CoPress

Updated: Dec. 16 7:18 p.m. We mistakenly referred to the Kodzk Zi6 as having an external microphone input jack. The Zi8, which costs $50 more, is the model we should have mentioned.

Yesterday Nielsen reported that video streaming online is up 17 percent for November, but of the top online brands for video, not one was a news site. While this statistic is not necessarily surprising, it’s just another reminder that news has room for improvement for online video — and student news orgs are no exception.

Video kit on less than $200

The basics for high-quality video production don’t have to leave you broke. Fairly high quality video can be produced with inexpensive products. A basic video kit can be put together for less than $200.

1. $99 – Kodak Zi6HD $150 – Kodak Zi8: We recommend this camera over the FlipCam because it has an external mic input and it shoots in HD. For those on a larger budget, a Sony Handycam is a good, inexpensive camcorder.
2. $26 – Lapel microphone: Audio is one of the most important elements of the overall video production and built-in mics hardly ever do the trick. Lapel mics can be used almost universally in a pinch — you can even tape them to podiums. At all costs you want to avoid the echos and ambient noise that any camera’s built-in mic will produce. You might also want to consider buying an XLR adapter, which allows you to plug in to the audio system at most public events.
3. $15 – Tripod: Nothing says amateur like shaky video. For crisp, clean shots, a basic tripod is a must.

Both Windows and Mac operating systems come with free video software — Windows Movie Maker and iMovie, respectively. Both are more than capable of producing single-camera news stories and adding features like lower thirds. Without spending any money on software, they are probably your best bet. A free option for PC users is Pinnacle’s Video Spin software.Something that might be an option in the future is a product called Stroome, which is still currently in beta. It is a Web-based video editing tool that seeks to make video production a collaborative process. The interface needs work right now, but the platform will surely become more stable as more versions are released. USC’s Annenburg School of Journalism has already signed a license with the program to start using the software in its classrooms.

Building effective archives

Being able to shoot and edit video is only half the battle. Presenting it in a manner easy for your users to find and navigate through is one area where college news orgs can improve. Lessons can be learned from YouTube, where on average, users spend upwards of an hour a month streaming video. Perhaps one of the most effective techniques utilized by YouTube is the “related videos” box in the sidebar that keeps readers perpetually engaged. A few takebacks from YouTube’s interace that news sites can use:

• Ability to search for videos by keyword
• One-click access to play videos (without having to navigate back and forth between a landing page and posts)
• Permalinks for individual videos
• Ability to share individual videos via social media

Building archive functionality into WordPress takes a little extra handy work. One of the easier solutions is a video sharing service called blip.tv. Blip.tv offers several advantages to other video sharing Web sites:

• Full integration: You can customize blip.tv’s player to match your own branding — no third-party logos on your video.
• Tools for dissemination: Using blip.tv you can post video on YouTube, Vimeo and Flickr, notify your Facebook and Twitter followers, and you can even have it add a new post in WordPress.
• Revenue Sharing: You can choose whether or not your videos have advertisements, and what kind of advertisements to show (preroll, overlay and postroll). If you choose to allow ads, you will receive 50 percent of revenue from them — a good deal if you consider that major news sites are relying on video more than ever for revenue.

You can create a custom video player with the sidebar turned on in order to provide one-stop access to all your videos, or you can use the RSS feed to create a list of clickable thumbnails.

If you want to keep everything in-house an option is the JW Player. JW Player is more customizable than blip.tv’s player — for example, it allows the playlist to appear at the bottom — but you can’t add advertisements unless you’re willing to pay for the product. One option is to use the RSS feed from blip.tv in the JW Player, which would allow for ease of use and maximum customization. If you decide to use the JW Player exclusively, the Flash Video Player plugin makes embedding videos much easier.

Examples of effective video landing pages

The New York Times’ video landing page is very YouTube-like in nature, displaying popular video clips in the right sidebar and a description below the player. The NYTimes dedicates an entire subsection of its main site to multimedia and video. Sharing videos is easy with quick links below the player.

The Daily Pennsylvanian uses a slick overlay system that plays videos with the one-click ease. The Pennsylvanian uses the aforementioned JW Player to play the videos. There are also permalinks to each video, which is where users can comment.

The Daily Kansan, a publication running the Django-based Ellington CMS, has a nice page layout, but clicking on one of the thumbnails takes you to an article page, which does not include any links to related video.

