Reading Notes for 27 September 2007

Things I Think About the Reading for Today’s Class…

Sound Advice: The Natural Approach

Natural sound was actually one of the earliest sound recording I did. When I was getting my bachelor’s degree, my work-study job was as recording engineer for the music department, a job that had me record lots of recitals and plenty of audition tapes. The theater department asked me to record background sound for a play set in a clock-maker’s shop. One night, I took the big Studer-Revox reel-to-reel tape recorder to a local mall and set up microphones in, of all things, a clock shop. I then recorded two hours of ticking and tocking. I didn’t sit there with headphones on for two hours (a decision that would come back to haunt me). The ticking was to be a constant background sound for the entire play. During dress rehearsal, I was running sound for the production, and fed the tape recorder through the main board. About 35 minutes into the play, the actors, director, crew, and most of all the sound guy were all startled when the recorded sound of approximately 25 cuckoo clock alarms and 15 separate (and slightly differently-pitched) renditions of “The Westminster Chimes” went off. I spent some serious time with a razor blade and splicing block right after dress rehearsal.

During the production’s run, the ticking clocks added a great deal to the “feel” of the play. Sounds from the real world will do that, you just have to be careful to listen for the unexpected. When I hear National Geographic’s podcasts, especially things like Traveler Magazine’s Walks of a Lifetime or National Geographic World Talk, the natural sounds seem at least as important as the narrator when putting me into the location of the recording.

Natural Sound Stories: A How-to Guide

These tips (especially the tips on how to elicit longer, more interesting responses) are good. I would offer one challenge: Making observations the interview subject can react to is fine, but once in a while you have to ask a question, especially if the format will leave your voice on the tape. I’ve heard interviews in which the interviewer never asks a question, and it just comes across as odd.

I also have an observation on “Get the Sound” section. In three discussion points, the writer mentions two types of microphone and two separate recorders. There’s a reason that most audio engineers talk about the “microphone closet” — they realize that different microphones have different uses and produce different sound quality. The real trick for most of us is figuring out which 1 – 2 microphones will do 98% of our recording jobs, and how to use one recorder to do it all.

The Transom Mic Shootout Part 2: Handheld Mics

Here were my notes as I listened:
Mic A — Sounds like a nice dynamic mic. Good, flat quality
Mic B — A condense mic with good bass pickup.
C — Another bass boost
D — A really tight sound, but some pickup indicating an omnidirectional pattern
E — Very nice, broad sound
F — Tight, little room noise
G — Open, airy sound
H — Too thin and bright for vocals at this distance

I have a mic like G, and one similar to B. I tend to use G for hand-held interviews, because it makes people sound good. B is more accurate, but harder to control if we’re not sitting down, with mic stands between us.

As for the lav versus shotgun, the only time I’ve seen a shotgun used for hand-held voice has been in some game shows — for the host. I love lavalier mics, and am looking forward to the day when I can afford a couple of good wireless condenser lavs.

The Art of Listening

Very cool stuff — this actually reminds me a bit of a feature they once had a Disney’s MGM Studios — you went into a theater, sat down, and they turned out the lights. The “show” was all sound. The depth of the sound is superb, here — it’s obvious that some very real care went into making the recordings. I can imagine these as part of “sound-seeing” podcasts.

Studying a Koala Mystery in Eastern Australia

There’s an interesting spatial thing going on in the first part of this — the birds and the speaker sound like they’re in an impossible spatial relationship to one another. In the second section, when they’re moving, the sound paints a much clearer picture. I like the way the radio is used, both for the researcher’s voice and during the tracking phase. It’s an interesting point: our recordings in class have been mono, but these recordings are very highly-engineered stereo–the aural soundstage is nicely established and manipulated to let you “feel” the speakers move through your head (if you’re wearing headphones).

I would love to know how this piece was engineered. I’m not trying to imply that I think anything unethical was done, but different sections have obviously been produced with stereo in mind, and I suspect some channel-to-channel mixing took place. I’d also love to know which equipment was given to the researchers to use for their recording. Fascinating, well-done audio documentary.

Photo Blog with Aloha

It helps me when I understand how a photo was taken — both the thought that went into getting the shot and the technical details of the shot itself. Richard Walker’s Photo Lounge at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin brings both sides together with some very nice photography. Richard is a general-assignment photographer for the Star-Bulletin, and writes about everything from sports coverage to general-interest feature shots. Since we’ve talked about camera angles in class, I was very interested in the technique he used to get photos of the UH Warriors coming on to the field. It was also good to see his equipment kit, along with the rationale for the various pieces of equipment. Richard writes clearly, and I appreciate the technical details under each photo he runs in the blog. This is the sort of information that helps me become more proficient, and I appreciate the help.

On Media

First, a confession: While I’ve lived in or near both great cities, I lived in Boston before New York, and so I generally prefer reading The Atlantic to The New Yorker. There, I’ve said it, and I’m sure that heartfelt excoriation will soon fill the comments. So be it. (There are, of course, notable exceptions: I will happily read anything John McPhee writes — I’m in awe of someone who can successfully turn rocks into compelling characters.)

In September, The Atlantic featured excerpts on essays covering the media that have appeared in the last 150 years. The articles are part of The Atlantic’s Ideas Tour. I was taken by the way in which some issues have been around for quite a long time. We’re told that the media of today has reached a nadir of accuracy and fairness, but H.L. Mencken’s essay from 1914 contains statements like, “I know of no subject, in truth, save perhaps baseball, on which the average American newspaper, even in the larger cities, discourses with unfailing sense and understanding.” In that same essay, Mencken is dismissive of the newspaper’s audience. In a section on crusading journalism and the way it must create villains, he writes, ” In brief, he knows that it is hard for the plain people to think about a thing, but easy for them to feel. Error, to hold their attention, must be visualized as a villain, and the villain must proceed swiftly to his inevitable retribution. They can understand that process; it is simple, usual, satisfying; it squares with their primitive conception of justice as a form of revenge.” On the off chance that you miss Mencken’s true feeling about the reader, he amplifies it a couple of paragraphs later. “I assume here, as an axiom too obvious to be argued, that the chief appeal of a newspaper, in all such holy causes, is not at all to the educated and reflective minority of citizens, but frankly to the ignorant and unreflective majority.” It’s a very condescending view of the reader, and I feel that this condescension is as significant a problem as any faced by journalism today.

The significance of the problems and their modern-day sources are addressed in an extended essay by James Fallows. When you strip away the examples (provided from a late-1990s perspective) you’re left with journalists don’t have the same concerns as most citizens. It’s a damning criticism for those who would be the reader’s surrogate in the halls of power. A compelling argument can be made that the situation hasn’t improved since Fallows wrote his essay. The critical question for journalists is whether we have time to address the issues and fix the problems before the audience decides that it no longer matters.

Editing Before Shooting

In our last class, we talked a great deal about editing in terms of deciding which shots to take, and which shots to use. Earlier, we had discussed things like angles and framing — the mechanics of taking photos that don’t simply tell stories, they tell stories people want to see. I began thinking of these issues as editing before the shots are taken: you decide before you start on the types of shots you’ll want (detail, medium, scene-setting, with other people, with equipment or tools, showing action — you begin to understand). You can’t know precisely which images are going to happen in front of your lens, but it’s a good bet that you won’t be in position to capture the images unless you’ve done the work to plan your shots.

I kept thinking about the issue of being in position for images when I looked at Mark Hancock’s blog. (Thanks to Mindy McAdams(*) for pointing me in his direction.) When I see photos like this shot from a high-school football game, I know that the photographer had to have an idea of where action might happen, so he was set up in the right place. The same is true for many of the shots in his Hurricane Humberto slide show. There’s obviously a lot of driving around and looking for images, but many of the shots show a great deal of planning. It’s a good selection that couldn’t have happened without editing before, during, and after shooting.

