Multimedia and more

Recently, I’ve been listening to a lot of This American Life. It’s a radio show that comes on public radio’s WBEZ Chicago. I don’t live in Chicago, or anywhere else where it broadcasts, so I listen to the podcast on my daily commute. You can listen to their podcast either from iTunes or via their Web site here: http://thislife.org (It’s so much better if you can get it on an iPod or mp3 player of some sort. No one listens to radio from a Web site)

The reason why I bring up this show, is because they have an incredibly gifted way of telling stories. They have perfected the narrative of a story unlike anything else I’ve seen. Each of their stories enraptures the mind and single-handedly turns my commute to one of experiencing a riveting feature film.

Just take this one story called Life After Death about people dealing with a death they inadvertently caused. Or for something a little less tragic, try The Break-Up. A story about what it’s like to go through the one event that most people have gone through at one time or another. The second story in that show is even more incredible. Listen to either of these, or some of the other more compelling shows on their site, and any person can see the power of storytelling.

I guess what I’ve learned from This American Life is that the narrative is not dead. We’ve just forgotten about it. With the glitz and glamor of multimedia, we often lose sight of the part that matters most; the content. And this is coming from a Flash Instructor who advocates the need for stronger design and user-interface principles in most news packages. Sure, those things are important too, but we need to think more about the narrative arc, and weaving a person through a linear story.

Now, I know what most people think when I say this — ‘we DO think about the story, it’s ALL we think about.’ But I think we become so infatuated with what the story is, we lose sight of how we tell that story.

Okay, maybe that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but to give an example, some of the best qualities of stories involve words like like “texture” that part of the story that allows me to feel through senses other than my eyes. Or how about “surprise;” giving me a sense of suspense or tension and surprising me with something I could never have expected. Or how about “dimension” or “perspective;” there is nothing better than a story that completely turns my naive perceptions and assumptions completely upside down and opens my eyes to a larger world.

These are the qualities that screen writers or novelists take a person through. Why shouldn’t they apply more to journalism? In fact, we have a distinct advantage because our stories are real. And even more so, we’re dealing with a brand new medium. One that is incredibly flexible and capable to do things storytellers  could never do before. Novelists can’t get immediate feedback from their readers, and screenwriters can’t give their viewers choices about how they want to navigate a feature film. Multimedia, I believe, can tell stories unlike anyone has ever experienced. Check out The Oregonian’s Living to the End and tell me that story could have the same effect as only a print piece, a TV piece or even a radio piece. It’s everything that makes it so riveting. Seeing the comments, the photos, the stories… the whole package. And that’s just one example

The possibilities are endless.

Clay Felker died to day. The pioneer of the print magazine was immoralized by the New York Times in one of their classic obituary style articles, written in the only way the NY Times knows how.

But, what fascinated me the most when reading about Felker’s life, was his persistence during the 60s to reinvent this medium of journalism in the face of the burgeoning TV broadcast news industry. I think the New York Times put it best in this paragraph:

“New York [Magazine's] mission was to compete for consumer attention at a time when television threatened to overwhelm print publications. To do that, Mr. Felker came up with a distinctive format: a combination of long narrative articles and short witty ones on consumer services. He embraced the New Journalism of the late ’60s — the use of novelistic techniques to give reporting new layers of emotional depth.” – NY Times Felker (July 1, 2008)

I couldn’t help but realize the connotations to what is happening today with digital media. As the cacophony of Internet publishers, bloggers, PR firms, social networks and everyone else (and their brothers) overwhelm the traditional print format, no one seems to really be stepping up and saying: Let’s reinvent storytelling to fit this new medium and establish it in the best way we know how.

As we have proselytized during every Knight workshop, the Internet should not be just another distribution platform for news; it’s a brand new medium fully capable of its own merit. It’s almost disheartening to see newspapers simply shoveling the same exact print stories that run in the newspaper straight to their Web site — and then ask why they can’t compete for attention.

It’s unusual because every other medium of news has adjusted the craft of storytelling to fit the medium its told in. Radio news isn’t some print story read over the air. Radio news reporters molded the craft of journalism for the spoken word. TV especially had to adjust their format to fit the medium of communication. But it seems like every industry these days simply shovels their stories online; whether they work for the medium or not.

In the same fashion that Felker defined the glossy pages of the magazine, the long-form narrative, the beautiful full-page advertisements, we need a pioneer to come along and truly define the Web for what it’s capable of producing. We need a news organization to serve as an example of what journalism can be on the Web. There are lots of great multimedia projects out there, but that’s just what they are: single pieces of great work. I would like to see an entire organization serve as a shining light to the rest of the industry; one that says, ‘Hey, we’re taking this thing seriously.’

Over the last few months I’ve been listening to podcasts during my morning and evening commutes. I’ve never been much of a podcast listener, but now that I have a 45 minute commute via BART train, I’ve turned into an avid listener, even an obsessed fan. I can’t leave home without my earphones, and if I do, I feel like I’ve wasted a precious morning that could have been spent enlightening my life.

