Blogs and data draw readers

News organizations are in a constant battle for online traffic, but what actually works to draw readers? Blogs, live chats and interactive databases, according to industry leaders quoted by Editor&Publisher. Jennifer Carroll, vice president of new media for the Gannett newspaper division, told the annual Associated Press Managing Editors conference that searchable data is particularly [...]

Use a voiceover, already

Why do so many news Web sites use full-screen text instead of voiceover narration for video and slide shows? Angela Grant, multimedia producer at the San Antonio Express-News, believes “producers are afraid of using voiceovers because they are ‘like TV.’” Her rant at NewsVideographer.com is right on the money. “For god’s [...]

Natural sound matters

Natural sound makes stories come alive. It lets viewers experience something close to what it was like to witness a story in person. A story without nat sound is flat and dull. Want proof? Watch this video from former TV reporter Mark Poepsel, who now teaches at the University of Arizona:

From infotoys to BOPs

Journalists have more options than ever to tell great stories online. But even as multimedia skills become more sophisticated, newsrooms are focusing on just a handful of approaches because they seem to be most effective. That’s the conclusion of a terrific review in OJR by Nora Paul and Laura Ruel of the [...]

Hyperlocal maps

How can you share data quickly and easily online? KHOU-TV in Houston, Texas, used simple PDF maps. Reporter Mark Greenblatt says in The IRE Journal that his station didn’t have time to buy mapping software or train the Web staff to use it, so they created PDF files of neighborhood maps showing where [...]

This is the future

If you’re going to succeed in journalism today you need to know how to tell stories visually. Don’t just take our word for it. Listen to working journalists like Jennifer Lin, a staff writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer.