When fully adopted, HTML5 could dramatically change how interactive graphics will be designed and used on the web. Most interactive content today is build and presented in Adobe Flash, a third-party, proprietary plugin. Flash videos and interactives don’t work on the Apple iPad or iPhone, two devices that are changing how users access web content,  because Flash isn’t packaged with the browser, nor can it be installed by the end user.

Key Elements of HTML5

• New, more semantic markup elements. HTML5 introduces new markup elements which will make it easier for search engines and other bots to better understand the structure of your web page, potentially improving search engine optimization (SEO). These elements include <article>, <aside>, <section>, <summary>, <header> and <footer>.
• Native support for audio and video. Previously, to play audio, video, or interactives in the browser, the end user would need to rely on third-party plugins. The goal of HTML5 is to have browsers support basic media without the use of Flash, Quicktime, Real Player, or Silverlight.
• Canvas: “a rectangle on your page where you can draw anything you want.” After native support for audio and video, Canvas gives Flash the biggest run for its money because it makes all sorts of animations, infographics, and interactives possible.
• Geolocation. Any web application can now access the user’s location through the browser. On a desktop, this is through IP or wifi hotspot lookup but on mobile this is generally by GPS, which can be significantly more accurate.

HTML5′s Implications for Interactive Journalists

The best demonstration of HTML5′s capabilities is a proof of concept music video produced by Arcade Fire and Google. Load the link in Chrome, Google’s latest browser, and pay attention to different pieces of the interactive experience. In particular, watch the graphical content being rendered in real-time over media elements, as well as all of the different ways the user can interact with the application.

You can also test how well your browser supports various parts of the HTML5 specification. As of September 2010, Chrome scores 217, Firefox scores 139, and Safari scores 208. The biggest opportunity with HTML5, having all modern browsers fully implement the standard, is also its biggest challenge. For HTML5 (and CSS and Javascript) to become the dominate tool for interactive journalism, it needs to ensure developers that the user experience will be consistent cross-platform.

Whether we’re looking for one-offs contributions or trying to develop an ongoing relationship with someone in the community, the overarching reality at the Local (and most hyperlocal projects) is that we don’t pay contributors. The challenge then is to find what will motivate a community member to spend his or her own precious time producing pieces for no pay. The journalist becomes much like a psychologist, probing for clues as to what will make a community member contribute. This really isn’t so different from when reporters have to find the one persuasive argument that will hopefully open up a reluctant source.

Here’s a list of a few motivations we have tapped over the past few months to fill the site with community contributions:

• The Glory – People love to see their name in a byline (especially when it’s on NYTimes.com) and they want to share their posts with family, friends and colleagues. That’s one of the primary motivations. We realized just how important the glory is for people when we tweaked our system by introducing a distinction between CUNY J-School student and community bylines. This small change broke the links to longtime contributors’ work making it harder for them to share. As one contributor reminded us when urging us to fix the coding problem quickly, the byline and all the attention it brings is a crucial incentive when working for free.

• Publicity – Authors, store owners, community groups and others traditionally speak to the press when they want to publicize or advance their interests. The only twist at the hyperlocal level is that we try to engage these people to contribute. Take the case of the Garden Notes posts, which gives the newly established Greene Hill School an opportunity to showcase their programs and offerings.

• Google Juice – Having incoming links from a major site like NYTimes.com to your business or personal web site does wonders for your Google ranking. Myryah Irby produces the Local Locals feature in which she stops and interviews a person in the neighborhood for a Q&A while her husband Kevin snaps a portrait of the subject. When Myryah stopped by one of our classes as a guest she mentioned that her husband’s photography web site has steadily risen in the Google ranking because of growing number of links via NYTimes.com.

While a growth in hyperlocal advertising may at some point raise enough revenues to pay some regular contributors, right now links–and the publicity and glory they bring–remain the fair trade currency of the Web with which to motivate community contributors.

To host an event the user (or users) need only sign up, log in and schedule a show time. Cover it Live then generates the highly functional console shown below and an embed code for the event that can be placed in a blog or webpage.

