lavinch

Mark Stencel and Joel Sucherman from NPR, spoke to GMU students on March 1, 2012.
They discussed a variety of changes that radio industry is facing as a result of technological developments. Here are some of the key points from their speech;

1. Radio isn’t going away, it’s going everywhere
2. Digital media has had punishing impact on traditional media. Newspapers losing circulation, TV losing viewers. Radio strangely has been spared this. (Traffic is being one of the main reasons for it). So many people are locked in their cars, listening to the radio. And even that is starting to change.

3. Radio listening has been going up, but it recently plateaued and we have to assume that it will soon be affected in the similar matter as the rest of traditional media.
4. Audiences for digital media is very high during work hours.
5. Iphones changed everything. They are TVo for radio. Smart phones are the future for radio business.

6. Ipad are the entirely different audience. First place where weekend traffic is higher than weekday traffic, evening traffic is higher than work hour traffic. Therefore it requires different content, different mix of information.
7. Cars now come equipped with internet dashboards. They offer radio industry the opportunity to provide people with on demand experience to their listeners.
8. NPR never had to worry about photography, but being online, meant that they had to pay particular attention to imaging, therefore hire talented photographers.

9. # Social media is a very important tool for NPR. Tumblr, twitter and facebook are a good way of distributing news. Facebook accounts for 7% of NPR’s web traffic.

I attended a Photoshop CS5.5 IV workshop taught by Anthony R. The workshop took place on George Mason campus in Johnson Center

The workshop was amazing. I had some basic knowledge of Photoshop, but i never realized the degree to which it allows you to manipulate any given image.

Anthony taught us how to add elements to the original image, mix colors, work with 3D ojects and many more.

He also showed us several Photoshop disasters made by the most skilled Photo Shop professionals.

As with good writing, good photo editing also requires a great deal of attention to detail.

Chapter 6 of Journalism Next focuses on visual story telling.

“Journalism without photographs is like writing without verbs” Briggs says.

Digital cameras are a lot easier to use than the traditional film ones. There is no longer an excuse not to be familiar with the basics of composition and how to operate a camera.

The chapter explained some important concepts and gave definitions of terminology such as pixels and megapixels.

It also explained basic camera functions, such as zoom, delete etc. It also gave several tips about how to capture images in different environments and of various objects. It provided me with very valuable advice on how to edit the images. Some advice was as basic as cropping the picture, and some was as advance as re-sizing, and manipulating the images with Photoshop.

On Feb. 21, 2012 Mark Potts spoke to our class about drastic changes that are taking place in journalism.
Throughout his presentation he has made a several important points:

1. Since the invention of internet news has become a plentiful commodity.
2. Only unique products can be successful.
3. Newspapers are no longer the sole source of news.
4. Internet resulted in declining circulation, which in turn decreased ad revenue for print media.
5. The old business models for news are irrevocably broken.
6. Future is now.
6. Media and broadcast doesn’t work as well as it used to. Movie and music business is about to be wiped out.
7. A smart phone is a newsroom in the palm of your hand
**We’re in a golden age of journalism. There is more journalism being commuted in more ways by more people than ever before.**

For more information please follow GMU Journalism on twitter.

I am getting ready to graduate from George Mason University in May of this year. I am a Communication major with concentration in PR and a journalism minor.

I will be pursuing my masters in Marketing at either George Washington or Georgetown University starting this fall.

I don’t have a blog, but I am heavily into social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. I also enjoy Instagram and i have recently discovered Pinterest which is pretty awesome.

I am a huge football fan, and i also keep up with college basketball and NBA.

If there is anything else that you would like to know, feel free to ask.

In Chapter 5 of Journalism Next which is titled “Going Mobile”, Briggs addresses the importance of the technological developments and how they have revolutionized the way the news are reported.
He focuses on the smart phones in particular.

Smart phones features such as digital and video cameras have now replaced photographers and camera crew, and enabled professional journalists as well as amateur bloggers to inform their audience within minutes of the event .

This ability, along with apps such as Twitter , Facebook and Pinterest created a whole new field, known to us as mobile reporting. “Journalists can report in any medium, from anywhere, anytime and their deadline is always the same: right now.”

Mobile reporting enabled us to have access to a variety of information. It eliminated gatekeepers, therefore anyone can become a reporter with just a few clicks. This also has its negative aspects. It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish legitimate information from false statements from unreliable sources. Images now also can be manipulated, which creates the necessity to carefully examine each photo.

This chapter provided me with a variety of tips on how to become an effective mobile reporter and how to improve, in case you are one already. It also listed several publishing options which i found very useful.

• Journalists in 1982 used wire speak “twitter lingo” because they were charged per character.
• Black and white pictures used to take 15 minutes to transmit, color pictures used to take 45 minutes.
• First laptop had 4 lines in the display. However, it did not have any paper. It came with acoustical cups, they would plug into the side of it, then the phone headset would attach to them, and then you would be online. Could not do audio or video on it.
• The traditional process – event>reporter>copy editor>section editor/show producer>managing editor>reader (5 filters). Currently you are capable of bypassing the entire process event>anyone with the internet access>reader.
• Images can be easily manipulated, readers as well as reporters have to use their best judgment to differentiate  genuine images from those that are not.
• Industry has to fight to explain the value of credibility to its consumers.
• it always pays to err on the side of transparency
• Undefined content is losing value. Clearly defined content is gaining value.

[View the story “New Story” on Storify]