There are many ways for journalists to enhance storytelling with the use of online multimedia tools without having to learn a lot of new skills. That was the message of Seattle-based independent journalist Daniel Lathrop’s presentation at the Association of Health Care Journalists' annual conference in Seattle. Lathrop presented a range of online tools helpful when incorporating photography, video and sound into storytelling. He also talked about networking sites that enable journalists to increase the size of their audience.
For presentations that incorporate sound, video and slide shows, Lathrop recommended two free, user-friendly online programs: Slide Rocket and Vuvox. Both enable users to upload and link their presentations to media libraries, such as Flickr and Picasa, and sync them with sound effects.
Soundslides, another program used for creating presentations incorporating pictures and audio, charges users a fee – approximately $40 for a basic subscription and $70 for a professional version. For the money, Lathrop said, Soundslides offers more advanced options than Slide Rocket, particularly when it comes to incorporating audio.
Photoshop Express is an online version of the photo editing software, Photoshop. It allows users to upload, touch-up, crop, size, sharpen and add special effects to photos online.
Dipity.com gives users an easy way to create multi-media timelines. Users can upload photos, videos and links to websites, and embed them in a timeline that shows the chronology of an event. Timelines are comprised of feed or user account content from sites such as Picasa, Twitter, WordPress, Flickr, and Blogger. Users can also add a Google map, a link to another site, and even Youtube videos to their timeline.
Lathrop also stressed the importance of utilizing social and news bookmarking sites to boost traffic to a website, blog or other works. The goal when using services such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsvine, and StumbleUpon is to create an online network of people so that when you write and post a story, it can be bookmarked and the attention of your network will be drawn to the piece. “If you are doing a blog or a lot of work aimed at an online audience, using these services and recommending them to other people is almost guaranteed to get a nice boost in traffic,” Lathrop explained.
Although none of the services Lathrop discussed require technical savvy to reap their benefits, he recommended four sources for learning more about how to use online tools. Journalismtraining.org, iTunes University, YouTube, and Lynda.com all offer opportunities for journalists to get free or inexpensive expert instruction on almost any subject or tool imaginable.