Filterable IM chat with links and photos is only the beginning. Cover it Live cans stream video with the help of services such as Livestream and Qik. It also offers a Youtube quick link, supports Twitter and has an iPhone app. As if that’s not enough, there is a built-in polling feature and running stats on viewership.

So how does the reader see your live event? After you place the embed code in your blog the IM-like window shown below will appear. Content administered by you appears immediately without refreshing and the reader need never leave your site.

After the live event is over Cover it Live will generate an archived version that includes links and photos.

Some other very practical features of the tool are the tutorial demos and the ability to host a practice event that allows new users to become familiar with the tool before going live. The site also showcases several live performances so you can see it at work.

Check it out.

1. Don’t keep your distance.

Fight the urge to sit a few rows away from the speaker or shy away from the subject. You’d want to get as close to the action as possible if you showed up at a presser with a large camera, and you should use the same approach with the Flipcam. First, realize that audio quality really suffers if you’re more than five feet away from whatever you’re filming (as you can tell with the example vid below). You can also tell that the greater the distance from your subject, the harder it is to read words. So sit in the front row. Don’t be shy.

Tip 1: Don’t keep your distance. from DNJournalist on Vimeo.

2. Be careful what you zoom for.

The zoom on the Flipcam isn’t much to speak of (the full, unimpressive range of it is shown in the video below). The clip starts with a really blurry subject, and soon you’ll see how crisp the image gets when you zoom out. And what good did the zoom do anyway? It doesn’t help with the audio, and really just detracts from having a proper visual. Practice a bit before the event begins to get a feel for what the best framing and zoom level is for your need. And remember that a shaky hand is more noticeable when you zoom in, too.

Tip 2: Be careful what you zoom for from DNJournalist on Vimeo.

3. Listen for background noise. Then run from it.

The sound from the interview shown in the clip below is pretty much ideal… except for the sounds of a keg in transport punctuating the subject’s every sentence. It’s really quite distracting. If you can, move the interviewee to down the street or wait a few minutes until background distractions cease. There’s nothing worse than ruining a good sound bite with a hammer.

Tip 3: Listen for background noise. Then run from it. from DNJournalist on Vimeo.

4. Chase the action.

Juggling an interview and the Flipcam can be a challenge. My first instinct was to try to maintain eye contact with the interviewee while occasionally glancing at the screen to see how the filming was going. Inevitably, my arm would shift for a moment and lose half the person’s face, or my subject would move and I’d be focused on a very clean wall. Since then, I’ve learned to watch the screen like a hawk and to follow what’s happening through the screen. Otherwise, the subject can slip out of the framing you’re looking for. The clip shows how to follow your interview.

Tip 4: Chase the action from DNJournalist on Vimeo.

5. Stabilize

But while you’re out chasing the action, try to keep steady. Use your elbow as a kind of tripod by resting it on a surface or holding it with your other hand to keep the shot steady. I’ve turned the audio down on this clip so you can see how distracting it is to have an unsupported shot. If you have a chance to steady your hand, use it.

Tip 5: Stabilize from DNJournalist on Vimeo.

Photoshop remains the top photo editing and graphics program for pros. Among the newest version’s most notable features is the Content-aware Fill Tool, demonstrated here, which allows users to remove unwanted elements from an image as effortlessly as the result is seamless.

For photojournalism the implications of this tool are pretty chilling. Not because digital manipulation of photographs is anything new, but because CS5 makes it just so darn easy.

In 2005 Stephen Colbert introduced the term “truthiness” during the debut episode of the Comedy Channel’s Colbert Report to describe much of the political dialogue in and media coverage of Washington DC. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary made truthiness its  Word of the Year in 2006.

In a New York magazine interview Colbert described truthiness this way: “We’re not talking about truth, we’re talking about something that seems like truth – the truth we want to exist.”

For visual journalism does CS5 mark a leap forward in the advance of “realishness?”

Sure, images were manipulated long before Thomas Kroll, a graduate student at the University of Michigan at the time, invented Photoshop so he could view grayscale images on his Mac Plus. What’s at issue is the proliferation of manipulated images and the impact on credibility among a public already skeptical of what it sees in the media.

