Thoughts on Multimedia Journalism

By Douglas Muehlman

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Conrad Connor, above, loves his job at the Cold Stone Creamery. According to Connor, chocolate is the most popular ice cream flavor there.

The Cold Stone Creamery has been serving up ice cream in the Columbia area for decades. In addition to its sweet desserts, it also provides jobs, particularly for college students. Conrad Connor has been working there for two years, and would recommend the job to anyone.

“My favorite part of the job is the interesting people I meet," says Connor.

He also mentions the duties of the job are simple and fun.

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This excellent Verge article hooks you in right off the bat with a very engrossing, descriptive text piece on the feeling of being hit by a taser. At the top of the page is a stark black-and-white photograph that looks like a suspect being tazered. As the descriptive paragraph finishes, a stunning and well-made video is embedded across the page. After you watch (if you choose) there is more text followed by a picture slideshow compiled with frames from the video. The slideshow follows your scrolling through the page, really grabbing your attention and allowing easy interaction. Throughout the entire story, smaller embedded pictures in the side can be moused-over to reveal a full-size image. Perhaps most importantly, the interactivity does not get in the way of the content; the reader is very free to explore and read the whole story without being required to view any particular aspects, a turn-off for many. 

The story as a whole is well-done, but the layout and interactivity really amplifies its impact. Many comments at the top of the comments section applaud The Verge for it, and deservedly so. 

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It's Good to Worry

In one of the earlier lectures for this course, the speaker (whose name, unfortunately, I cannot at this moment recall) said something to the effect of this: "The best creative people never think their work is good enough, they're always striving to improve." 

While I had kind of known this before — in high school, many artists would harshly critique their own work, which I thought was wonderful — it didn't really hit me until tonight's lab.  Several audio slideshows were played whose authors thought weren't any good, even though everyone else disagreed. What makes these pieces good and their creators among the best isn't necessarily anything in the story — it stems from the author. By virtue of their worry and hard work, the piece becomes something much better than it otherwise would have been. If your work isn't good enough in your own eyes, if you're not satisfied with it, you'll keep improving and doing better time after time. This drive, this ambition, is what truly separates the best from the rest. 

Hopefully I can keep my own ego in check and keep striving to be the best — while I had serious doubts about the quality of my slideshow, the only negative comment on my piece was on an underexposed photograph. 

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Work Smart, Not Hard.

None of the major brand names out there have incredibly intricate, detailed, or particularly symbolic design elements — and everything from this video can also be applied to multimedia journalism, after a fashion. KISS — Keep It Simple, Stupid — is your best bet. Universal appeal is crucial for journalism, particularly with the deluge of information available today. You have to stand out, and keep things interesting, or nobody will pay attention to you. 

All in all a pretty nice vid and only 2:43, check it out and leave a comment!

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Marketers are becoming media and producing their own content, as evidenced in this post on reddit (originally posted to Instagram)

Reddit's general reaction: http://i.imgur.com/z5tEc0t.gif

Top comment as of this writing: "not getting real tired of your shit, oreo" piggybacked by "Really appreciating your target advertising, oreo". 

This concept isn't just theoretical or based on projections, it's happening, right now, to great results, in terms of engagement and customer appeal. It made it to the front page of the entire site, 

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This brilliantly designed interactive page (click the title) brings you the story behind its musical elements, and allows you to manipulate them to your pleasure. It seamlessly integrates its ulterior motive, the product, without being annoying at all — in fact, I went ahead and shared it via Facebook, as have roughly 2,000 others.

I'd like to add that its interactivity is key here. Everything demands our attention online now, and a story can only hold viewers for so long; videos in particular are something many would prefer to skip. A ten minute video is an easy 'nope' factor, too much time investment unless the viewer is truly interested, but an interactive piece? Hours could be spent without regret. 

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A Beginning

So I'm starting the Multimedia Journalism course at Mizzou, and I must say that I'm already regarding it as my biggest challenge this year. Finding three (potential) stories, and following at least one for half a semester doing a variety of projects on it is pretty rad, but how can I come up with them? I'm also uneasy about the various equipment and software I'll need to use and master. Thankfully, my instructor definitely knows what he's doing and I'm confident the training to handle these challenges will be more than adequate. 

Despite my misgivings it certainly seems like a fun and incredibly useful class, and if everything goes well I'll learn a lot. Who knows, I might even get a hang of this blogging business, haha.