Video #1: Your Assignment

So yes, we now have a video assignment to cram in along with your ongoing social media, blog and out-of-class story assignments.

For this assignment, you will be asked to create a news video no shorter than 1 minute long and no longer than 2 minutes long, on the subject of, what have people learned sofar in JRN 200? Your interview subjects must come from one of your multimedia groups, as assigned in a separate blog post.


You will be required to interview at least two people on-camera and shoot b-roll (a video camera would be great, but a simple Flip cam or even a good smart phone will suffice); edit the raw video using iMovie or FinalCut Pro or some other comparable video editing software; create an edited news video with a lede and attribution and such; upload the video to the YouTube account you were supposed to create for this class; make sure that the YouTube account is set to a public setting (and not private); and then email me a link to the video to omars@msu.edu, with  a subject line of video #1.



As long as you meet the basic parameters of this assignment, I will give you a 4.0 equal to that of a practice story. Those parameters include:

-- staying within the 1-2 minute range and on-topic
-- containing at least two human interviews on tape

-- containing B-roll
-- showing signs of editing; that is, not simply pasting entirely unedited tape onto YouTube. You want to create a video story using raw video as a base to be edited and moved around, in the same way we want t write a text story using raw information as a base to be edited and moved around.
-- containing NO fatals

The penalty for failing to meet these parameters is 0.5 of your grade, per error. In addition, a fatal resulted in a 1.0 grade. And failure to turn it in, of course, is a 0.0. Please review the video links provided in the earlier blog post to get an idea of what this assignment may look like, in finished form.

These same deductions will apply on all future multimedia assignments. But future assignments WILL include consideration of content and journalistic value.



The deadline for this assignment will be no later than noon Monday,  Nov. 11 to omars@msu.edu. Again, you should be emailing me links to your YouTube account, and not an attached video file. (PLEASE make sure your account is set to a "public" setting!!!)

If you are unsure about your topic or fuzzy on some of these concepts like B-roll or captions or whatever, or if you have any questions whatsoever, PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!


Good luck, everyone!

Video #1: What It Might Look Like

For the first video assignment, I am asking you to do a news video on the topic of, what have you learned sofar in JRN 200?

For this assignment, you will have to interview at least two people in your video group on-camera about what they've learned in JRN 200 sofar.

The videos must run between 1 and 2 minutes long. Each must start out with some sort of a title caption (sort of like a lede), so that the audience knows what the story is going to be about. The story should include video of your interview subjects talking (sort of like quotes in a story), and those subject shots should include captions identifying the people who are speaking (sort of like attribution).

Of course, the stories should have no fatals -- not in terms of what people are saying (it must be true), and captions should have proper spellings and titles. All because it's video doesn't mean we operate at a lower standard than print. Be sure you do thorough double-checking of the information you gather.

(See? Lots of concepts we worked on are true regardless of medium.)

Also, the videos should contain B-roll. What is b-roll, you ask? It is video showing what your story is about, that you use to break up segments of the video.

For example, let's say you are interviewing people about what they're doing this summer, and one interview subject is making burgers at McDonald's, and the other is going to the beach every day. B-roll would be showing what they're doing: shots of one person flipping greasy burgers, and of the other person laying on the beach as waves roll in.

Then, we would use some of that b-roll to break up the interview segments. For example,you know that standard shot of someone talking in a video interview, where you just see their head and they're talking blah-blah-blah? You would start a segment with that, then while they're still talking, you roll some b-roll over the sound, so that people can see what the person is talking about at the same time they're talking about it.

(That goes back to a print concept: show the audience; don't just tell them. At the same time, it breaks up that monotonous shot of someone just talking).

Then, you return to the head shot and end the segment.

Also, B-roll can be used during transitions between segments, to help illustrate those transitions.

Some good b-roll examples can be found in the following videos from my summer 2012 class, where the topic was "What have you learned this summer in JRN 200?" Like your assignment, it required two human sources on tape per video.


Off we go: 

Emily

Max

Julia



Lindsay

Molly

JRN 200: Our Multimedia Groups!

For the video exercise, each person will be assigned to a four-person group with which you will work on the vid assignment and interview each other. Please share whatever video resources you have within your group (but if you have a recent model of cell phone, that should suffice).

For those of you who don't have a camera, please be sure to get a memory stick or comparable memory device in which to store your raw video.

You may edit your video on whatever editing program you have on your own personal computers (iMovie, ect.). If you lack such an editing program, the open lab on the second floor of the CAS building has such programs already loaded.

You MUST work with your group members and include their interviews in your story. However, additionally you MAY collaborate with other groups in working on this story (members of the Louisville group will have to, to meet the assignment parameters) and ALSO include their members among your interviews. You may NOT trade group members.

Green group: Bella C., Erik S., Sophie S., Kyle K.


White group: Spencer I., Christine L., Shanin T., Juliana M.

Sparty group: Maya I.-S., Kristin N., Jordan J., Ryan S.

Izzo group: Colleen O., Mara H., Andrea U., Kyna G.


Louisville group: Alex S., Kelsey P.

