Catching Up

Backpack Journalism:  

  Upon hearing of MU's journalism program my senior year of high school I instantly knew I had to visit Mizzou.  After learning about the Convergence program I was sold.  My goal for the past two years has been to become the ultimate journalist or (in my mind) a Convergence Journalist.

Having the technological skills to create a web page, the writing expertise to develop and edit a story, and the artistic knowledge to take great footage make a convergence journalist extremely valuable.  In this job market having skills that advance you beyond the majority of your peers has become almost necessary for a person to get any type of decent job.  I feel that Mizzou's convergence program suits the new era of journalism that has slowly taken over most of (if not all) news stations.

In Martha Stone's article she worries that journalist won't be able to deliver the feast a great multimedia package can offer if done by several people who all specialize in their personal fields.  While this may be true, I agree with Jane Stevens who believes that convergence journalists will specialize, but the story will determine how they deliver the news not their skills set.  I think Mizzou's program, which allows a person to choose their emphasis (or specialty) is well suited for the new market of multimedia journalism.

Multimedia Award Winning Pictures:

I thought "A Third Tour of Duty" in the Best Multimedia Story or Essay was extremely well done.  The title caught my eye when I was scrolling through the winners.  My friend's brother is on his third tour in Iraq and the title hit home with me.  I can completely understand why this story won.  To begin with the story was packaged extremely well.  The opening page is actually a clip, that pauses on the stories main character.  I think that is impressive.  Their use of map graphics, tabs outlining the story, and photo gallery put this story over the top.  The story is an emotional trigger for many people experiencing similar situations.  Overall, this story was excellent and something to shoot for in my own journalism.

photos

The spot news photos caught my eye more than any of the slideshows or other photos because of their "rawness". I was wondering if and where the photos were published... If they were I am sure that there had to have been a huge backlash against the person taking the photos and the media outlet that published it.

The photo with a severed head is the most disturbing, but the one with the little girl covered in the blood of her dead parents is by far the best one. It has so many different things to it; the little girl, the bottom half of a soldier, his gun, the light on his gun, the blood on the ground as well as the little girl, and the room itself in being pitch black beside the light on the gun. I was wondering if the photographer even had his flash on when he took the photo because it doesn't look like he did which is a good idea because it would have ruined the "naturalness" of the situation in the room.

Multimedia Stories...

Multimedia storytelling is so interesting because there are so many ways to do it. Maybe there is a difference in scope, but the USATODAY.com Award of Excellence story “Johnny Holiday: Finally Acting His Age” was very simple compared to some of the other stories. And by simple I don’t mean simple to do, the photos were beautiful and it was a nice story—but there was only one option, to watch the flash video (I’m guessing flash, I have no idea). I think sometimes multimedia stories try too hard to have too many elements and it seems that you could either overwhelm someone and they won’t know where to go, and potentially you’ll lose people—or people will be so enthralled in the story they’ll stay on the site forever. I think it just depends on the story.

Hopping Forward

Looking at a picture of a young girl playing hopscotch might seem like a typical situation. Thats what I love about this picture entitled "Spirit" of Bintu Amara. Bintu, though, is anything but ordinary. Different elements in the picture seem to portray pieces of her experience.
Her crutch shows that she is still leaning on others for help. The landscape shows that she is now in a better place, safe from the harm of her past. The fact that she is playing a "mean game of hopscotch" shows that she is overcoming her injuries physically and is hopping forward to what is to come positively.
This picture really shows her whole story, inside and out. Her spirit is still in tact, though her body may not be.

Role reversal

Yannis Kontos' picture "Polaris", which one first place for a magazine feature picture, is one of the most powerful pictures I have ever seen. It is able to capture a single moment in the very large issue of Sierra Leone's civil war. This picture puts a human face on something that many people may only read about or hear briefly on the news, but do not feel like it really affects them.

I like this picture because it shows a very caring moment, but a moment created by a horrible act. A child is helping his father button his shirt, but only because the father’s hands have been cut off by soldiers of the RUF. The two switch roles in this picture. The son takes care of his father in this way, as the father is no longer able to take care of himself.

Photography... (lame i know)

I loved Alison Yin’s Down at the Barber Shop and the World Understanding multimedia picture of the year photo. The World Understanding photo is calming yet very foreign to me. The Barber Shop photos are entertaining and describe a small town lifestyle that I am unfamiliar to. Anyone who watches that slide show cannot help but smile at some point.  I do not like to heavily analyze photos, but I do believe it is important to understand the photographer’s artistic purpose.

  Part of the reason I joined convergence journalism is because I love shooting photography. My favorite type of photography to shoot is urban photography and nature. I have been compiling a portfolio and a photo book for the last 2 years. Hopefully sometime this year, I will finish and publish my book. 

Photographs of another world

I really liked looking at all the photos and wondering what they were or what story could be behind them before reading the captions. I personally love photography because its a medium which many can create news without deception, confusion, etc. When you write a story, you have to be sure it can be understood from all different points of view, groups, etc. (This is the challenge that keeps me motivated to be a writer). However, with a photo, it's right there, in your face news. You just have to write a caption to put it in a time and place. I took family photos at Sears off and on for about 3 years and there's nothing like capturing a moment. I had to make sure every family had a photo that captured something creatively, even if it took more than the 12 frames I was allowed.

My favorite photographer would have to be Tamas Dezso. He captured so many different perspectives throughout his photo album. It was absolutely astonishing. My favorite photo would have to be the one of the vandalized mannequin. I was thinking, these are journalistic photos, not art....why would they have photoshopped a picture. Then, I read the caption and thought...wow. And that's all I have to say about that.