Tools and tips for journalists, created for journalism students.

1. Telling the
story
By Holly Edgell
WCPO, Cincinnati
September 2014,
Oklahoma Baptist University
TWITTER: @hollyedgell

2. What kind of journalist are you?
 You may have a “first love” or affinity for a
particular platform
 Audio
 Video
 Text
 Photography
 Graphics

3. Forget that for now!
 Consider yourself a multimedia journalist
 Assess your strengths and weaknesses.
 Technology?
 Visual approaches?
 Writing?
 Interviewing?
 Data?
 Research?

4. New Tools = New Rules
 Eric Newton:
 “The students of today actually are going
to create the journalism and mass
communication of tomorrow. You aren’t
stuck in formats created a century ago.
You get to build the new companies and
the new products and the new standards
of the digital age. New standards? That’s
right. New tools create opportunities to
make new rules.”

5. 4 reasons we’re on the Web
 Information we can use
 Commerce
 Connecting with others
 Entertainment

6. How do we read the Web?
 Mostly, we scan
 Jakob Nielsen:
 highlighted keywords (hypertext links
serve as one form of highlighting;
typeface variations and color are others)
 meaningful sub-headings
 bulleted lists
 one idea per paragraph (users will skip
over any additional ideas if they are not
caught by the first few words in the
paragraph)
 Inverted Pyramid
 Half the word count

7. F-SHAPE
IN THIS EYE-TRACK STUDY YOU SEE THAT READERS DON’T GET TO THE END

8. What is the best way to tell
the story?
 Basic info, updated as new developments
come in
 “Long-read,” magazine style
 Fun: e.g. Listicle
 Basic list
 Q&A
 Multimedia > video, audio, photos
 Interactive

9. How do we read the Web?
READERS WANT TO CONSTRUCT A
UNIQUE EXPERIENCE
EXAMPLES:
Queen City Barrel
Exit 34

10. Tips
 Make your copy “scannable”
 Clear hed
 Descriptive Dek hed
 Subhead
 Lists
EXAMPLES:
 It came from Pinterest
 9 places country music fans can find love
for Valentine’s Day

11. Fun with story forms
 Photo galleries/slideshows
 Example 1
 Example 2
 Audio slideshows
 Links!
 Related content
 Resources
 Incorporating audio and video
 Video player
 Embedding

12. INTERACTIVES
 Makes data and trends real
 Provide context
 Examples:
 How much do NFL players make?
 Winning the lottery
 Ohio’s death row

13. EXTRAS: Timelines
 Great for trends, historical context, narrative
 Example: 1969 (New York Times)
 Example: Inventing the Wheel

14. Tools
 Videolicious
 YouTube
 Timelines
 Create your own: TimelineSetter
 Create your own: Dipity
 Create your own: Simile
 Polls
 Example: PollDaddy
 Maps
 embed a MapQuest Map
 embed a Google Map