Just last month, before the current version of CS5’s release, World Press Photo disqualified 2010 third-place winner Ukrainian photographer Stepan Rudik from its annual competition for digitally manipulating an image.

The World Press Photo rules state: “The content of the image must not be altered. Only retouching which conforms to the currently accepted standards in the industry is allowed.” But what does “accepted standards” mean? They vary a lot based on publication type, topic and nation of origin. It’s worth noting that the image was not disqualified for its radical crop or the high contrast black & white toning, but for the removal of a compositionally distracting foot from the background.

Another humdinger of recent memory is a photo filed by Los Angeles Times staff photographer Brian Walski in 2003, who was covering Basra during the Iraq War. Walski joined two images together and submitted the final product as a single photo. He was fired as a result.

Ethical guidelines from the L.A. Times (available as PDF here) are much more explicit than the WPP’s: “We do not add color, create photomontages, remove objects or flop images. We do not digitally alter images beyond making minor adjustments for color correction, exposure correction and removal of dust spots or scratches required to ensure faithful reproduction of the original image. Exaggerated use of burning, dodging or color saturation is not permitted.”

Neither photographer contested that his image was manipulated. Walski copped to his bad judgment and blamed exhaustion and his desire to make memorable images of the war. Rudik maintains that as the “author” of the image he should be free to interpret a scene as he sees fit.

So what does the public make of all this? Studies that examine viewer trust of digital photography specifically, and of media accuracy generally, suggest that things are bad and getting worse. The core issues seem to be the perception of increased partisanship in the media and the growing influence of big money.

Yet at the same time,  people are capable of applying a very canny kind of calculus when evaluating the veracity of a news image. They assess the credibility of the publication in which the image appears and take into account the coverage of other outlets. They weigh the significance of the story against any controversy surrounding how it is being reported. They also factor in their own familiarity with the issue as well as previously published images they may have seen.

The take-away is that audiences can and often do hold top-tier news publications to higher standards of veracity than partisan websites—or  fashion magazines.

As increasing numbers of crowd-sourced images, images produced by semi-pros and images from the blogosphere work their way into the media — not to mention inconsistent standards among established professional outlets –  how are we to fight against the creep of increasing realishiness into the news?  News organizations and visual journalism educators need to establish clear standards that at the same time acknowledge the of the changing tools. We also need to promote dialogue about the impact of these changes on our industry. And we need to embrace transparency about process – especially when mistakes are made. Pretty much the same tools we’ve used all along — only updated to respond to these new realities.

While doing research for this post I was surprised by how many major news outlets had not updated the code of ethics for photography in more than a decade. Here are two examples of news organizations that have. The National Press Photographers Association provides some discussion and resources on the issue of digital ethics in photography. The organization Editorial Photographers of the United Kingdom and Ireland lays out a clearly defined graduated scale for understanding the manipulation of images, acknowledging purely editorial photo ends and where photo illustration begins.

What do you think?

Besides honing your reporting, writing and multimedia skills while in the CUNY J-School program, you’ll also want to develop some additional attributes that will set you apart from others.  Here are a few tips that have helped me along the way, especially when it came to securing my new job.

