Foote – Press Release Story

Phil Banker

phil.banker@gmail.com

Actor Samuel L. Jackson joined forces with Hampton Hotel volunteers to restore an American landmark and memorialize one of the darkest moments of American history.

Hampton Hotels’s Save-A-Landmark program, along with Jackson, will be renovating the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tenn. The announcement in anticipation of the 40th anniversary of the death of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. King was assassinated on April 4th, 1968 while standing on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel, now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum.

“The National Civil Rights Museum is an important landmark in American history,” Jackson said. “I’m looking forward to working alongside the volunteers at Hampton Hotels and their Save-A-Landmark program in restoring the grounds.”

This project will begin Save-A-Landmark’s 2008 campaign called “Landmark Legends.” The campaign is devoted to restoring sites dedicated to important Americans in history, including Amelia Earhart’s Birthplace and Museum, the Barnum Museum, and the Poe Museum. The list was selected from a nationwide survey conducted by Hampton Hotels.

“There was no question that Dr. King should be the first legend honored by the program,” said Judy Christa-Cathey, vice president of brand marketing for Hampton Hotels, “and there was no better setting to honor his influence on the world than the National Civil Rights Museum.”

Christa-Cathey said that Dr. King’s legacy as one of the most influencial Americans in history shouldn’t be forgotten.

“Our goal is to help organizations like the National Civil Rights Museum continue educating, inspiring and motivating people for years to come,” Christa-Cathey said.

Over 100 Hampton Hotel volunteers will be working alongside Jackson in what will be the program’s largest project in its nine-year history. Four rooms will be restored. The work will include replacing wallpaper, repainting walls, repairing displays and mending electrical components,  renovating the exterior walkways and facade, and improving the surrounding landscape.

Other landmarks considered by the Save-A-Landmark for restoration are the birthplaces of Jackie Robinson and Hellen Keller, the Jesse Owens Memorial Park, and the “Freedom Tower” where 500,000 Cubans passed through to immigrate to the United States.

Just incase this whole “journalism” thing doesn’t work out

My ex-girlfriend Siobhan tipped me off to this the other day. Barnes and Noble came in and did a little video piece on the UMASS-Amherst Science Fiction Society that went directly to their website front page.

I tried to embed the video, but Barnes and Noble’s silly proprietary video player doesn’t want to play nice and embed in WordPress. Try clicking here instead.

I could see this becoming something that we could do, using the training that we’re getting in class. There’s clearly shot sequences, a little bit of natural sound, and interviews as well.

It’s good to see that if not all of us go into actual journalism, there’s still options open.

Foote – Five I’s Blog Assignment

“The “Five I’s” of digital storytelling are: interactivity, involvement, immediacy, integration and in-depth opportunities. A student who attends your university is killed on the interstate as he returns to school after the Thanksgiving holiday. A tractor trailer was involved in the crash just a few miles before the exit that leads to your school. The stretch of highway that runs through the area has become increasingly dangerous, with six fatalities so far this year, five of which involved trucks. Traffic doubled in twenty years. And while the road was designed to carry 15 percent truck traffic, 40 percent of the vehicles that travel the two-lane highway today are trucks.”

In scenario A, where you are working under a tight deadline with limited resources, some of the five I’s are difficult if not impossible to achieve. Getting “In-depth opportunities” and pursuing them involves time, which you won’t have in a breaking news situation.

With regards to immediacy and interactivity, pictures of the crash and photos of those involved can be easily found and thrown on a website. Also, if you were able to get a backpack journalist to the crash site, you can get photos and a Soundslides slide show up on the site very easily. A quick Google Maps location of the crash site can also be posted with the photos.  You could also integrate news footage from collaborating TV news stations in a pinch. To involve the readers, you could post a link to a site where they can leave condolences for the deceased. The emphasis in a breaking news situation always has to be accuracy and immediacy, innovation can come later.

Given time and resources, more possibilities open up. You could use Flash to create an interactive timeline of all the crashes on that particular stretch of highway. You could also get audio/video interviews with the mayor of the town, the city manager, the trucking company, and the family of the dead student. One has to be mindful of what interactive elements you add to the story, to maintain the correct level of respect for the dead while at the same time providing your readers with the best information possible.

Parisot – “Laser Lab” soundslides

In the NT Physics building, David McNeil works with a multi-million dollar machine called a femtosecond laser. The laser uses pulses of light – lasting a fraction of a second, hence the name – to conduct various scientific tests.

