Here are some examples of your work. The comments are not being made to pick on anyone (in fact, these are some of the better examples of our work here) and no grades are being shared beyond me and the person whose work it is.
But I am sharing comments to help us all get a sense of what we did well, and what we can do better, and how to do that. In my in-person class during the spring and fall we'd be reviewing these vids as a group and discussing them, and that's what I'm trying to replicate here. So please take a look at each piece of work via the hyperlinks below.
Off we go:
* Samantha: School hours blog preview and recap and video:
In one stretch of video we have the source introduce himself, and then we have a caption identifying the source. Only the latter was needed; the rest was redundant.
The blog posts have good hyperlinks to resources regarding the issue, so that readers can get more information without having to go elsewhere if they want to further explore the subject. That's the point of hyperlinks; to make your online news post the one-stop shop for the audience.
If they're good with your summary, they can stop there. If this gets them interested to delve further into the subject, you're giving them the resources to do so that you can't offer in print.
* Hussein: Hookah lounges blog preview and recap and video:
We could have used more B-roll, like from inside a hookah lounge while people are milling about, relaxing, etc. We need to show what is being talked about.
And each blog post is missing a lede. Like with a story, each post has to get to the point of what it's about right at the start.
The rules we learned in doing practice stories and out-of-class stories we should be transferring over to blog posts and video by having ledes and quotes/sound bytes and following AP style and having attribution and such. The mediums change, but the rules and structure do not.
* Simone: teaching/learning blog preview and recap and video:
In captions, we need to follow the same AP style rules we follow in print. So instead of identifying a source by title and last name (Mr. Smith, for example) we need to ID using first and last names (William Smith).
Also in the video, we lack video B-roll but we make up for it by using still pictures as B-roll which isn't the best first option (for a video, the best B-roll is video) but a good backup nonetheless.
The blog posts are okay, but we are missing hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are what make online text journalism what it is, by allowing a gateway to more info about a subject. They are not optional.
* Carina: Drug addiction blog preview and recap and video:
We have a lede caption which is good, and we have attribution captions, which are good. But we shoot with the phone vertical instead of horizontal, so we get those goofy black bars at each end of the screen.
But the biggest problem is the lack of B-roll. We don't show what people are talking about: getting shots of people buying, selling or doing drugs, cop cars rolling down the street, external shots of the police department, etc.
That's a huge miss in video journalism, for two big reasons. First, video is a visual medium, so we MUST show people what subjects are talking about. Second, it leaves us stuck on that boring shot of a talking head instead of breaking up that shot while they continue to talk by showing people what they are talking about.
* Xuejia: Camping blog preview and recap and video:
We have great B-roll here showing what the story is about, but the problem is we use them before and after interview segments, when we need to be using them within those segments, starting with the sound byte and the head shot, then keeping the sound byte going while transitioning to B-roll showing what they are talking about, and then going back to the head shot as we wind down the sound byte.
The blog posts are entirely lacking hyperlinks, which is not good. Let's hyperlink to resources readers can use to help them explore the subject, like the national park's Web site and such.
* Patricia: Cherry Festival blog preview and recap and video
In the video, we lack video B-roll but we make up for it by using still pictures as B-roll which isn't the best first option (for a video, the best B-roll is video) but a good backup nonetheless.
Elsewhere, in one stretch we have the narrator introduce a source, then we have the source introduce herself, and then we have a caption identifying the source. Only the latter was needed; the rest was redundant. We also had the narrator's laughter come up over the source speaking, which we can never allow to happen.
With the blog, instead of doing a preview and recap, we did one post looking at the pros of the event and another at the cons. And that's fine; it's a natural way to cleave the issue.
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