Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Storytelling: Slideshow


Reporting news is not all about writing on paper. News story can be presented in many ways, especially true in the era of multimedia and online journalism.

News can be presented with just a single, tell-it-all photo or video. But today I learned about using slideshow (with/without audio) to report the news.

Some news outlet will just build an online gallery for certain news topic. Some choose to add audio (narration, music, interview) in it. Regardless the ending output, slideshow can be a strong reporting tool.

One example I found in the Internet is a slideshow at the Seattle Times about Black Friday shopping in 2010

The slideshow, created by Associated Press in 2010, was published at the Black Friday. It gives an element of news story: timeliness.

In a way, the slideshow tells the audience the process of the biggest shopping day in the U.S. It starts by showing pictures of people lining (read: camping) up the night before the shops were opened. It then proceeds to pictures of the busy cashiers and shopkeepers, customers with trolley full of goods. It ends with people moving their items into cars.

The slideshow also tells the audience that despite the recession, people’s buying power did not decline. In fact, some customers pay with cash. It questions if the Americans are really affected by recession.

The narration helps the audience understanding the message in a better way. Should it was just a gallery of photos, it wouldn’t be so informative. The narrator tells the audience what the photos are about, what is behind them.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Social Media + Journalism = New School


Your need to write something for your journalism classes but running out of story ideas.

You scroll down your Facebook wall to see what’s going on in your friend circle. Some of them have just read some online article from news outlets.

Still stuck, you turn to your smartphone, reading what is trending on Twitter.

As the invasion of social media and the needs of information are continuing to grow, news providers have to transform the ways news is delivered.

Triggered by the global economy crisis in 2008, some news corporations decided to shut down their print production and focused on delivering news online.

As journalism students, we are left with tons of opportunities to shape the future of new-school journalism. Hence, the more versatilities we have, the more chances we can survive as the new era of journalism is not just about reporting stories in print but also empowering multimedia: pictures, slideshows, videos, animations, crowdsourcing.

You recalled your instructor suggesting using social media for your reporting medium. But what can you do with them? On the other side, what should you do to maintain your professional reputation?

Almost all do’s apply to your online reporting. Maintain your independent stand as the fourth estate. Displaying all the groups you join might give the sense of your political or religious positions. Posting too many personal stuffs (oh-I-was-drunk-in-a-party-last-weekend posts) might hurt your professional reputation.

However, don’t act too distant. Interacting with your readers through comments or retweeting is a must. You don’t want the readers think they are reading a computer-generated news outlet, especially if you are using blog or Twitter as the medium.

Be critical in gathering information. Don’t just take the information right away. Any body can say anything online! Check if it comes from credible sources. Go to the original webpage to double check.

Another good feature of social media is transparency. Be sure to be open on the sources. You don't want to be like Gailen David, a former flight attendant sued by American Airlines. American Airlines sued him on revealing confidential information. He revealed in his parody videos some confidential information but refused to tell his sources.

Last but not least, use the social media as your reporting tools but always be skeptical as a journalist.

Happy reporting!



Wednesday, April 11, 2012

A Day with The Seattle Times


I had a rewarding opportunity to do a job shadow with Mike Siegel, photographer at The Seattle Times last Friday.

It was all started from my search for internship opportunity as part of the scholarship program.
I am a journalism student at Everett Community College and thought it might be a good learning experience to be able to intern in a big news company like The Seattle Times. So, I tried my luck.

Apparently, there was no internship position at the time I applied. But in return, Jim Simons, one of the editors, offered me a one-day job shadow with their photographer.

I took it. At least, there would be something I could learn. I made the right decision.

So, Friday morning, I was at Seattle. The bus was surprisingly fast that I reached the place far earlier than I thought it would be.

I was supposed to meet Mike at 8 p.m. but apparently he had an assignment to cover a house fire at Mountlake Terrace happened the previous night.

While waiting, I was given a tour to the newsroom, which was so big. I should say that was my first experience being inside the real newsroom.

The staffs were friendly. There I learned how they update online stories and photos.
Then Mike came and I had a chance to see the process of a breaking-news photo went online. In real time.

Again, I was given another tour. This time, we went to all departments in the newspaper. It was so great to witness how people work in newsroom, how newspaper was produced.

At 10 a.m. I was invited to join Fred Nelson, photo editor, to editor meeting. It was not much different with my story idea meeting with the Clipper, only this was more serious and hi-tech.

There were two editor meetings in a day (10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.) in a room called fishbowl (because it was a room with glass wall).

The meeting was started with the presentation of readership of yesterday issue. Then, story ideas from each department for Saturday and Sunday edition. Everybody seems to have lots of stories running.

After that Fred explained to me about his job mediating the photographers and writers. Good stories should go with good photos and good photos deserve publication.