McNeil hopes, through his research, to discover new ways of manipulating light and energy, and using that to create new, faster computer technology.

Click here to view the slideshow. 

The beam itself is normally invisible to the naked eye, but was made visible in the photos by pouring liquid nitrogen around the laser apparatus. Liquid nitrogen has an extremely low boiling point, and evaporates almost instantly on contact with anything. The fog created allows the beam to be seen.

I greatly enjoyed making this slideshow. I love covering science topics, ever since I was in 2320 back in 2006. Very rarely do you get to see science in the news, at least in multimedia; you normally see more arts and life focused pieces.

I’m not exactly sure what is wrong with the audio; maybe I edited it incorrectly. Whatever shortcomings this presentation had will be addressed in the next one.

Foote – Slideshow Assignment

Phil Banker

phil.banker@gmail.com

U.S. President George Bush is announcing an increase of $100 million in U.S. funding for equipment and training of African peacekeepers as part of the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur.

According to a press release on Tuesday, $12 million of this increase will go to training Rwandan troops in Darfur, as well as equipment costs. The White House says that the U.S. has already spent more than $17 million in Rwandan troop training.

The press release said “the United States is committed to ending the genocide in Darfur and continues to lead the world in responding to the crisis there.”

The recent increase in UNAMID funding is one of many efforts by the U.S. government to end the violence in Darfur, which has been raging since February 2003. The U.S has pushed for the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in January 2005. More recently on Dec. 21, 2007, President Bush named Richard S. Williamson as special envoy to Sudan.

In addition to humanitarian aid, the U.S. has pursued harsh sanctions against Sudan in an effort to encourage a peaceful end to the violence. The U.S. has imposed economic sanctions on seven Sudanese people and more than 160 companies owned by the Sudanese government. Existing sanctions reinforced by the U.S. deny Sudanese banks use of the U.S. financial system or money.

Click here to read the full press release.

Parisot – Aaron Chimble post

I was really excited after listening to Aaron Chimble talk. This is exactly the kind of stuff I want to do for not just the internship I’m going out for, but for my first job. I admit, I was more fascinated with his equipment than anything else. I’m still curious as to whether or not his camera records to a video tape or to some sort of memory card.

All in all it was a very fascinating presentation, I just had one gripe with it. From looking at his website, it seems he only rarely gets to cover big stuff. Most of his stories are local, human interest stuff. It would be interesting to see more mobile journalists covering hard spot news.

Foote – Eyetracking Assignment

So I read the Eyetracking PDF, and then used what I read from there to look at the Paris News, the largest newspaper near my hometown of Clarksville, Texas.

One of the most often voiced suggestions is to include more color photos throughout the paper. As wonderful as this would be, with the exception of the wealthiest broadsheet papers in the country, this simply isn’t an option. The Paris News has a set budget to work within, and can only afford so many color pages as their advertising section can pay for. Also, given how the printing process works, you can’t have full color for some photos and no color for the rest of the page; it’s all or nothing.

One thing that I’ve noticed from reading the Dallas Morning News, the Denton Record-Chronicle and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram contain the content in the papers in little boxes, seperating it from other stories. This really helps people distinguish one story from another.

The main thing that newspapers can do to help keep eye focus throughout their publication is to maintain good design principles throughout the paper. It seems like the paper gets grayer and grayer as your progress through it. If you make the last page as appealing and easy to read as the front page, I think more people will complete the paper.

Foote – Blog Assignment 2-14-08

by Phil Banker

phil.banker@gmail.com

Consumer elctronics retailer RadioShack is ready to help with the switch to digital television, according to a press release sent out Thursday by the company.

According to the press release nearly 5,000 stores are set to help starting next week. The store plans to offer two different types of digital converter boxes, as well as antennas, splitters, switches, and other accessories to keep the analog televisions people already own in service.

In addition, RadioShack announced today that they will no longer sell analog televisions and related devices as of February 29th, 2009.

The government-mandated transition to digital television occurs on Feb. 17, 2009.

“The DTV transition is one that involves a host of private-public entities who have been working hand-in-hand for months to ensure U.S. citizens will be able to recieve digital TV broadcasts after Feb. 17, 2009,” said Peter Whitsett, executive vice president and general merchandising manager for the RadioShack corporation.