I used to listen to the radio when I had a driving commute at a previous job, but this time I get to choose exactly which casts I want to listen to and in which order.

Lately I’ve been listening to Slate, NPR and a few others. Just so many of the segments are incredible. I actually feel rejuvinated when hearing a great piece that opens my eyes to larger world we live in. Most of the time I’m left intrigued.

So why is podcasting still a small niche in the total number of audio listeners? Well, logistics plays a big part. You need an mp3 player and, software to aggregate the casts. But more importantly you need time. Time to listen. No one actively turns on a radio to listens to news. Its a passive form of news consumption. You listen to it while doing something else, like driving or doing the dishes.

This question came up recently during a Knight multimedia workshop we were teaching at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Someone described podcasts as “radio without listeners” and my heart sank. How could this precious piece of daily enlightenment simply not exist in the lives of so many people. I suspect once cars become further integrated with iPod, this form of news consumption will become more and more widely used.

If you still don’t believe me, I challenge you to listen to the following cast and not be fully intrigued. It’s a piece from NPR’s Driveway Moments about a man trying to come to terms with a lobotomy he had when he was 12. I know, the topic sounds a bit weird, but this bit of audio is one of the most incredible pieces I’ve heard. The quick cross edits, the haunting voices, everything about it is so riveting I forget I’m listening to a news story. It’s 20 minutes long. You might not have the patience to listen to the whole thing sitting here on this blog (the reason why radio doesn’t work online), so remember you can always download the podcast.

Howard Dully\’s My Lobotomy piece from NPR\’s Driveway Moment

The Guardian reported recently that the BBC will be making its iPlayer software available on the iPhone and iPod Touch in the coming weeks. Many blogs/rumor sites are reporting that this is undoubtedly linked to Apple announcing its Software Development Kit (SDK) release at the end of February.

The iPlayer is simple enough. Stream all of the BBC content on the Web. Everyone is pretty much already doing this, except, the BBC is actually looking ahead to the future. They are trying to make their content available in as many venues as they can. Very soon everyone who owns an iPhone in Europe will know they can watch BBC content on their iPhones, and the BBC will undoubtedly see a jump in traffic. If they play their cards right, they will start offering other services to iPhone users like movie times, weather, stocks, etc. all through widgets or programs.

Now I use Apple’s iPhone as a reference, but I’m really speaking of mobile devices in general. I like to use the iPhone because I think it does serve as a rather interesting barometer given its popularity and capabilities (not to mention Google recently announced that iPhone searches on the internet are 50 times more than any other cell phone).

Pretty soon, the mobile computing platform will become ubiquitous. Some say in five years, others in two years. But no matter who you talk to, they all agree that mobile devices are the future. I’ve said it before, people today are in love with their cell phones. It’s their lifeline to the world, their method of personal communication. Now, it’ll be used as a platform for mass communication. The only question unanswered is who will be leading the charge? A Silicon Valley startup, or a news company?

I had a great conversation over lunch today with Paul Grabowicz, the director of new media at the graduate school of journalism, UC Berkeley. We talked about why media organizations simply cannot demand a premium for their online ads, no matter how many unique viewers come to their sites. Our conclusion, among the vast amount of possible reasons, was that the market is simply too saturated with possible ad venues.

Think about it: In the 80s and earlier, if you wanted to advertise your business, what were your options, really? Well, there were billboards and store signage, but the reality is you probably would have gone with newspapers, magazines or TV.

These days you can advertise just about anywhere. They are selling ads on airplanes, at the gas pump, and pretty soon your cell phone. (more on that later) The truth is the news media was too slow to adopt the Internet, so other companies sailed that ship first.

Really, it should have been a news organization that became the next eBay, craigslist, youTube or FaceBook. Now they are scrambling to catch up. But there is hope, and it’s emerging sooner than people think.

In two weeks a major cell phone manufacture will release a Software Development Kit (SDK) that will teach developers how to write programs for its handheld device. I speak of course about the iPhone. Not that software for cellphones is anything new. But this time the world is paying attention. Very soon the handheld market will explode. Already cellphones are a huge part of the lives of young people, and the capability of these devices to view Web sites is proliferating. For once, the journalism industry can look to the horizon and see the next big thing.

I once heard a talk at a journalism conference where a professor said the main advantage the newspaper has over the Internet was that he can fold it up, take it on the train, or take it to the bathroom. Well, it appears that issue is about to be solved. Will news companies sit idly by and watch this new technology emerge without their participation?

Already, the iPhone has a Web SDK and very few news organization are taking advantage of it. In fact, CBS news is the only news site that has offered an iPhone-specific version. And I can tell you this much: Just about every iPhone user knows about it because they are the only ones doing it. So far there are 5 million iPhone users — not a relatively large number. But the idea is right on. Be an early adopter and people will come to you first.

The NY Times could be building an iPhone news reader. Or maybe a program that would allow you to buy books from their best seller list. Already Apple has given advanced copies of its SDK to a photo company which will automatically print photos you take with your iPhone and send them to you. There are possibilities out there for this one. Is the news industry going to let this one pass by?