Editor, revised

I blogged last month about making a how-to video (paper flowers) based on an assignment at work. Since the column the video accompanied is a monthly feature, I got another opportunity. This time the subject was felt faux food. You can check out some examples at Megan Cooley’s blog (she’s the star of my video).

I learned a few more things I thought I’d pass along:

• Avoid reflective tables when taking stills (doh).
• Recording the audio of the instructions in a separate take is good. But encourage your subject to write out a script. Use short declarative sentences in said script. This will save you lots of audio editing work.
• Be creative with your still/static shots. Like with the sandwich stacking.
• Use titles/text to save time. It’s just as effective as the narrator’s audio instructions.
• Kids make great ambiance.

I came to the online world via the night news copy desk. I truly loved parts of that job: editing the wires, writing heds that thousands of people would see, catching mistakes at the 11th hour. But I decided to leave to bolster my resume with online experience.

In some ways, I’m still a copy editor. When I post a story, I edit it (of course). When things are slow, I read the stories I haven’t seen. They’re live by that point, but I figure it’s better to catch the error later than never.

My job also involves news judgment, which I developed doing the wires and laying out local news pages.

I’ve often thought that my copy editing background is what helps me be especially effective in my position. But I’ve wondered whether this is common among online producers.

I found at least one parallel in this list via Mindy McAdams via her colleague. In it recent grad Nick Rosinia, now working for MLB.com, passes on pointers to editing students. I liked his opener:

The new job title is “editorial producer.” It means little else than the Internet is too cool to have “copyeditors,” but you might win a few points with a recruiter if you know it.

He goes on to address writing heds, cutlines and teasers, and the importance of being clean and quick. All things I confront daily, all things that a good copy editor should handle adeptly.

At the end of her post, McAdams writes, “It looks like there will always be jobs for good copy editors.”

I hope she’s right, but I might tweak that statement a little. It looks like there will always be need for good copy editing skills, because in online journalism you often are your own copy editor.

BTW, searching Journalismjobs.com for the keywords “copy editors” turned up 67 listings today, most at daily newspapers. If you’re willing to work in a small town and have little job security, there certainly are jobs for good copy editors right now.

Longtime penpals finally meet from Andrew Zahler on Vimeo.

I’m just catching up to blogging about this video I shot and produced a couple weeks back.

It’s a sweet story about two long-time pen pals meeting for the first time here in Spokane. They started corresponding in the 1930s.

I tagged along with the reporter to document the magic moment. I hadn’t shot any live events for months, so I was kind of rusty on sequencing my shots and other imperatives that I’ve been taught.

I taped while the reporter did his interview with one of the women, but there wasn’t much there I could use. She didn’t provide much when I asked some follow ups.

In the end, I was able to capture the moment they met with some OK sequencing, and when I sat the two of them down together I got some usable audio to create a simple, one-minute short.

More important than the finished product, I think, was the experience of getting back into live shooting and producing on deadline.

I’m playing catchup with life right now after going to Chicago last week for the Pitchfork Music Festival.

While I was gone, Angela Grant posted about our newsroom restructuring report. (I noticed this via Spokesman-Review multimedia coordinator Colin Mulvany’s blog.) She gave us some kudos — thanks! — but also raised some questions and suggested we could go further in encouraging multimedia and online journalism under the new structure.

I started to post a response on her blog, but when it grew longer than three paragraphs, I decided to post  here instead.

Before I get to that, I should re-emphasize that our report contained suggestions only. Some of them might advance, but many will not. And I should note that we’re expecting a second task force report this week, this time looking specifically at what kind of content The Spokesman-Review should be producing in print, online, on the radio and beyond.

Big changes await our newsroom on the near horizon, and when those come, it’s hard to say how much attention either of these reports will get. For the time being, here are those clarifications.

Re: reporters voluntarily shooting video.

Angela suggests we shouldn’t just encourage this but require it. In interviews with senior editors, we heard that the voluntary adoption of multimedia has been seen as crucial for the success we’ve had. We wanted to continue this approach with the idea that the bug to shoot would spread. Also, we were trying to be realistic about equipment. We just don’t have that many cameras and laptops yet. The idea is that we could gradually build up those reserves.

Re: online producers having enough time

Angela wonders whether we’re asking too much of these staff members. I’m an online producer, and I authored the section of the report that discusses this position. Right now, I assist reporters and editors in a bit of a haphazard manner. In the report, we suggest assigning producers to set groups of editors and reporters. With a clearer definition of who I work with, I think I could significantly increase my productivity.

Re: combining the photography and multimedia departments.

Two  questions here:

• Will we require photographers to shoot video?

We’ve got a fast-growing corps of photographers who also do video, which is fantastic. We’ve also got three people, including Colin Mulvany, who can throw all their effort at video. With those resources, we didn’t see the need to require video of the entire department. Although I’d love to see the day when that is the case.

• What the heck did we mean about removing redundancy among video and still shooters? Angela wrote:

“I’d be cool with that if it means this: A photog is covering an event, they decide the event is good for video too, and so the photog is assigned to do both stills and video. I won’t be cool with it if it means this: A photog is covering an event, which would be good for video, but they don’t want to send an additional video producer so it just doesn’t get done.”

We meant the former. And if the assigned photog hasn’t yet trained in video, we send somebody along who is. Of course, I’d expect the video potential to be tremendous to warrant such doubling up on an event.

Re: requiring page designers and graphic artists to do interactives

It’d be great if these staff members had the time and training to design projects in Flash. But we have one graphic artist for all platforms, our day designers are already working at capacity to produce the print sections, and we don’t really have dedicated designers at night.

I hate to sound like I’m making excuses, but absent new hires, we could only throw interactive design into the mix if we came up with the ultimate model of universal copy/design desk efficiency.

View Larger Map

The Spokesman-Review is running a series on the Spokane River by reporter Becky Kramer, who is taking part in a seven-leg raft/paddle expedition organized by the Spokane River Forum.

The project is the biggest undertaking I’ve been part of at this newspaper. To complement the stories, I developed an interactive map using Google My Maps. There are historical photos, aerial photos by S-R photog Jesse Tinsley, markers with information about key landmarks and illustrations by Rick Hosmer, a participant on the expedition.

The map was time-consuming but easy to put together. I didn’t dabble with KML or other more sophisticated Google tools, instead relying on the basic My Maps interface. You can check out a quick tutorial here.

The map has been getting decent traffic and love from my friends at Down to Earth.

Of course, I’m not the only one merging waterways and interactive maps in these parts. Cheney, Wash., resident Ron Hall introduced himself in my comments section and shared this link to his Google Earth aquifer tour. Also check out this profile S-R reporter Parker Howell wrote about Hall and his 3D modeling of Spokane landmarks. Great stuff, and miles beyond what I’m doing. For now.