Max Cutler, Web developer at the Yale Daily News and Courant News, recently started a forum topic about presenting multimedia on a student news site that we’ve been meaning to start a conversation around. The YDN recently launched a new landing page for their multimedia that offers a much more graphic view. What’s your reaction to how the page presents different type of media? Is it better to have content organized by topic or content type? What’s your ideal multimedia browsing experience? Weigh in on the thread!

This week, CoPress directors Daniel Bachhuber, Andrew Spittle, Lauren Rabaino and Adam Hemphill are attending the National College Media Convention in Austin, Texas. These are reports from the field. For more updates, follow the conversation on Twitter.

In the “Multimedia Storytelling” session, presented by photojournalist David Stephenson, the Canon 5D Mark II was showcased as a tool to solve the problems faced by today’s visual journalists. To that end, Stephenson began the session by highlighting his 5D Mark II tip sheet, later showcasing pieces produced by his team at kentucky.com. Included herein are some notable quotes and notes from the 50-minute presentation. Read more →

10000 Words gives us a list of top college newsorg sites, more from the perspective of what content they offer than the design, but its good to see what some of the best are doing.

Ideas: lots of infographics, blogs, and user interactivity.

The big news this week was Google’s Eric Schmidt and his speech to the NAA, where he told newspaper executives a rather radical (to them, at least) business model includes “not pissing off the readers.” Of course, the speech was not well received by many new media leaders who wanted Schmidt to take a more of a stance on the AP and newspaper’s reluctance to accept new media.

Around the Network

Discussion in the forum was pretty good this week, with Joey soliciting questions for its FAQ page.

Some interesting questions that are likely to make the list:

• Will you have control of my site’s design or do I get admin access to the back end?
• How long will the transition take from College Publisher to Wordpress?
• Is CoPress building a content management system (CMS)?
• How is CoPress different than a CMS, and why is this necessary?
• How did CoPress get started?

Also on the forum, Greg asked what schools are using for e-mail newsletter and alerts. It seems, at least, from responses in the forum that Feedburner is still a common option.

Mo Jangda said, “From a content delivery standpoint, we haven’t really used subscription or newsletter services. I’ve always relied on the idea that FeedBurner has got us covered since it has email email subscription built-in — though I imagine we’d be better served actually publicizing that by having a subscription box in the sidebar of our home page.”

Lauren Rabiano asked a question that addresses a common problem in newspapers everywhere, “How do you deal with people who think backwards (espeically when they’re the people who control your money)? You can’t just ignore them or hope that they’ll “get it” sometime soon. How can you show them and change their minds? And can you do it alone?”

Read more →

This post is a behind-the-scenes look at how the Amherst Wire team produced Economic Stimulus 101, an example of deep-information journalism in an online multimedia format.

>Why deep-information journalism?

The Internet is awash with information that is, too frequently, miles wide and only inches deep. News organizations add to the problem when they bombard readers with commodity news (only the “facts and updates,” says the AP’s 2008 study on news consumption, as opposed to depth and breadth).

Deep-information journalism is one way to balance out shallow coverage by providing context, background and analysis for topical issues. BBC’s Special Reports accomplishes this with a clean design that encourages exploration. News wikis are another promising development that would achieve a similar goal if implemented well.

Economic Stimulus 101: The project

At the Amherst Wire, we wanted to turn an analytical lens on the federal economic stimulus bill that passed last month and capture various aspects of the questions and debates surrounding it. We also hoped to frame the topic in a broader context including historical parallels and general economic theory distilled into simple terms.

To do so, we interviewed six professors (five in economics and one in entrepreneurship) from UMass Amherst and Mt. Holyoke College, edited the videos into short clips, and arranged them by subject in an online guide.

1. Preparation

We did extensive research and planning before setting up the interviews so that we would know the right questions to ask. This was particularly important when tackling a topic as complex as the U.S. economy — we had a lot of ground to cover, but at the same time, didn’t want to stray too far afield.

During the preparatory stages, we compiled a FAQ about the stimulus package from students blogging for a journalism class. This gave us an idea of what college students were wondering about the bill and shaped some general themes that ended up in the final project.

2. In-person interviews

To land interviews with professors, we simply scanned department contact lists and sent e-mails to faculty whose areas of expertise lined up with our topic. Out of maybe twenty professors contacted, six replied saying they were interested. We sent our questions in advance to give them time to prepare, and then conducted the interviews in their offices over the course of two weeks.

Each interview lasted 30-45 minutes and covered areas the professor was most familiar with. We didn’t follow a strict Q&A format or ask the questions in any particular order, but let the interview unfold more like a discussion. We would be reorganizing everything in the editing room later, anyway. Read more →