who learn to capitalize on the uses of mobile devices will be far ahead of the curve.

Entrepreneurs must build their audience before they can develop any successful revenue model. Through interaction with the audience, journalists build communities of loyal readers. On a blog, the writer must be willing to engage the reader and respond to their comments. “They have to have some sense that they can get on stage too,” Brady said.

Susan Zirinsky: Embrace the Fear

“Embrace the fear,” Susan Zirinsky advised bootcampers on Thursday. Zirinsky, an American University alum, has worked at CBS as the executive producer of 48 Hours since 1996, and as the executive producer for CBS in both its news and entertainment divisions on several special features.

Despite her impressive resume and extensive experience, Zirinsky still wakes up in the middle of the night afraid of failing. That fear has little abated from her earliest days in the industry. Zirinsky has never let her fear of failure stand in the way of her success. In fact, she embraces that fear because it motivates her to excel.

Zirinsky made it clear to the students trying to get in at the ground floor that no matter how high they rise they will always have a sense that they are not capable of handling their responsibilities. “You’re never gonna be ready for anything,” she bluntly informed the class.

Zirinsky on what makes an effective television story:

Zirinsky on the challenges CBS faces in the current media market.

DC Screams for Ice Cream

Below is the result of of Monday’s shoot and Tuesday’s editing:

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Journalists Become Final Cut Pros

“Welcome to your tedious career,” Rob Roberts told bootcampers Tuesday morning.

Rob Roberts teaches the basics of video editing.

Roberts shared this uplifting message before initiating the students in the basics of editing with Final Cut Pro. Prof. Carolyn Brown then helped the students to actually use the software on the video projects they shot the day before. As many publications and media outlets today expect their reporters to edit their own material, familiarity with this software will prove indispensable.

Bootcampers found Prof. Brown invaluable as backup hard drives stubbornly refused to allow files to be saved and needed windows in the program vanished into cyberspace.

Prof. Brown instructs the class on transfering video from their cameras to their computers.

Prof. Josh Hatch reviewed the soundslides the class completed the previous week. For the most part, Prof. Hatch praised his students’ first foray into the medium, although he made it clear they still had much to learn.

Most, but not all, students failed to accurately match the images shown with the voices speaking in the soundslides. While not a catastrophe in a class project about the National Zoo, this oversight could constitute a major ethical breach in a different context.

For the last two hours of the day students continued to edit their videos, and to become accustomed to their tedious, new careers.

Will’s First Soundslide: Pandas at the National Zoo

Here is my soundslide project from our day at the National Zoo:

National Zoo Panda Exhibit

The Bootcamp Moves up to Video

Rob Roberts shares his video experience.

After mastering the art of the blog, still photography, audio recordings and the soundslide, students in American University’s Journalism Bootcamp class picked up video cameras to become experts in another medium. Senior Video Editor Rob Roberts of USA TODAY joined the class and shared his advice on how to shoot effective journalistic video. Among Roberts tips:

• Video isn’t that hard. While time consuming, at its heart it’s just storytelling.
• People are forgiving of bad video. They are less forgiving of bad audio, however.
• The same skills that go into good journalism go into good video.
• Know your audience and your medium.
• Know the strengths and limitations of video.
• It’s all about the story.

Several keys to good video relate to the principles of audio and still photography. Like audio recording, good video requires the use of natural sound to create continuity through the editing process. Like photography, one must carefully consider light and composition when shooting video.

Prof. Hatch adds to Rob Roberts advice on shooting effective video.

After reviewing the basic functions of their video equipment, Prof. Olmsted and Prof. Hatch gave the class its first video assignment. On a day with temperatures in the 90′s, the class fanned out in pairs across Washington to shoot video of people dealing with the summer heat. Tomorrow the journalism students will edit their footage.

Bootcampers Juan Pawiroredjo and Naseem Miller inspect their new video equipment.

Multimedia Skills are Key to Securing Journalism Jobs

WAMU News Director Jim Asendio knows that to compete today he has to hire people able and willing to produce news in multimedia. Asendio runs the news department of one of the few profitable public radio stations in the country, and this success made it possible for him to hire four new full-time reporters. Yet, WAMU is the exception, not the rule. Competition for journalism jobs is fierce, and job-seekers must have the necessary skill sets to make themselves salable.

See Asendio discuss these new realities:

American University School of Communications graduate Keosha Johnson has found career success after getting her M.A. She has written for the AARP Bulletin, Msnbc.com, and the Today Show website. She has also worked as a news associate at MSNBC, The Today Show, and Dateline, as well as a multimedia producer for Grio.com.

Johnson, like Asendio, stresses the necessity of skills in multimedia:

Striving for Objectivity through Subjective Media

Prof. Jill Olmsted discussed aspects of broadcast production Friday. She explained the various parts of a radio piece, such as the anchor introduction, the wrap, actualities and outcue. Prof. Olmsted also decoded the meaning of some business vernacular. Fuzz is a phone interview, a track is a voiceover, TRT means total running time, and ROSR is radio-on-scene-report.

When Prof. Olmsted lectured on the ethics involved in recording natural sound to lay under a track, I pondered the attainability of our journalistic goal of objectivity. It is acceptable to record an interview away from a loud protest, for example, and then return to record the noise of the crowd in order to lay it under the track of the interview. This way the interview is audible. Yet, it would be unethical to use the sound of another protest under the interview as natural sound. This distinction seemed problematic to me. How long can there be between the interview and the recording of natural sound? What if it was an all-day protest, or broken into several days? Would a recoding from the same protest on the following day be acceptable? Once a temporal gap has been created between and the speaker and the “background,” what is the real philosophical difference between sound recorded later the same day or an earlier protest? What if the reporter used sound from a protest by the same group, in the same place, for the same cause, from the year before?

These questions stem from the difficulty in seeking objectivity through inherently subjective media. The journalist endeavors not to engage in direct artifice, but the entire production of journalism centers on selection, exclusion, emphasis, and editing. Photographs, recordings, video, and written records are all creations of individual producers. As the journalist sorts out what makes a newsworthy story, and how to tell it in an interesting way in order to engage an audience, he or she is passing the raw material witnessed through myriad filters. These filters are products of society, class, race, education, nationality and individual identity.

The goal should be to be as objective as possible, but reporters and their consumers must always be aware that only a certain degree of objectivity is possible. For this reason I believe it is deceptive for journalists to ever make claims of absolute objectivity, or that their work represents the absolute truth. Priests may strive for moral perfection, but they will tell you that they were already born sinnners. So the journalist, a wholly subjective being using subjective means, strives toward the heavenly goal of objectivity.

The Public Relations Zoo

The American University School of Communication’s Jornalism Bootcamp took its second field trip, to the National Zoo. The group of aspiring journalists journeyed to the zoo to gather photographs and audio material for the production of a soundslide.

The unexpected arrival of three dozen journalism students distressed Senior Public Affairs Specialist Karin Korpowski-Gallo. Several students requested brief interviews with zoo employees or volunteers from The Friends of the National Zoo (FONZ). Korpowski-Gallo denied these requests, explaining that the zookeepers were too busy for last-minute requests, and that FONZ members must agree not to speak to the media in order to serve as volunteers.

Korpowski-Gallo made it clear that even beginning journalists ought to know that they have to contact the public relations department of any organization before attempting to interview any of its employees. She said she would contact Professor Jill Olmsted to discuss the matter further. She suggested she could teach a class on the subject to ensure that future students would not inconvenience her or other public relations departments in this manner in the future.

This journalist was personally grateful for the time taken by Korpowski-Gallo to turn this unfortunate episode into a value, teachable moment.