Whitsett said that RadioShack is “uniquely positioned” to help customers with the transition, since TV customers often consult RadioShack employees for television support.

The National Telecommunications and Information Association (NTIA), a bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce, will distribute $40 coupons next week good toward the purchase of digital converter boxes. Customers can apply for up to two coupons per household at http:// www.dtv2009.gov.

RadioShack will sell two brands of digital converter box that retail at $59.99 each, or $19.99 with the NTIA coupon. Whitsett says that TV customers have several options when making the switch over to digital, includng buying a digital converter box, upgrading to a television with a built-in digital tuner, or using their old analog television with a cable or satellite subscription service provider.

“Customer education is, and remains, the number one challenge to ensure we have a smooth transition next year,” Whitsett said.

Links:

Radio Shack

National Telecommunications and Information Association

TV Converter Box Program

Foote – Blog Assignment

I chose the Victoria Advocate website for my assignment. The Victoria Advocate is a daily newspaper serving Victoria, Texas and the surrounding areas in Southeast Texas. I am familiar with this website, because I have been trying to get an internship with them for a while.

The Advocate site, while very intuitive and advanced, is still solely for content for the paper. The top of the site even has links where you can manage your subscription to the paper itself.

However, the Web site is as full of interactive content as any other major newspaper. The Advocate produces its own video, as opposed to using TV content. There are also polls, reader commentary, and user-submitted content. There is even a place to set up your own blog. There is even a tag cloud for the blogs.

The Victoria Advocate is solely a site for the paper, but the paper staff creates its own Web exclusive content.

Parisot – Blog Assignment 2

The first part of our assignment told us two choose of the multimedia examples given on the Foust website, and critique them. I chose the first two examples, not because they were the first two I saw, but out of all of them they were the most interesting.

The first was the MPR Budget Balancer from Minnesota Public Radio’s site.  This definitely evoked memories of playing SimCity back in the day, balancing budgets and such. I kept waiting for a little black and white photo of Wil Wright to pop up saying “You can’t cut our funding! You will regret this!”

The graphics were very basic, seeing as how the entirety of the experience is fiddling with numbers. There was no audio, either, but once again it wasn’t needed.

Every change comes with a detailed explanation of the consequences of the funding change. I wish there could have been greater granularity when making changes, but I understand that this is a radio station, and not a professional games developer.
I played around with it for a good 15 minutes, which is a little above average for your usual internet time waster.

My only real problems with it were a lack of more engaging visuals, and the general ease of the game. Photos detailing my changes would be interesting. It seemed a little too easy to not only balance the budget, but create a surplus. Granted, I might have turned Minnesota into a gambling haven while doing so, but still… if it’s this easy to balance a budget, maybe I’m in the wrong business.

The second site I looked at was the BBC’s Supervolcano game.  This site immediately drew my attention due to the Science and Nature content, which is totally my bag. After playing a few rounds of the game, however, I learned one thing; I hope a Supervolcano never erupts in Texas.

I was familiar with the concept of the Supervolcano; I had watched a documentary on what would happen if Yellowstone National park erupted on a massive scale. The game depicted an imaginary volcano destroying an imaginary area. It was a lot less apocalyptic than the documentary the site was made to complement.

The site also included several other features in addition to the game, including a photo gallery from the documentary, articles about concepts in the documentary, and an article about the “science of natural disasters.” The articles were well written, informative, and they explained the concepts in a way that was easy to understand but not condescending.

The best part of the site was, for me, the Supervolcano game itself. The graphics for the game didn’t exactly blow me away, but once again this is a website, not a video game. The audio for the game was surprisingly engaging. However, completely unlike the little budget balancing game, I supremely sucked at it. Under my command, 274,473 people are feared dead in the eruption. Whoops.

The second part of the assignment asked us to find a story that would work well as a multimedia story, according to the  News Videographer Blog’s criteria. I picked a story that fell under the “Something people just want to see” heading. This particular story was close to my heart, being a fan of video games. The story is about a rest home using the Nintendo Wii as not just a diversion, but a therapy tool. The story combines two things that people go crazy over: cute old people, and video games. It would make for good audio to hear old people talk about playing the video games, with the sound from the games in the background. Given how the Wii is played, there is great movement to record as well. A slideshow would work as well, as long as you got the old people in poses while playing the games.