Page 158 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

MULTIMEDIA JOURNALISM: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

attention from their editors. We can safely say that as convergence
develops, media organizations will welcome people who appreciate the
power of each medium and who are willing to embrace a multimedia
form of reporting. Multimedia journalism will evolve into a richer form
of journalism as the century evolves.
Chapter 2 detailed the strengths and weaknesses of each medium.
When telling multimedia stories, it is vital to appreciate and use each
medium’s strengths. To recap: Print is portable and permanent. It
offers depth and detail but it is limited in the sense that the news is
only as recent as the last print run. It also requires effort on the part
of the audience to absorb the information. Television and radio are
immediate and emotional. They take you to the scene and provide
images and sound, but they are also ephemeral. They disappear into
the ether once you see or hear the events they describe, and the enter-
tainment element of broadcast can be distracting. Online combines
the immediacy of broadcast with print’s capacity to give people detail
and background. Plus, it can be interactive if journalists know how to
use this power appropriately and well. In many cases, this remains a
148 big if. Interactivity could be the key to producing successful multiple-
platform stories. It gives journalists the chance to relate to, and link
with, audiences. It requires television audiences to do more than the
passive act of watching. Audiences could be asked to add perspective
to the story or to interact with the story and become involved via a
quiz or interactive graphic.
Journalists need to educate themselves to think in terms of multime-
dia reporting. This is one of the changes of mind-set mentioned earlier
in this chapter. You need to approach every story looking for potential
multimedia coverage. This may involve moving beyond the classic nar-
rative structure. All traditional forms of journalism, be they the text,
still photographs, and graphics of newspaper and magazine reporting;
or the video, audio, animated graphics, and words of television, tell sto-
ries in a linear form. The storytelling follows a classic narrative pattern:
a beginning, middle, and end. Both also deliver information one way.
The audience has few ways to provide feedback beyond the traditional
format of letters to the editor or station. Both are tethered to produc-
tion structures that compel audiences to organize their lives around
the product rather than when it suits them. People must watch televi-
sion news at a time that suits the broadcaster, although cable television
attempts to deal with that by offering a cycle of news. Magazines and
newspapers have expended huge amounts of energy in the past few