Digital Story Master Class

How to Create Innovative Multimedia Journalism

December 8 - December 12, 2002

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You’re a journalist, a writer, an artist, a storyteller, and you want to tell great stories, period. This seminar is all about the story. You’re sick and tired of talking about business models, branding, metrics, revenue strategies and management issues. Today’s digital platforms have NOT been conquered, defined or discredited and you want to learn new ways to use them to communicate with human beings. That’s right, human beings. Not users, customers or "unique visitors." Real people. You know you can do more with the tools at your disposal to communicate with people. We’ll help you learn how to do so.

Key Topics

Great stories: Some Web sites you've heard of and some you haven't are stretching our understanding of what can and can't be accomplished with today's devices. We'll inspire you with examples of what's possible when you put your heart into a project.

The production system: Do you need a team of specialists, like a film production, or can one or two artisans create powerful, compelling digital content? We'll look at a range of approaches.

How to: A hands-on workshop of how a story on one platform can and should be told differently on another platform.

Brainstorming clinic: Learn how to start with a blank screen and storyboard a project from concept to finished product.

The future of news: What kinds of platforms are on the way and how might today's storytellers plan for the continuing evolution of digital media.

What’s a Story?

Are we simply groping for techniques to present traditional stories on new platforms, or has technology changed the very definition of a story? Should news sites stick to content researched and vetted by professional journalists, or should they enable users to research and vet stories on their own? What are the untapped opportunities of interactive, global communication networks, and what are the pitfalls of user-generated content and raw source material that we must avoid to preserve the integrity of our content? Human Factors, Innovation and Interactive Design What do we really know about how people use digital media? What should we do with the data? How do we balance the desire to meet user expectations with the creative urge to be different? Should stories be driven by a single artistic vision, or should we exploit technology to design custom, layered interfaces and experiences for individual users?

Objective:

You’ll participate in a series of how-to, brainstorming and critique sessions and debate the limitations of technology and real-world news production vs. the untapped creative potential of current and future technologies. You’ll return home inspired not merely to add glitz to your content but to focus on providing your users with the rich and informative digital story experience they deserve.

Digital Story Master Class
The future: digital
Timeless: great stories
A Media Center Seminar
December 8 – 12, 2002
Tentative Program

Sunday, December 8

Welcome

4:00 p.m.

Check-in Hyatt Dulles

6 p.m.

Welcome and cocktails in a private dining room at the Hyatt Dulles

6:45 p.m.

Dinner

7:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.

Seminar Welcome: Andrew Nachison, Director, The Media Center
Quick Roundtable Discussion: What Are The Challenges?

A HOSPITALITY ROOM (HORIZON SUITE) WILL BE AVAILABLE MONDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY FROM 7:00 P.M. UNTIL MIDNIGHT AT THE HYATT DULLES HOTEL

Monday, December 9

7:00 a.m.-8 a.m.

Continental breakfast at the Hyatt Dulles

8:30 a.m.

Hyatt vans depart from the hotel lobby for API

9 a.m.-Noon

The Story on The Story

Discussion Leader: Nora Paul, director, Institute for New Media, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (confirmed)

9 a.m.-10:30 a.m.
Digital Journalism: Where Are We, Where Do We Need To Go?

10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Workshop: Five elements of digital story telling

12:15 p.m.-1 p.m.

Lunch

1 p.m.-3 p.m.

Case Studies: JournalE

Discussion Leader: Alan Dorow, publisher and executive editor, JournalE, and founder of Tango Interactive, Silver Spring, Maryland (invited)

JournalE produces some of the most riveting journalism published online (or anywhere). We’ll learn, through a series of step-by-step case studies, exactly how and why JournalE tells stories the way it does. What would it take for other news organizations to produce content of similar quality?

3 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.

Break

3:15 p.m.-5:15 p.m.

Pictures and text: A new medium or new tools?

