Case study #3: Multimedia storytelling
Mary McGuire, Carleton University
When you engage people online using Flash you keep them at your site longer and
they're more likely to get the information you have gathered.
For the past eight years, Mary McGuire has taught the Online Workshop at Carleton
University in Ottawa as a cross between print and broadcast. But in 2005
she looked at the assignments she was giving her students and realized
their structure looked less like a cross of the two media streams than
a set of parallel tracks.
For a number of years she had required one team of students to produce print-based stories with photos each week. Then she had a separate team produce a multimedia section on the same topic. But she realized students weren't effectively connecting the two content areas. And, as well, the makeup of the assignment simply didn't ring true to her extensive experience in radio journalism.
"I felt that we had a publication that was separated into the multimedia section and then the print stuff online -- and I wanted to integrate that more," she says. "So I thought, well, why don't we have them working in pairs more the way you do in broadcast?"
So the students began producing their stories in groups of two -- a reporter and a producer. The producer is responsible for coming up with interactive elements for the print-based story.
All of the students in the course now rotate through a variety of editorial positions during the term. The students publish their site, Capital News, every two weeks -- or five times over the 14 weeks. One student is a senior editor for an issue; another produces the multimedia team for the edition; other students work in the story pairs as either producer or reporter.
McGuire has an extensive career at CBC Radio and also as a print reporter. As well, she is co-author of the Internet Handbook for Writers, Researchers and Journalists. She has taught at Carleton for 16 years.
She doesn't know of many media organizations that have structured their reporting teams the way she has, but she says the approach clicks with her students.
"You know there's no rulebook or guideline for any of this. You just read a lot of stuff online; you kind of watch how news organizations are doing things and you get ideas," she says. "I think no two places are operating the same way -- unlike newspapers or local television stations."
McGuire teaches the course of 20 students in both a seminar and lab format. She starts the workshop off with an introduction to online journalism, including recent developments in the industry and analyses of award-winning online news projects. The preparatory classes include instruction in Adobe's Dreamweaver and Photoshop, and also in using digital video and still cameras. She says a main goal is to get students thinking about presenting material in a multi-dimensional way.
The course then moves into its production phase during which students spend most of their time editing and reporting. They produce the multimedia content in Flash with the help of a technical assistant who adds and edits the content. The assistant is available to help the students on the day before Capital News is published. But before that stage, the story producer assembles the raw multimedia content and proposes a way to present it as a package. McGuire has three teaching assistants available to her on production day: a copyeditor, a photo editor and an editor for the multimedia section.
McGuire doesn't actually teach the students Flash -- she just introduces them to the principles of it. The students work with templates that the technical assistant has pre-assembled. So, even though they don't edit the multimedia themselves, they can plainly see the structure of interactive features such as audio, video, timelines, slideshows and audio slideshows in order to prepare raw content for assembly on production day.
"They have to storyboard it -- they have to draw on paper how they would like it to appear," she says. "Then they bring that to our web producer. He talks about what's possible and what's not. So they are working hand-in-hand with him, but they are not building the Flash."
She says one of her upper-most concerns is keeping students focused on honing core journalism skills -- but adapting them to the online medium.
"We want them to go out and identify stories, go out and do the research, come back and present that story instead of just as a print story," she says. "So they have to think creatively about how to communicate the story they have researched."
Still, if she had more time, McGuire says she would like to teach the students how to use Flash. She says a textbook written by her friend and colleague Mindy McAdams is a good primer in journalistic applications of the software. But she says the University of Florida professor's book, Flash Journalism: How to Create Multimedia News Packages, would be useful at Carleton only if she had more time with her students. McGuire says most journalism schools that teach Flash spend a whole term producing one project. She says, in the time she has available, her students gain more benefit from a bi-weekly production schedule of Capital News.
McGuire sees Flash as being an effective means of marrying the best qualities of print and broadcast, with the added benefit of interactivity. She says when people can pick and choose the story elements they want to read as opposed to being forced to digest news in a linear way they are more likely to stay engaged.
"I think Flash is the best tool that has come along to allow the presentation of information in interactive ways," she says. "I think when you engage people online using Flash you keep them at your site longer and they're more likely to get the information you have gathered."
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