Multimedia Mania

We're past the time when people sitting around conference tables at major news media companies have to argue about the merits of including multimedia on their web sites. The verdict has long been rendered: Readers like video and audio to go along with their words.

So it is that these print (or Web-only) publications invest in cameras and recorders, and anyone on staff who has any type of broadcast experience becomes the in-house instructor to the legions of the lost.

But the question that should often be asked is what quality of work audiences expect of reporters who are dabbling in new journalistic endeavors. Or, framed another way, how professional should publications expect their podcasts or videocasts to sound or look?

For smaller companies that can't afford to hire broadcast experts or invest in top-quality equipment, standards are of particular importance. On the one hand, audiences are so used to grainy or slightly shaky YouTube-esque video that a little of either on a video posted on a news site probably won't send them heading for the hills. There's something to be said for visual pieces that don't seem overly produced, as well as those that are stylistically unique and fit the feel of the publication.

Then again, if you're requiring articles to be edited, fact-checked and edited more, what kind of message are you sending to readers if your audio interviews sound like they are happening on an airport runway?

Seems to me that the litmus test doesn't need to be whether or not a piece would be fit to air on NPR or the nightly news, but rather whether the content helps add value to the site (not just doing video for video's sake) and whether any problems with sound quality and visual clarity distract readers from that content.

It's certainly smart to train reporters how to frame their interview shots and get sound bites that come with little background noise. It's also fair to expect improvement over time. Still, technical perfection isn't needed. A perfected sense of news judgment is.

Free or With a Fee, That is the Media Question

How to explain this contradiction:

I, like others, see the writing on the wall for newspapers and other media companies that once gladly put their content online for free with the thinking that online ad revenue would largely pay the bills.

I see the stories about Rupe Murdoch promising to charge for this online content and seeking to create an online news consortium. I see the headlines about the growth of Journalism Online, which aims to smooth the transition to a paid online model for publishers and readers. And I can't help but see what likely will be the future of online news -- micropayments and such.

In conversations about paying for content, I strongly argue that people should be willing to underwrite the work of reporters and editors.

But then I click on a story from the Washington Post. It asks me for my name and e-mail address, information that takes about 10 seconds to provide. It's not asking for money. Yet I turn away, look for another free article or route to the same information. Not because of a philosophical objection but typically because I'm in a hurry to acquire information. The same thing happens when I see one of those ads that covers and text and prevents you from quickly scanning the info. Run the other way.

And that's just what happens when I encounter any non-monetary barrier to the content. I haven't even tested myself on how I'd react to a pay wall.

And so, on a personal level, I understand what's at play here: A battle between the business needs of media companies and the basic instincts of online grazers who are used to free.

It doesn't mean that I won't continue to support whatever moves are necessary to keep the news business in business, but it does mean that I will continue to recognize how hard it is to change reader behavior.

The Need for Media Lit in High Schools

A smart essay published recently in Utne Reader reminded me of a topic that I've long wanted to cover in this space. Writer Danielle Maestretti argues that in an age of information overload, we're shockingly lacking information literacy. In her own words:

The debate over how we read, perpetuated largely by media insiders, is starting
to seem like little more than a distraction from the real problem: We have
access to more information than ever, yet we do not know what to do with it. We
are desperately information-illiterate.

Maestretti also does a good job of describing what information literacy means nowadays:

In 2009 literacy isn’t about finishing a book or slogging through 12 web pages
to get to the end of an article. It is about knowing what to do with
information, how to find the good stuff, how to assess sources. What matters is
not that we are readers, but that we are critical readers.

So, yes, we need literacy training of this sort. Where should we find it? No better place than high schools, for starters. What should be taught? How about this, just as a basic day-one curriculum for students launching into research projects:

- How search engines work and how to get the most out of your searches
- The benefits and drawbacks of Wikipedia -- "a great place to start a search and a terrible place to end it."
- The ethics of taking short passages from blogs, articles or other information sources, regardless of whether you're linking to them or not
- How to find the source of information that you're quoting

And that's just on the topic of research. Because the media landscape is changing so rapidly -- with newspapers faltering, audiences splintering and opinion-mongering becoming the norm -- the time has come to work media literacy into the high school curriculum. There is overlap between info and media literacy, for sure, with the latter simply being more focused on the news media industry.

Many students will never take a journalism class in high school, let alone in college, so in a way this type of instruction is akin to chemistry for liberal arts majors (one of my personal favorites.) In other words, this introduction to the 24-hour news cycle and the business side of journalism might be some students' only exposure to a topic that can easily be introduced in social studies classes that cover American institutions.

If we're looking to reach the next generation of (mostly online) readers and news consumers, what better way to start than to introduce them to the changing media landscape, and to do so early on in their education.

More on this topic soon...