This document provides an introduction to multimedia skills and multimedia stories. It defines a multimedia story as a combination of different media elements like text, photos, video, audio and graphics presented nonlinearly on a website. Key points are that the information in each medium should be complementary, not redundant, and users can choose their own path through the story. It discusses what constitutes good multimedia and provides examples of award-winning multimedia stories that incorporate different media elements.

1. Introduction to
Multimedia Skills
Jour203, Fall 2012
Week 1

2. What is a Multimedia Story?
 A multimedia story is some combination of text, still
photographs, video clips, audio, graphics and
interactivity presented on a Web site in a nonlinear
format in which the information in each medium is
complementary, not redundant.
 Knight Digital Media Center, U.C. Berkeley

3. What does that mean?
 “Nonlinear means that rather than reading a rigidly
structured single narrative, the user chooses how to
navigate through the elements of a story.”
 “Not redundant means that rather than having a text version
of a story accompanied by a video clip that essentially tells
the same story, different parts of a story are told using
different media. The key is using the media form - video,
audio, photos, text, animation - that will present a segment
of a story in the most compelling and informative way.”
 Knight Digital Media Center, U.C. Berkeley

4. What is Multimedia?
 Kim Grinfeder, University of Miami School of
Communication – “Multimedia journalism is
journalism… it’s just got richer than it was before.”
 Andrew deVigal, New York Times: “Let’s call it
interactive narratives.”

5. More industry leaders
 Brian Storm, MediaStorm: “Some people say
multimedia is a way for one person to do the work of
several… to me, that’s not a good direction for
journalism. And I don’t think that’s really what we’re
talking about.”
 Keith Jenkins, NPR: It’s telling a good story with the
tools that are right for telling that story.

6. What makes a good multimedia
story?
 Pamela Chen, Open Society Institute-NY: “The core of
good multimedia is good content.”
 Andrew deVigal, NYT: “Are there characters that people
can relate to?”
 Tom Kennedy, Ex-Washington Post: “The visual
narrative can be constructed in some meaningful way
to make the story compelling.”

7. Is this good multimedia?
 If you’re covering a breaking news story, you might be
asked by your editor to take a camera and audio
recorder (DSLRsdon’t get great audio) with you to
gather multimedia.
 Here’s an example of what you might produce as a
multimedia clip for a rapidly evolving breaking news
story.

8. Good multimedia?
 The paper updated the story as the news evolved.

9. Did multimedia enhance that
story?
How could you improve it?

10. Did multimedia enhance that
story?
 How could you improve it?
Include B-roll.

11. Did multimedia enhance that
story?
 How could you improve it?
Include B-roll.
Interview a few passersby.

12. Did multimedia enhance that
story?
 How could you improve it?
Include B-roll.
Interview a few passersb
When you have more time, you could add a graphic, such as a map
of crime in the neighborhood, or do a timeline that includes the two
audio interviews with the police officer.

13. Another day, another story
 This is another story that your editor might send you
out on. It’s not a breaking news story.
 As you watch this, note down (mentally or on paper)
some of this multimedia story’s features.

14. A few things about that story
 There were sound glitches. It may have been shot on a
DSLR with sound recorded separately. The journalist
then has to match the two tracks (audio and video).
 It’s a nat-sound video. No narration by the reporter.

15. Another thing
 The text story is about customers at a bakery, and the
video is about how to make cannoli.The video does not
repeat the same story as the text story, which is one of
the rules of a good multimedia story. No redundancy.
 Remember that during the semester.

16. Decide which media suits your
story…
 … and the tools you have to hand.
 It might be a video, it might be a slideshow with audio,
it might be an interactive graphic, it might be all of the
above.
 We’ll be focusing on producing the raw materials for
multimedia storytelling or interactive narration – audio,
video and photo – and on the basics of how to put them
together to make a good multimedia story.

17. Award-winning multimedia
 This audio slideshow won second prize in the News
Story – Multimedia category of the Pictures of the Year
International competition in 2009.
 This one was awarded the Prize of Excellence. Both
are by the same NPR photographer.
 The winner was a video.

18. Back in the day
 Twelve years before those multimedia packages were
produced, this package was considered prize-winning
multimedia.

19. Interactivity predates the
Internet
 The BBC launched Ceefax, a teletext news service, in
1974.
Teletext still exists
today, even in
developed countries
like Singapore.

20. The future of interactive
storytelling?
 “It’s not some massive reinvention of the storytelling
process… it’s more around the tools and distribution.
 The big change is that we can all report and publish to
a global audience with incredibly kickass tools.”
 Brian Storm, MediaStorm

21. Mediastorm’s Crisis Guide to
Pakistan