July 19, 2007 at 8:59 am
How Good is the Tech in Your Newsroom?
Christine Tatum, SPJ president, opened a can of worms recently when she suggested a list of tech items that newsroom journalists should personally own: laptop, phone, audio recorder, camera, video camera, flash drive and microphone.
Surprised at the ferocity of backlash she encountered, she wrote a blog post asking for input from readers.
This quote struck me: “They expect fire but give me flint to make it.”
For capital-budget strapped alts, this is even more painful. In my first newsroom, none of the computers had the same version of MS Word, making editing a nightmare. Purchasing equipment yourself can be impossible on an altie salary. It can be difficult to produce great multimedia journalism with older equipment.
How has the technology - or lack of it - impacted your newsroom? Have you been able to find inexpensive ways to produce multimedia?
Tags: technology, workflow
Ian R:
July 19, 2007 at 9:43 am
I must admit that I feel a certain amount of pride in how antiquated most of our software was/is. Up until recently, when we all went OS X (well, 95%), all of our editors were using a copy of Word 5.1, registered to a restaurant which closed about 8 years ago. Which creates some problems from time to time, though it’s fun to say that and feel all punk rock.
It’s fun to work around the technology, but our workflow could certainly use some streamlining, especially now that we’re trying to become more web-focused.
Cathy Resmer:
July 19, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I agree that if you can swing it, you should own your own gear. And yes, I bought all of that stuff for myself before I was a full-time staffer.
That said, I confess to writing this from the sleek black MacBook that my generous employers ordered for me last year.
In my experience, you don’t have to pay a fortune for good recording gear. We have a staff digital camera that cost us between $300-$400. It has a big-ass memory card that cost another $100 or so. It takes GREAT photos, and can record up to 20 minutes of video. We actually have another videocamera, but even if we didn’t, this little digital camera would work fine for most video clips that we would make.
Video editing software is expensive, but you can do some basic stuff with iMovie, which comes with your computer (assuming you use a Mac). All told, I think the barrier for entry is fairly low.
It’s even lower for audio recording. I just bought our editorial department two new Olympus digital recorders that cost about $75 each. I also bought a new Sony microphone that cost another $75 or so. I’ve been using both of those tools for the last year and they work GREAT.
Only problem with the Olympus is that it exports Windows media audio files. I solved that problem by downloading Switch, a free file converter which spits out MP3s. For editing, you can use Garageband, or Audacity, which is free.
To sum up: you need to spend about $150 on gear to produce high-quality audio for your website (assuming someone in your office has a relatively recent model computer). It’s worth it.
Oh, I should also add that I think you can find good, free open source solutions to Microsoft Word. My friend Jessamyn recommends Ubuntu, which I believe has a Word-like program on it.
One good tech solution: befriend hackers and open source geeks.
Matt Writt:
July 20, 2007 at 2:39 pm
We’ve had a few issues in our office when employees use personally purchased technology for work-related purposes.
Convenient example: several of our sales folks have taken it upon themselves to purchase a Blackberry to keep track of email while out making sales calls.
Now, I’m all-for showing initiative and taking ownership (literally) of one’s means of making a living.
That’s all fine and good until something goes wrong with the thing. Of course, they march over to the IT dept and ask for assistance. Should the already overworked IT guy have to learn all about the Blackberry to service a product he claims he never would have bought using the company’s money? Moreover, is the company’s tech dept responsible for servicing ANYTHING personally owned by an employee? Only if being used for work? I’d be interested to hear others’ policies on that one.
That is just one example of a host of “ownership/service” issues that arise.
To avoid this kind of thing, it’s always a good move for employees to at least ask the IT guy for some advice when shopping for anything that could conceivably need his attention. Your IT dept is most likely up on what works and what doesn’t, so save yourself and your tech guy a hassle and ask before you buy some piece of crap that might waste your money and your tech guy’s time.
Todd Stauffer:
July 22, 2007 at 4:32 pm
One interesting solution that we’ve come up with for about 75-80% of these requirements is a single Treo 650. With its ability to accept SD cards, the Treo can record hours of interviews (including phone calls), produce Web-quality photos and video, plus the other obvious stuff — contacts, ToDo lists, etc. Depending on the user’s desire to thumb-key in data, the Treo can also be used for e-mail, Word docs, Excel, etc.
In fact, the Palm folks have been pretty roundly panned for their $500 Foleo “mobile companion” that’s coming out in a few weeks, — probably because they had the sheer audacity to introduce a product around the same time as the iPhone. (What nerve!)
But the Foleo *could* prove to be a reporter’s dream device, particularly if it’s paired with a reporter who is already attached to her Treo — something smaller and lighter than most laptops that offers Internet anywhere that you have a signal, instant-on for typing notes or stories, the ability to file stories from the road, blog anywhere and, depending on Foleo’s capabilities (and whether 3rd party apps will be allowed), perhaps the possibility of creating/editing audioblog/podcast content on the Treo/Foleo that then gets sent back into to the paper’s server quickly.
I may be the only person excited about the Foleo, but I’m definitely curious to see whether it extends the already useful Treo even a bit further as a reporting tool.
Christine Tatum:
July 24, 2007 at 10:22 pm
The discussion here is interesting! Have really appreciated many of your comments.
I completely understand where Matt, who writes from the perspective of the beleagured IT staff, is coming from. Just want to make painfully clear that I don’t expect anyone at work to service technology I personally own.
At the same time, I do think companies — and certainly not just newsrooms — would do themselves a whole lot of favors by devising policies that enable workers to use tools that make them most productive. What I typically run into is a lack of creativity in this regard. It’s so much easier to say, “No!” than it is to be flexible and innovative.
And Todd: If you’re out there and could drop me a line at ctatum@spj.org, I would really appreciate it. Would like to ask you a few more questions about the Treo and your experiences with it. Am giving a talk about handy tech tools for journalists and think your perspective would be really helpful. Thanks!