There was a breaking news: a Navy jet hit apartments in Virginia Beach, VA. Everybody was busy looking for more information and photos. Again, I witnessed another breaking news in process.

Soon, the news hit the top of a screen showing traffic of online readership.

We were supposed to have a photo session with Kenny G (yes, the saxophonist and he was from Seattle) but it was canceled.

My second press pass
However, we got another assignment to cover Sakura-Con 2012 at Washington State Convention and Trade Center at Downtown Seattle.

Mike contacted the event organizer, asking permission and press pass.  When everything was okay, we geared up. Shooting time!

It was another learning experience to observe how a professional photojournalist worked on the field. We shoot, took notes. I wish I had a camera with voice memo like the one Mike used. But never mind, I learned another way of recording information from him.

When we were done, I observed Mike working on his assignment: selection, editing, captioning.  Photos were sent and ready to publish.

That was pretty much the day.

Back to Everett, I had to work on my own photos and stories for the Clipper.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Haiku: A New Toy


Five – seven – five.
That’s the rule for haiku, a short form of Japanese poetry. Originally written in Japanese and following the language’s on (or morae) - a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, haiku has been modified and transferred to other language such as English.
One haiku consists of 17 on (or similar to syllables in English) and three lines. The first line has five on, the second line has seven on and the third line has five on. It can tell about anything, from kitchen utensils to political issues.
My Media Writing instructor first introduced haiku to me. Although she had discussed haiku in her previous quarter newswriting class, I’m more involved in haiku today because she assigned us to create haikus.
At the beginning, I found it hard to describe a thing in just three lines. It seemed to me that an object has many things to describe and three line wouldn’t be enough.
However, as I try to play with words and narrow down the descriptions, I’m addicted (literally).
My mind can’t stop thinking in five-seven-five until now, two hours after I finished writing my haiku.
Here are examples of my haiku:

Move from key to key
E – A – D – G – B and E
Pick the strings and sing

Let your pasta swim
Boiled water and olive oil
Add sauce, salt and cheese

Final penalty
Baggio failed scoring goal
Brazil got fourth cup

Slices, chunk or dice
Potatoes, tomatoes, meat

Cut them as you like

Haiku is so fun
Keep thinking five-seven-five
Why don't you write too?


Saturday, January 14, 2012

Segede Bagong Tingkat Dewa


Yeehaa….

Akhirnya, setelah sekian lama, aku memutuskan untuk menulis dalam bahasa keduaku, bahasa Indonesia tercinta (bahasa pertama, tentu saja Hokkian, sebagai keturunan Tionghua yang tinggal di Medan). Setelah melihat-lihat blogku, aku terhenyak karena hampir tidak ada tulisan dalam bahasa Indonesia. (What a shame! - abaikan)

Okay, Indonesian fellas (Haduh, otakkku, stop thinking in English!, - English brain: Ay, ay, Captain!)
Pagi ini, status (dan komentar-komentar di bawahnya) seorang teman di BukuWajah memberi ide untuk mulai menulis. Selagi masih pagi dan belum ada teman sekamar yang bangun, aku pun menulis (lebay!)

Oke (baca: baiklah). Statusnya berbunyi kurang lebih sebagai berikut :
“baru mengerti mengapa ibuku menyuruhku membawa tas segede bagong. Ternyata dia mau menitip barang yang lebih gede dari bagong.”
Temannya  bertanya, “bagong itu apa?”
Teman yang lain berkomentar, “bagong itu pig”
Teman pertama membalas, “loh, bukannya kodok ya?”

Haduh…. Tiba-tiba muncul pemikiran, seberapa sering kita pakai istilah gaul tanpa memahami asal-usul istilah tersebut (atau paling tidak memahami alasan kata-kata tertentu dipakai dalam bahasa gaul). Meskipun aku bukan pakar bahasa gaul (apalagi bahasa tak gaul), tapi aku berusaha mencari tahu supaya tidak terjadi salah pemakaian (pada konteks yang salah, atau penjelasan yang salah)

Oke (baca: baiklah). Mari kita tilik istilah “segede bagong” atau “segede gaban” (ini juga lumayan populer).

Gede = besar (dalam bahasa Betawi/Jawa) dan itu sudah lazim dipakai.

Mari kita tilik kata Bagong. Bagong bukan babi ataupun kodok, melainkan tokoh wayang. Ingat Petruk dan Gareng? Atau ingat acara Aneka Ria setiap hari Minggu di TVRI? (kalau ingat, sadar umur). Yep, Bagong adalah salah satu tokoh punakawan dalam wayang. Ciri fisiknya digambarkan sebagai bertubuh bulat dan besar. Bandingkan dengan Petruk yang cungkring. Mungkin ukuran tubuh yang hampir sama adalah Semar.  