(*) CORRECTION: In the original post, Mindy McAdams name was mis-spelled. Thanks to Prof. McAdams for pointing out the incorrect spelling. I apologize for the error. CF 

Editing and Ethics in Photojournalism

Interesting readings this week — interesting from two different, but related, directions.The first section of reading covered the concepts used in photo editing; not the “burn in here, crop there” mechanics, but the broad concepts of the factors that make an image useful, meaningful, and powerful. The second section dealt with the ethics of photojournalism — the details of which images should be published, how they should be taken, and how they may be manipulated if they’re to tell an honest, accurate story that does no harm.

One of the first questions asked in the editing section was, essentially, whether the photographer and editor should be two separate people. As a writer, I think the answer is, “absolutely.” Of course, there are situations and publications (like this blog) for which the creator and editor are the same. In an ideal situation, though, a photographer — like a writer — will have another intelligent set of eyes looking at the work and making it stronger. I’ve had the experience of falling in love with a “killer lede” or just being wrapped up in the sound of my own words. A good editor has been far more ruthless than I could be in making sure that every word served the story, no matter how much  sweat I’d dripped over a particular phrase or paragraph.

I was taken with, and a bit surprised, at the treatment of issues like black and white versus color images. I grew up looking at black and white images in newspapers and news magazines. I came to feel that black and white images had more power and, somehow, more “truth” than color images. I’ve also shot and developed hundreds of rolls of Tri-X Pan, so I have a feel for black and white shooting that I don’t yet have for digital color work. With that as a background, I was surprised to read that readers have such a strong preference for, and faith in, color photos. I believe editors have to listen to reader preferences in such things, and present, to the greatest extent possible, images that readers will actually look at and believe.

Listening to the readers doesn’t necessarily extend to photo subjects, however. There’s no surprise in the knowledge that readers would rather see puppies and babies snuggled together than corpses posed in the aftermath of violence. As journalists we must tell our readers the stories we know they should read, even if it means doing the extra work of convincing them that the stories are worth their time. Learn from the reader when it comes to the most effective way of telling a story? Absolutely. Let the whims of the readers dictate which stories we tell? No.

When reading about the ethics of photojournalism, I found a breakdown into three broad areas: the behavior of the photographer when taking photographs; the decision of the photo editor when deciding which photographs to run; and the treatment of the images between the first two ethical points. In many ways, I found Kobre’s discussions flow well into my understanding of journalism: readers trust journalists to take them places they can’t go without our help. The ethics questions deal with whether the place we’re taking them is the place we say we’re taking them (honesty),  whether we’re taking them to a place worth going to (relevance), and whether we’re worthy guides and companions on the trip (decency). Case after case has shown that momentary sensation can attend the lack of any one of these, but a long-term relationship requires the unfailing application of all three.

Telling Stories with Photos

Last Thursday, we spent time taking photos in class and (for some of us) receiving a critique of the photos we took. Before coming to class, we read from Kenneth Kobre’s “Photojournalism: The Professionals’ Approach”, and the points taken from the book on shot types, vantage points, and using the flow of images to tell a story were all relatively easy to remember (if not to put into practice) as I took my shots in class. Taking those shots reminded me of many things: I should generally opt for the fastest possible shutter speed; red really does catch your eye; and my knees aren’t what they used to be.

I’ve taken photographs to accompany stories in magazines, but I am far more a wordsmith than a photojournalist. I can feel the rhythm and flow of words as I build a story, and I can recognize the same sort of rhythm and flow when a photojournalist tells a story in photos, but I don’t yet “feel” the story as I’m taking the shots. One of the reasons the syllabus for this class excites me is that I’ll have a chance to put together story packages that depend on images as much as words — something that I’ve done far less than I’d like in my career thus far.