Out-Of-Class #2: What Journalism Really Is

This week, I received the following email from one of youze:


> Hello,
> After doing some research on why higher education faces increased
> tuition costs, I started to understand why this has been happening at
> MSU and how it relates to the current state of the economy. Instead
> of having my paper focus on why MSU is increasing tuition but still
> spending money on adding amenities to campus, such as Wi-Fi in dorms,
> I wanted to focus on the spending cuts and how it is affecting higher
> education.
>
> My new topic idea is:
> Spending cuts made by the state and the Budget Control Act are
> affecting the funding for higher education. The spending cuts being
> made are increasing tuition and reducing the quality of education due
> to program cuts and faculty cuts (among other things). I will focus
> on how MSU is currently receiving its funding, how much did tuition
> increase this year, what are the things being done to reduce excess
> spending on campus, and what is being done to help students with the
> increasing cost of tuition.
>
> I wanted to get your approval on this topic so I can begin to write my paper.
>

And my answer was an enthusiastic YES! Not simply because you were switching the topic, but because you were switching the topic based on where the facts were taking you!

And THAT is journalism. Journalism isn't starting with an initial assumption and then finding facts to support it. That's a term paper. Rather, journalism is starting with an initial assumption, then seeing where the facts take you. Sometimes, research finds that the initial premise was correct. Other times, not so much. And still other times you discover things that support a premise that's better than the original one.

It's that process of research and then determining what you actually have that is journalism. That's what separates it from simply finding out about stuff; it's that discovery through doing reporting.

It's like being a detective: you start out with a dead body, and then you start interviewing people to see what you can find out. You may start out with one suspect, but the evidence might take you to another suspect -- or none at all, if you find facts showing it was an accidental or natural death, or a suicide. Either way, you follow the facts, and you make your final determination on the facts you find, rather than simply what you initially presumed.

Ideally, each of us will have a story that evolves this way. I'm glad at least one of us did, so the rest of us can see this process in action.

Stats: Nutty Over Nut Grafs

A lede gets to the bottom line of a story. The nut graf answers questions created by the lede, and offers facts and details that directly support the lede's premise.

For us to correctly form a proper nut graf, we must correctly identify what the central point of the lede is.

Here was a common lede/nut graf pairing for this exercise:

The major findings of the U.S. Census Bureau are showing that owning a computer and use of the Internet are becoming common among many American households.

            Each month the U.S. Census Bureau conducts the Current Population Survey (CPS), a large nationally represented survey of approximately 50,000 households, at regular intervals for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over time, the CPS has come to be used as a tool for measuring a wide variety of economic, demographic and social conditions of the U.S. population on a recurring basis.


And here's the problem: based on the nut graf, you would think the major premise of the lede is that the census bureau had a study. That's because the nut graf details what the study is and how it's conducted.

But let's think back to what makes a good lede: it's not that something happened (e.g., MSU played Notre Dame in football); it's what, exactly, happened (MSU beat Notre Dame 107-0).

Based on that, the central premise here isn't that there was a study; it's what the study found.

In this following lede/nut graf pairing, the correct question created by the lede isn't that there was a study; it's that the study found dramatic growth, so what was that growth, and how was it dramatic? Then the nut graf answers that by providing statistics that indeed show dramatic growth:

The United States Census Bureau recently conducted a survey focused on household computer and Internet use, showing dramatic growth in computer ownership since 1984.

Personal computers first began to enter households in the early 1980s with 8.2 percent of homes owning a computer, according to the study. That number has increased to 61.8 percent of 113.1 million American households today.

Stats: Math Is Hard

Be careful with numbers. Make sure you say what you mean, and you mean what you say, and that you understand what you say.

For example, let's look at this passage:

The U.S. Census Bureau ... (found) 61.8 percent have computers, an increase of almost 54 percent since 1984.

This is a fatal.

How is that? you may say. It went from 8.2 percent in 1984 to 61.8 percent now. The difference is 53.6 percent!

That's because the difference in percentage points is 53.6 percent. But the difference in percentage growth is actually 653.6 percent!

Here's what I mean:

In 1984, 8.2 percent of 100 percent households had computers. If 100 percent is 113.1 million households, that means 8.2 percent is around 9.2 million households.

Today, 61.8 percent of that 113.1 million households have computers. 61.8 percent of 113.1 million is around 69.9 million.

So the percentage increase isn't 8.2 to 53.6; it's roughly 9.2 million to somewhere around 69.9 million. And that's an increase of over 650 percent. If the 9.2 million only went up just over 53 percent, we'd be talking about a total of around 14 million or so.

What I think you meant to say was that the percentage of households with computers has risen 53.67 percentage points. Which it did. But that's not what you said.

If you're not sure, check with your sources to make sure your math is correct and in proper context.

Now, I understand math is hard. That's why many of us went into writing; to get away from math, right?

Still, we have to know how to accurately calculate percentage change, and these day it's never been easier with the Internet. Just do a Google search for "percentage change calculator" and you'll find dozens. That's how I did my math.

By the way, this isn't an isolated mistake. In my class last semester someone made the exact same mistake as you did here. So did someone the semester before that. And the one before that. Seriously. Every. Single. Semester!

So don't fret. Do work on remembering the lesson, and not repeating the mistake.

Stats: Attribution

How do you know that 62 percent of 113.1 million American households have one or more computers?

Did you go door-to-door to those millions of households, and find out yourself?

No. You know that because the U.S. Census Bureau told you, via the press release and stats from which you wrote the story.

So, let's attribute it like this: Today, around 62 percent of 113.1 million American households have one or more computers, the U.S. Census Bureau said, or this: according to data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, or this on second reference: the bureau said, or another way to do second reference: according to bureau data. 

For your article to be credible, the audience needs to know from where you got your data. Was it yourself? A credible source? A crappy source?

In this case, it was the government agency that exists solely to statistically track Americans. That's source credibility you want to share with your audience to build your credibility: you're getting your info form the experts.

If the information isn't from your very own first-hand observation, then you must attribute the source.