Practicing Convergence Journalism teaches budding journalists how to make the most of digital technology to tell their stories effectively across multiple media platforms-in print, audio, video and online. Janet Kolodzy addresses multi-media and cross-media thinking, organizing, reporting and producing for both short-form spot news and long-form features. Her approach focuses on storytelling principles, not just specific technical practices, providing journalists with the mindset and skills they need to adapt their writing and reporting for the tools of today and tomorrow.
With this book and the aid of its companion website, students learn how to:
Develop a cross-media mode of journalistic thinking that will result in stories suitable for a fast-paced, multitasking and mobile audience.
Decide when visuals are useful and necessary, and understand how to capture, select and organize them to effectively enhance a reader's understanding of a story.
Put together various elements of storytelling (writing, audio, moving and still pictures) for an interactive journalistic experience.
What's Old is New, What's New is Old
Eight Elements of a News Story and the Tools to Build It
Sources and Background Information: Reporting before the Reporting
Short and Fast: Covering a Spot News Story
Law & Ethics: Reporting Rules of the Road
Building the Spot Single Story
Capturing Context and Tone: Using Words, Pictures and/or Sound
Packaging the Story: The Daily Wrap
The Multimedia Story: How to help audiences get what they want
Feature or Enterprise News Stories
Digital Storytelling: Design and Data
Law and Ethics: Producing and Disseminating News