Sementara itu, Gaban merupakan tokoh polisi robot dalam film “Space Cop Gavan/Gaban” (sedikit penjelasan, bahasa Jepang punya bunyi pengucapan terntentu yang tidak terpenuhi dalam pengucapan bahasa lain. Contohnya: vegetarian akan dibaca [bejitarian] atau Luffy dalam komik One Piece akan tertulis [Ruffy] dalam komik aslinya). Bagi mereka yang berusia remaja pada era 80’an 90’an, film Gaban sangat populer. Sekali lagi, Gaban digambarkan sebagai robot yang bisa menjadi raksasa (semoga aku masih ingat filmnya…)

Jadi, istilah “segede bagong/gaban” merupakan hiperbola, bahwa objek yang dimaksud memiliki ukuran yang besar luar biasa seperti ukuran Bagong atau Gaban. Mungkin lain kali, kita bisa menggunakan istilah “segede Monas” atau “segede Power Rangers” atau supaya terkesan lebih gaul: “segede Hagrid”.

Istilah lain yang juga sempat populer di dunia per-BukuWajah-an atau Pengicau (baca: Twitter) atau juga KurirBeriHitam adalah  “…. tingkat dewa.” (isi titik-titik dengan segala kata sifat yang terpikir).

Karena biasanya situs sosial berfungsi sebagai pelampiasan emosi negatif, maka status-status yang bertaburan juga biasanya menggunakan kata sifat negatif. Seperti: lapar/marah/sebel/bingung/emosi/kecewa/… tingkat dewa. Kemudian, seorang teman (ya, jangan tanya berapa banyak teman yang aku punya) berkomentar seperti ini: “capek aku lihat semua yang berakhiran tingkat dewa. Kalau dewa bisa marah, ga disebut dewa lagi.” Ups!

Oke (baca: baiklah). Mari kita tilik. Semua orang percaya bahwa dewa memiliki kemampuan lebih di atas manusia. Mungkin hampir semua manusia (yang mengenal kata dewa) ingin menjadi dewa. Namun, apakah dewa itu sesuatu yang sempurna? Tentu tidak (baca dengan gaya iklan obat cacing). Dewa-dewa dalam cerita Yunani kuno juga memiliki keburukan seperti manusia. Bahkan dewa-dewa dalam cerita di ktiab suci juga tidak sempurna (Lucifer, dkk). Dewa-dewa dalam cerita Tiongkok kuno juga tidak sempurna (lihat saja Panglima Tian Feng alias Ti Pat Kay). Namun, mereka semua memiliki persamaan : lebih hebat dari manusia.

Jadi, istilah tingkat dewa merupakan hiperbola bahwa tingkatan kata sifat yang dipakai melebihi tingkatan yang bisa ditahan oleh manusia. Tentu saja, istilah tersebut bisa dimodifikasi. Seorang teman menggunakan isitilah “tingkat nasional” yang lebih mudah dicerna. Lapar tingkat nasional berarti rasa laparnya tidak main-main lagi, sudah tingkat nasional.

Istilah berikut mungkin hanya diketahui segelintir orang karena setahuku istilah ini hanya digunakan dalam bahasa Hokkian dan ketika aku menggunakannya dalam bahasa Indonesia, teman dari daerah lain bertanya-tanya…. Mungkin percakapan berikut bisa menggambarkan situasi yang aku hadapi

Teman( sebut saja Tulang) : “Aduh, kepalaku sakit, nih.”
Aku : “Hah? Biasa aja kalee…”
Tulang: “Aduh, beneran aku ga bisa tahan lagi deh. Sakit bangeeeeetttt….”
Aku: “Walah, lebih sakit ga punya kepala tahu…”
Tulang: “Ih, apa sih???”

Oke (baca: baiklah). Tidak ada penjelasan asal usul kata di sini dan tidak ada hiperbola, melainkan sarkasme (lupa arti kata ini? Tanya guru bahasa Indonesia ya). Kadang-kadang orang mengeluh tentang sesuatu yang biasa saja. Sakit kepala. Yep. Seberapa sakit, sih? Kalau masih bisa jalan sana-sini, makan, masak dan kawan-kawan, ya masih bisa ditahan bukan. Daripada mengeluh terus, mending makan obat, istirahat, supaya sakitnya sembuh. Jadi, buat mereka yang suka mengeluh sakit kepala, misalnya, bayangkan mereka yang tidak punya kepala, tidak punya perut…. (amit-amit jabang orok – ada yang tau penjelasan istilah ini?)

Wah…. Ternyata saya lebih lancar berbacot dan mengetik dalam bahasa keduaku ini. Tiga halaman dalam waktu 50 menit! Beneran ukuran segede gaban tingkat dewa....