• Smile and introduce yourself: Now that I think about it, all of my professional journalism opportunities, including internships, grew out of a simple introduction following a panel or an event, or after a class with a guest speaker.  Although many won’t believe me, I’m a relatively shy person so I always have to psych myself up to introduce myself to a stranger, especially someone I admire, but it has always proven to be beneficial in one way or another. But the introduction is only the beginning.
• Make a meaningful connection: It’s not enough to introduce yourself and ask for a business card.  Think of an entry point to a conversation and/or something you could offer. For example, if there’s a speaker coming to talk to your class, do your research and find out what you have in common, or discover something you admire about the speaker that you would like to know more about.  Strike up a conversation that doesn’t start and end where it began, but instead, incorporates what you have learned and flows into a comfortable place that ends with their contact information.
• Follow up: A very senior editor at Time Inc. once told me that she admired me because I took her up on her invitation to email her and connect. When people say, “Feel free to contact me,” or “Here’s my email,” always follow up.  You never know where that connection could lead or what you may learn.  Also, when you follow up, be sure to insert some key things about yourself and your experience.  Even go so far as to ask to meet for tea or lunch.
• Get an advocate: It’s always best to have someone else that can speak of your greatness or on your behalf to someone else.  Why not start with your professors?  They have many connections in the journalism field and you should consider having them vouch for you.
• Work hard: Real success doesn’t come to those who sit and wait for things to happen to them (and if it does, it won’t be meaningful and it certainly won’t last).  Success comes to those who work hard.  Working hard means stretching your limits, doing things that you may hate, taking on challenges, and pushing yourself to be the best you that you can be.  For example, during the first semester, I worked 12 hours a week and interned twice a week, something that was highly discouraged.  By the end of the semester, I was awarded a $10,000 Dean’s scholarship.  It was hard to maintain a balance and get things done, but I knew the end result would equal money in my pocket and valuable experience that would benefit me in the end
• Be prepared: When I was growing up, my mother always referred to the “7 P’s”: “Proper Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.”  I’ve found this to be so true.  Whether you’re preparing for an interview, a meeting, or a story, do the legwork that will prevent you from looking like a fool.  For example, for my job interview, I prepared by doing research, coming up with ideas to offer, and talking to people familiar with the place, position, and/or person I was interviewing with about ways to best prepare myself.
• Get noticed: Whether it’s through your work, your personality, or your can-do attitude, work on getting noticed by your peers, colleagues and industry professionals.  This can be done by doing great work, making meaningful connections, sharing your thoughts, skills and aspirations.  After all, it doesn’t help if no one knows you or what you do.
• Make friends at your level: It’s not enough to just make meaningful connections with people at levels you aspire to.  It’s also extremely important to develop and maintain ties with classmates and other colleagues at your level because these are the people with whome you will rise to the top; maybe even the ones that will give you a job in five years.
• Share: Be diligent in sharing your knowledge, talent, aspirations, and skills with others.  I know for a fact that I couldn’t have made it this far without someone else pulling for me, so make it a point to give back; whether it’s through mentoring, talking to friends/colleagues about your experiences, or sharing your ideas with others.  You’ll find that when you share ideas, you often land on an even better one.
• Be persistent and stay the course: There will be days that look very bleak and others when you want to quit, but you have to keep going.  In every failure there is a lesson, and in every moment of weakness, there is strength to be gained.  Use your best of days to get through the dark days.  Be persistent in meeting your goals.

Monitor News and Events

Monitor in real time, what people are saying about specific news topics or events. Limit your search using the advanced search operators, or the advanced search form to focus in on a specific location, date, user, attitude, etc. For example, use the following search strategy to find out what people in New York City have been tweeting about the health care reform bill since March 21, 2010:

“healthcare reform” near:NYC since:2010-03-21

Tip: You can search and view tweets without having to have a Twitter account, or being logged in by going to http://search.twitter.com.

Monitor Organizations

Find out what people are saying about a particular organization or business. Think of it as monitoring the “buzz”.  In doing so it may also be helpful to limit your resulting tweets to those that include external links, to also see what Web sites they are sharing to help you come up with a story idea. For example, take a look at what people are saying about Toyota and what sites are they sharing:

Example: #Toyota filter:links

Tip: The hashtag (#) before a word in a post, designates that the word is to be recognized as a category (think keyword). Therefore when you search tweets placing a hashtag in front of a search term refines your search and increases the likelihood of relevant search results.

Find Experts

ExpertTweet is a new Twitter application developed by the folks at Journalististics that enables users to tweet requests for expert suggestions to the ExpertTweet community. This free service offers a faster way to find experts on Twitter without having to use a keyword search, or scanning #followfriday shout-outs. The intended audience includes:

* Event organizers looking for speakers or panelists
* Reporters or bloggers looking for quick source suggestions, comments on a
topic, or other quick feedback
* Entrepreneurs and business owners looking for expert advice
* Employers looking for suggestions on candidates
* Authors looking for sources for a book
* Consumers looking for expert advice on purchases

ExpertTweet is simple to use. Login into ExpertTweet using your Twitter credentials and submit an ExpertTweet request by typing it in the text box. Your handle is automatically included as part of the message, so be aware that you will have less characters than usual to type your message. Your post is then shared with those Twitter community members following ExpertTweet. If your topic isn’t too esoteric, you should start receiving suggestions and recommendations within minutes.

