The Mechanic & the Muse

Don't Stop, Go! When the learning is hard and long

What does Flash, a sophisticated software program  for creating interactive websites, digital animations, have to do with with Go, the ancient Chinese board game that originated in China?

Read this blog post by Mindy McAdams, who holds the Knight Chair for journalist technologies and the democratic process at the University of Florida and is author of "Flash Journalism: How to Create Multimedia News Packages." In it she compares her experience learning and teaching Flash to her students to her attempts to master Go.

Two statements from her first Go teacher speak to those of us struggling to to master the tools of multimedia.

“Go is a hard game.”

“Go is a long game. ”

While her focus is Flash, these Zen-like statements can be applied to any technology that put journalists  in the uncomfortable position of replacing their competence as reporters, editors, photographers , and designers with a dismaying sense of incompetence.

I think we can take  comfort in McAdams’ story (I certainly do)  as I return to photography for the first time in decades, try to learn audio recording and the editing software these technologies demand.

iIt's a hard game.
It’s a long game,

It brings to mind the statement attributed to the 19th century French novelist, Gustave Flaubert:, that has consoled me as I struggle to master the writing process

“Talent is a long patience.

Just because something is hard and can take a long time to learn,,” McAdams say, “doesn’t mean you can’t learn it. But it’s not a quick or simple process. Hart things take time. Hard things offer great rewards. Learning a hard thing is more mind-expanding than learning an easy thing..”

Wise advice.

(Image source:Detail of The Four Accomplishments, by Kano Eitoku. One of six folding screens: ink on paper. Shows people playing Go. Japan, Momoyama period, 16th century. On exhibit at the Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution. Published under Wikipedia Commons.)

Progamming Journalism

Online Journalism Review features a provocative interview with Adrian Holovaty, editor for editorial innovations at washingtonpost.com, perhaps best known for his ground-breaking one-man site chicagocrime.org, "a freely browsable database of crimes in Chicago."  (Typically, we have Jim Romenesko to thank for the link.)

OJR editor Robert Niles opens the interview by asking Holovaty, "how does one "do journalism" through computer programming?"

Holovaty begins by describing a triad of basic tasks performed by journalists:

"1. Gathering information. This involves talking to sources, examining documents, taking photographs, etc. It's reporting.

2. Distilling information. This involves applying editorial judgment to decide what parts of the gathered information are important and relevant.

3. Presenting information. This involves shaping the distilled information into a format that is accessible to the readership. Some examples: writing style (inverted pyramid, etc.), photo color-correction, newspaper page design."

He then envisions a new way of performing these tasks by using one of the key attributes of computer programming:

"Doing journalism through computer programming" is just a different way of accomplishing these goals. Namely, the technique favors automation wherever possible."

What's especially interesting is the way Holovaty sees "reporting" as an activity--"gathering"--carried out by journalists with a range of skill sets, from interviews to taking photographs. Implicit is a rejection of the silo approach that hinders newsroom collaboration. Explicit is his mutual respect for the craft of journalism and the science of programming and the possibilities such a partnership holds out for those willing to embrace both.

Whether you're a programmer, a journalist, an educator or a news manager, the interview is well worth your time. And a bonus is a list of new online news sites that Holovaty admires.

(Photo Credit: Brian Kersey/Associated Press)

To Be Continued...On iTunes

Lovers of serial narratives and owners of iPods, heads-up and ears open. "Through Hell and High Water: Two Hospitals, one hurricane and an epic struggle to rescue the abandoned," a Hurricane Katrina drama, by Jane O. Hansen, is a 22-chapter serial now appearing in the pages of the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and featured on ajc.com, the paper's web site.

For those who like to listen to good storytelling, the series is also available in audio format as podcast readings available free on iTtunes.com. (You can subscribe via a link on the left rail of the series' online home page.)

The series was edited by Jan Winburn, one of the best narrative editors in the business (At her previous paper, the Baltimore Sun, she edited the ASNE award-winning serial "A Stage in their Lives" by Ken Fuson, and "The Umpire's Son," the Pulitzer-winning feature by Lisa Pollak.) The series' narrator is Tom Opdyke, an editor with a background in radio and theater.

If you believe the journalistic wisdom that three makes a trend, then serial storytelling in podcast form is definitely in vogue.

In late 2005, the St. Petersburg Times recorded two print and online serial narratives as podcasts; like the AJC's new series, they are available free on iTunes.

In November of that year, "The Hard Road: Inside the Jennifer Porter Case," a five-part serial by Tom French, Christopher Goffard and Jamie Thompson, appeared in print, online, and, through the efforts of sptimes.com editor Kevin McGeever and his colleagues, as iTtunes podcasts with narration by Jaye Ann Terry.

The following month, the Times came out with a podcast version of "The Holly Wreath Man," a serial newspaper novel written by Katharine Fair, my wife, and myself. An erstwhile thespian, I did the narration.

One of the most heartening reactions we received about "The Holly Wreath Man" podcasts came from a Florida teacher with a class of pregnant high schoolers, many of whom also had reading difficulties. To help them, she played the daily podcasts while the kids read along with the story in the newspaper.

AJC subscribers also appreciate the cross-platform delivery of the paper's latest serial narrative. "My wife listens to it on the web every day and it is the first thing I read in the morning paper," one reader told the paper.

Podcasting is a powerful new medium. If serial narrative pioneers Charles Dickens and Honoré de Balzac were writing today, we'd be eagerly uploading their novel installments onto our iPods. For the news industry, podcasts offer hope by connecting with audiences who might not read a newspaper story in print or online, but like to listen to a good story through their ear buds.