At the same time, there is little that makes me feel less professionally adequate than taking photos for a story. Part of the reason is that I remain in such awe of the great photojournalists. I grew up reading Life, Look, Time, and other magazines that used great images to tell stories, but I didn’t become truly aware of the photojournalists involved until my freshman year in college. My roommate (a rather older man, then in his early twenties) was very interested in photojournalism and had books on photos by Robert Capa, David Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and others. I read them and was hooked on the power of images, even though words ultimately stole my attention and heart.

I’m reminded of just how far I have to go when I watch a sound slide presentation like the Magnum Essay on Covering Conflict, produced with the BBC and published at Slate. Watching this, I’m inspired by how these images can tell stories on their own, and bring depth and impact to stories told in words. Some of these Magnum Photo images have become icons of the twentieth century, and Robin Lustig’s narration matches the flow of images beautifully — this is an incredibly well-produced package. Without reaching too far, this is why I want to learn more about the craft of journalism, and especially those parts with which I’ve had less contact. Thursday was a first step–I’m looking forward to the next.

Making Life Easier

Many thanks to Sanam for posting a great tip on automating the process for keeping up with our fellow students’ posts. This is one of the reasons I was looking forward to coming back to school: I have classmates who have a better understanding of pieces of the technology than I do. I’m still not sure that I complete grok del.icio.us, but I’m working on it. I suspect that, when I do “get it”, portions of my life will become easier, still.

What Makes a Mid-Career Journalist take Journalist’s Toolkit 1?

It’s a valid question: Why would someone with a fair amount of experience in on-line journalism take a class to learn on-line journalism techniques? In my case, the answer has several parts. I don’t know that one is more important than another, and I don’t think you can read a lot into the order in which they’re listed; each one is an equal part of the whole.

I Want to Learn New Techniques

The vast majority of my experience has been in magazines or on-line publications related to magazines. Magazines tend to use different on-line techniques than those used by newspaper sites, and I’ve missed out on some interesting things. One that I’m looking forward to learning about is Soundslides. With this technique, you can tell stories in forms like the rather cool package the Orlando Sentinel presented after the UF versus Troy State football game.

I Want to Improve My Craft

I think I’m a pretty fair writer, and I’ve been known to put together a nice podcast or two. Still, I want to be better at telling the stories I’m given to tell. Learning new techniques is part of the process, but getting honest feedback from classmates and my professor is a great tool for improvement. I’m looking forward to hearing about what I need to do to be better, and I think this class is a good place for that.

I Want to Prepare to Teach

I’ve enjoyed working with young writers throughout my career, and I’ve helped people like Jordan Wiens and John Sawyer get their starts as writers in the computer industry press. If I’m going to teach people to become journalists, I owe it to them to know as much as possible about as many story-telling techniques as possible. I strongly believe that journalism, whatever else it may be, is a craft: a complete set of tools is as important for a journalist as it is for a carpenter.

I Want to be Excited

I’ve been able to do a lot of interesting things in my career, and I’ve helped build strong publications: BYTE,  Circuit Cellar, HowStuffWorks, InfoWorld, and several others. At each of these publications, I’ve enjoyed working with creative, professional colleagues, but I’m looking forward to a new experience–one that lets me work with professors and fellow students who have experiences different from those found among the staff of most technology publications. This class allows me to see their work, have them comment on mine, and discuss the technology and its use with them in class. I have already learned a great deal from these exchanges, and I’m looking forward to learning much more.

That’s the short list. I’ll add to it as new thoughts come to me–let me know what you think about the list and my work.

Let’s Get the Blog Started…

Welcome to my new blog, a project in support of a course in on-line journalism tools at the University of Florida. To learn more about me, you might look at my About page here at the Mid-Career Grad Student.

For non-class related musings and information, please go to my personal blog, and see the bulk of my work-related words at InfoWorld. As long as you’re wandering around the Internet, head over to the Gainesville Sun and look up my new column there–and feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for stopping by.