These are just a few ways of using Twitter to enhance your reporting, but there is much more to learn. As with any product or application, to learn how to use Twitter more effectively, start with reading the instructions or the help screens.

With digital photography, especially when building slideshows and audio slideshows, the importance of good work flow can be woefully underestimated and the effects of bad work flow can be disastrous – inconsistent color reproduction, insufficient image resolution, lost work and hours and hours of lost time.  A bulletproof system for capturing, processing and archiving images is essential.

So what are the specifics of good digital photo work flow?  With the help of Congress and through the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, the good folks at the American Society of Media Photographers have developed an answer, if a somewhat exhaustive one:  The Digital Photography Best Practices and Workflow (dpBestflow™).

The site is a comprehensive repository of resources, skills, and systems for managing the entire “life cycle” of a digital image.

The irony of  dpbestflow.org is that it is so far-reaching in scope that it requires good work flow just to navigate the material.  The team addresses the problem with a ‘start here’ tab and the intro video embedded below:

StartHere from ASMP dpBestflow on Vimeo.

In truth, much of the material is beyond the needs of most news photographers; managing CYMK output for glossy print publications or the relative merit of bilinear or bicubic interpolation when resizing images, for example.

The well-designed quick reference guide may be as deep as many photojournalists or photojournalism educators need to go.  Or, it may work as a more surgical point of entry into specific topics of interest.

In addtion to the site dpworkflow site, there is also the Digital Photography Best Practices and Workflow Handbook (Focal Press, 2009) by Richard Anderson and Patti Russotti (dpBestflow™ Project Director and Contributing Author, respectively), as well as a schedule of nationwide seminars and a host of online forums. More information is available at dbBestflow.

• Care. There is nothing more important to your success at journalism—at anything—than caring. You don’t need to love every assignment you’re given, but you do need to want the product to reflect positively on you. If you don’t care, figure out why. Maybe you don’t like the topic (so you know not to look for jobs at places that focus on that topic). Maybe you aren’t comfortable with the medium (either find a different one to work in or practice until you are comfortable). Learning what you don’t like or care about is useful information for you.

• Use what you know. You probably consume more media than any other generation in history. If you stop and think about it, you know exactly what works and doesn’t work in journalism. There’s a reason you’ll stick around to read one site’s article lede-to-kicker but click off another site without scrolling down the page. When you’re the one creating, generate the former.
  
• Words like lede and kicker are an annoyance (as demonstrated above). Use them only to get through classes or newsrooms, never in your daily life.

• Execution counts. If you’re building a site, pitching a business idea, editing a video, whatever—how you pull it off matters. Sure, good content always trumps bad content, but good content coupled with style blows away good content with a bland presentation. The fonts you choose for title placards matter. The color scheme of your website matters. The timing of the edits in your video matter. Consider all aspects.

• Push boundaries. It’s good to know the rules. It’s bad to be constricted by them. There’s a reason so many people have read Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra has a Cold” and it’s not because it was more of the same.

• Reach out to the people you look up to. I don’t like calling it networking—that makes it sound like work and a little cheap. If you are interested in something, reaching out to people who are good at that isn’t work as much as a desire to learn (social networks make this easier than ever). And follow up with them often. In my experience, they remember being where you are now.

• Immerse yourself in the best. Before every video shoot I went on, I would go to the site MediaStorm. The work there is visually appealing and powerful, and I wanted that in my mind when I went out. Find whatever you think is best and draw from it often.

• Procrastinate–sometimes. Okay, I’ve never seen anyone prescribe procrastination before.  But I have yet to meet a journalist who doesn’t wait until an hour before deadline to start pushing hard. Some traditions should live on—even in this “shifting journalistic environment.”

• Now stop procrastinating and go create something. Journalism’s shifting I hear. Be the ones that pace the change.