Discussion Leaders: Tom Kennedy, editor, Washingtonpost.com Camera Works and Doug Feaver, executive editor, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (confirmed)

Once dominated by masses of text surrounding occasional photos, just like its newsprint parent, Washingtonpost.com has nurtured a multimedia team that’s offering an alternative glimpse of the present, and perhaps of the future of news. The picture stories in Camera Works combine traditional visual journalism with text, audio and video. Is this interplay of the different story “elements” – pictures, words and sound - merely an enhancement to the much simpler “core” product of old, or does it signify the evolution of a genuinely new medium? And how, exactly, are these stories produced?

5:15 p.m.-6:30 p.m.

Clinic groups meet

6:30 p.m.

Bus departs for Hyatt

7:15 p.m.

A buffet dinner will be served in a private dining room

Tuesday, December 10

7:00 a.m.-8 a.m.

Continental breakfast at the Hyatt Dulles

8:30 a.m.

Hyatt vans depart from the hotel lobby for API

9 a.m.-10:30 a.m.

Nonlinear Storytelling 101
Discussion Leader: TBA

10:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.

Games people play: Tell stories with games and highly interactive interfaces

Discussion Leader: Glenn Thomas, Smashing Ideas, Seattle, Washington (invited)

12:45 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.

Lunch

1:30 p.m

Bus departs for USAToday.com

2 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.

Welcome and introduction to USAToday.com multimedia storytelling
Discussion leaders: Kinsey Wilson, vice president and editor in chief, and Jessica Caffrey, Executive Producer, News Presentation, USAToday.com. (confirmed)

2:45 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Data crunch: How can numbers and users tell stories together?

Let the numbers speak. How can you use and PRESENT data as an interface to digital stories?

Discussion Leaders: Paul Overberg, database editor, and Juan Thomassie, senior designer, USAToday.com (invited)

4:30 p.m.- 5:15 p.m.

Brief tour of USAToday.com multimedia facilities

5:15 p.m.

Bus departs for Holocaust Museum

5:45 p.m.

Tour Holocaust museum and dinner on your own in museum café

8 p.m.

Chartered bus returns to Hyatt Dulles

TUESDAY – FREE NIGHT. Vouchers will be provided for Snapper’s Restaurant at the Hyatt Dulles, or make plans to go out with other seminar members.

Wednesday, December 11

7:00 a.m.-8 a.m.

Continental breakfast at the Hyatt Dulles

8:30 a.m.

Bus departs for API

9 a.m.-Noon

The production team: MSNBC

Discussion Leader: Angela Clark, MSNBC, Redmond, Washington (confirmed)

12:15 p.m. – 1 p.m.

Lunch at café API and last chance for clinic groups to meet

1 p.m.

Charter bus departs API for Freedom Forum in Arlington, Virginia
Activities will include:

First Amendment Discussion, The Freedom Forum, Rooftop Level

Discussion Leaders: John Seigenthaler, Chairman, The Freedom Forum

First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, Nashville; and Kenneth A. Paulson, Senior Vice President, The Freedom Forum, and Executive Director, The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center (confirmed)

Newseum Tour

Reception and Dinner

6:15 p.m.

Charter bus leaves Freedom Forum for return to Hyatt Dulles

Thursday, Dec. 12

Vision: Putting It All Together

7 a.m. – 8 a.m.

Breakfast at the Hyatt

8:30 a.m.

Board departs for API

9 a.m.-10:30 a.m.

No noise: Intelligent interaction

Everyone is a publisher, the Internet is a peer-to-peer bazaar of facts, fictions and fantasies. How can we harness and facilitate the cacophony to promote and present meaningful dialog about important issues?

Discussion Leader: Jan Schaffer, director, Pew Center for Civic Journalism, Washington, DC (confirmed)

The Particulars

Please read The Media Center's Registration Policies

Who Should Attend?

Experienced online reporters, producers, designers, multimedia editors and content directors and traditional print and broadcast reporters, editors, producers and news directors who want to learn new ways to communicate with online audiences. That would include newspaper executive and managing editors, broadcast news directors, art and design directors, online content directors, senior and junior producers, and senior and junior reporters from all media.

Tuition: $1,665 before Oct. 9; $1,850 regular

Location: Reston, Virginia

(This seminar has already occured)