Visual Storytelling in the “do-it-all” age
In July 2013, The Chicago Bun Times and Southern Community Newspapers Inc. (SCNI) chain in Georgia closed their photo departments.
SCNI chief executive Michael Gebhart says in an email that “for the last few years I have preached to our newsrooms that the era of specialization was over and we were moving into an age in which journalists need to be multi-faceted in their approach.”
He adds:
Journalists need to write, shoot video, post on the Internet and edit. The technological advances in the world of digital photography made this strategic move logical. How many photographers need dark room skills to develop film and make prints? Furthermore, it is certainly more economical and efficient to assign one journalist to cover and event in words, pictures and video.
What is visual Storytelling? It is the marriage of word, pictures and sound to tell stories in a memorable way. Every journalist or public relations practitioner should be able to practice visual storytelling.
Today’s multi-media journalist is expected to “do-it-all.” When motion and sound are important, you well choose video. When emotion in the voice is important, you may choose still pictures with a soundtrack. You may use words and pictures in print and a video or slideshow with audio on the web.
Students historically have entered the School of Journalism with a preference for what they want to do in their careers. Those intended careers have had a presumed skill set, and, to a certain extent continue to do so. But, the silos that separated journalists who produced in words from journalists who produced in images and sound are dissapearing.
Students who enter the School of Journalism today must recognize that the communications world today requires you to acquire—and polish—as many skills as possible to be competitive. Aspiring writers have to be able to produce photojournalism, video story telling and multimedia presentations. Photographers have to be able to gather information and present that information in words. You may not excel in all areas, but you have to be professionally competent in all. The job market now will tolerate no less.
The most important aspect of communication—knowing how to report a good story—is the same regardless of the technology you plan to use to tell that story. You must know how to sell story ideas to editors. Don’t wait to be told what to do. Create your own assignments. Journalists with ideas become indispensable. Those who wait to be told what to do will join the ranks of the unemployed.
Technology enables you to produce the story for the appropriate distribution channel. But, technology cannot make the decisions. Without your brain, technology cannot produce a good story. Too often, journalism majors are naïve about what is going on in the university, city, nation and world.
This course begins your exploration of visual communication skills but does not develop them fully. Other journalism courses will give you the opportunity to practice these skills and develop them to a higher level. You get better by continuous practice. Writing improves with practice in writing. Story-telling in images gets better by shooting.
This course will help you “see” where you formerly only “looked.” Seeing is a process of taking in, and remembering, both macro and micro detail in a scene. You become aware of how a person is dressed, whether perfume is present and what scent, whether the man was clean-shaven. whether the hair is wind-blown, etc.
Really looking at what is around you will make you both a better photographer and writer.
Your own education
You will find a new emphasis in the School of Journalism on making sure you are a partner in your own education.
We will teach you fundamentals of good journalism, the foundation for your future. But, you will have to learn how to teach yourself in the currency of journalism.
You will have to explore self-education of software packages on your own. What we cover in journalism classes is only a beginning. The campus provides free software courses and you should explore them. You must learn software as a component of your professional development and preparation for your career. You will continually have to learn the tools of your trade as ongoing homework.
When you leave here, if you have invested in your education, you will leave with current tools and the knowledge of how to continue to educate yourself. But, remember this: The communications world is changing so rapidly that the currency of your education in technology will be dated within a year or less. That is why you have to learn how to teach yourself to remain competitive.
Learning Style
Some cognitive psychologists suggest that half of us learn better when material is presented visually. The groundbreaking eye-track studies conducted by the Poynter Institute show how important visuals are in print and on the web. In a newspaper, readers’ eyes move first to a photograph, then to the photo caption, and then to the headline. This is the point where writers’ impressions of how their stories are read diverge from data. Writers think that readers read their stories from the beginning to the end.
They don’t.
Frequently, after the first few paragraphs, the reader moves on to another photograph and another story. The inverted pyramid style of writing actually conditions the reader NOT to read the story completely. The essential information is in the first few paragraphs.
Strong writing with multiple photographs about a compelling topic can help move readers to the end of the story. Compelling visuals with sound will hold reader attention on the web.
Developing the story line
A visual journalist’s attention will be torn from one focus to another. If you are writing your notes, you can’t make pictures at the same time. If you are shooting video, and your eyes see a great still picture, too bad. (Technically, it is now possible to pull a publishable still from video but the quality is not yet comparable to a good still camera.) If you are holding a recorder for sound, you can’t be making video or stills.
It is a little like triage in medicine. You make judgments in the field about what you should be doing and when. Yes, you will make errors of judgment but you will do the best you can. If your job requires both writing and multimedia, you will gather the information, pictures and sound you need. You will put the story together using what you have, not what you would have had if three assistants and two interns were helping you.
Be open to change
When you leave for an assignment, you may have done some preparation or someone else may have done it for you. Sometimes, even often, the situation on the scene is not as expected.
You have to deal with what is, not what was expected. This often means improvising in the field. You may have to go to a hardware store and get raw materials to make and mount a remote camera system on a helicopter as I once did as a college student. Rethink problems into opportunities.
Just “G-R-Done,” as Larry the Cable Guy would say.