Tracking audio changes assume that louder scenes (explosions, musical crescendos, shouting) correspond to higher levels of drama. Rapid visual changes (quick motion across the screen, camera motion, or rapid edits) also correspond to action, a quicker tempo, and higher levels of drama. A combined index of audio and visual changes graphed over the length of the movie represents its unique fingerprint, revealing its dramatic highs and lows.

I analyzed forty noteworthy movies and collected the results in this interactive tool. Use it to explore the dramatic profiles for each movie and their corresponding scenes. Do the highest peaks in each profile match the movie’s climactic moments?

Explore the Story Analysis tool, which was used to produce the graphs. Use it to see how each movie’s audio and visuals are analyzed in real-time. You can analyze your own movies (FLV or MP4 format), output the data, and post the results for others to see.

How it was done
First, all the movies had to be converted to the correct Flash-friendly format. Each movie was converted to an MP4 (H.264 codec) file using Handbrake, a free open-source video transcoder. Then I had each movie stream into Flash with the FLVPlayer component.

Tracking the audio changes

Audio levels were analyzed with the ActionScript command, SoundMixer.computeSpectrum(). The command takes a snapshot of the current sound and stores the information as a series of numbers that can be translated visually. While my sound visualization is rather simple, there are countless creative ways to visualize sound. There have even been contests for the most creative visualizations. Since I was most interested in the variation of sound levels throughout the movie, I captured the amplitude (or volume) of the sound every 10 milliseconds and graphed it with a gray line. An average of the sound amplitude was calculated and graphed with a bold white line.

Tracking the visual changes

Every 10 milliseconds, Flash grabbed the image from the video stream with the BitmapData class. The command, getPixel(), gathered the red, green, and blue color information from each pixel. The red, green, and blue color distribution of an image is known as an RGB histogram. My goal was to track changes between histograms that would indicate major visual changes due to camera motion, edits, or subject motion. Much research has been already done on the subject of tracking shot changes for video cataloging, involving complex (and patented) algorithms. I made my calculation quite simple, determined by differences in the histogram area coupled with a dampening function to normalize the extreme values. The resulting index, which reflects visual changes, was graphed as a gray line. An average of the index was calculated and graphed as a bold white line.

Combining audio and visual changes

Combining the audio and visual indices resulted in what I termed, the “drama index”, a measure of the dramatic highs and lows in a movie. The overall shape of the profile, shown in red, can be interactively smoothed out or made more detailed by changing its resolution in the Story Analysis tool.

What does your favorite movie look like?
Analysis of forty distinguished movies–the top ten of all time, the worst ten, the ten highest grossing films, and the previous ten Best Pictures–not surprisingly reveal no common pattern, but it does provide a standard, objective way of tracking a film’s dramatic peaks and valleys–their position, duration, and intensity. This screenshot is a profile of Star Wars. Note the dramatic beginning when Princess Leia’s vessel is boarded, and the slow build-up to the three dramatic peaks at the end: the rescue from the Death Star, the duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and finally the destruction of the Death Star. The analysis works best on modern action films. There is, of course, no consideration for acting, for cinematography, or for the dramatic climaxes that may come in quieter moments (such as the sudden change that crosses an actor’s face with a revelation).

Other movie visualizations
There are many other interesting visualizations of movies. NetFlix recently ran a contest to see if the public could find a more effective way to predict which movies users would prefer based on past ratings. The results of two of the top teams can be visualized as a network of similarities between movies, or as a landscape with similar movies clustered together. (Based on these maps, if you liked Star Wars, then you probably also liked RoboCop).

One recent visualization cleverly plotted the interactions between characters. The hand-drawn map and synthesis of time and geography reminds me a little of Charles Minard’s map of Napolean’s march to Moscow, as discussed and praised by Edward Tufte as a gem of information design.

Finally, the New York Times produced a fascinating look at the box-office revenues of the movies. I love seeing the periodicity in the graph reflecting the predictable huge bumps during the summer blockbuster months and holiday season before the Oscar considerations. Notice also the relatively short, squatter profiles of recent movies compared to the long tails of movies in the past.

What more can we visualize of movies, or the structure of individual stories?