6 tips for building a converged (or collaborative) newsroom

Multimedia hardware:
Buy wise, but don't buy cheap

You don't have to break the bank on digital hardware. You want students to produce quality visuals and audio, but you don't have to drop Five Large for a camera or audio recorder.

Kent JMC professors, Teresa Hernandez and Gary Hanson -- both with many years of professional and teaching experience -- have these suggestions for digital still photography, video and audio equipment that will let you "get started" and produce quality results. Prices approximate what you might pay at the multimedia candy store, B&H Photo/Video/Audio, although there are many other sources. Nowhere is the old saying, "you get what you pay for," more true than when dealing with digital photography, video and audio. Sometimes paying an extra $100-$500 will get you more quality and a piece of equipment that lasts three years instead of two.

Still cameras ($100-$1,000 depending on resolution, lens speed, zoom, etc.): Canon Digital Rebel, Powershot series, 30D, 40D, 50D. And, Nikon D60, D90, D100, D200.

Audio recorders: Sony and Olympus make a number of products in the $50-90 range, most with USB connectors and adequate flash memory. For a much higher quality, more sophisticated field recorder, look at a Marantz, but be ready to drop six times as much money. In a pinch, of course, an iPod will do if it takes a microphone. Griffin Technology makes a number of mini-mics that Hernandez says work well with iPods.

Microphones for interviews and field work (lavaliers and handhelds) vary tremendously in quality and price. Some students get by with a $40 lavalier from Radio Shack. For better quality, you might look at the 803 lav (@$200) and the 8004 handheld from Audio-Technica (@$130). There's also the 635-A from Electrovoice at about the same price.

Video cameras: Lots to choose from. At low end is Canon ZR-930 at about $240; mini-DV format; has basic features plus a microphone input (very important for quality interviews). Hanson says it's better for individual student use than for heavy duty multi-user production work. For an HD camcorder, he says several of his students have been pleased with the Canon HV30 at under $600. For heavy duty use and high quality results, he says you might want to look at a Canon GL2 bundle (camera, tripod, professional mic and cables) for a tad more than $2,500.

Tripods: Available online, at Best Buy and elsewhere, prices start around $50 and go up quickly depending on features (quick release), strength and quality.

Note to self: For any equipment, don't forget to ask about an educational discount, especially on package deals. Most manufacturers offer them.

Inexpensive software subs? Go here

 

It’s been a long, frustrating, exciting experience. Our dream newsroom hasn’t quite developed over night, but we think it has a decent chance. We know we've moved beyond the Shared space in the continuum, and we're somewhere in stage 2, the Collaborative Newsroom. Given our early progress and granting that newsroom turnover stifles the process, we expect we're still a number of years away from some iteration of a true "converged newsroom."

During our trek, we've learned a lot and continue to do so. Here are a half dozen of the major Lessons Learned in our role as “wedding planners.”

• Begin planning early. It’s not just a physical space you’re creating. It’s first of all a mindset among students – and faculty. The planning for Duke University's NextNewsroom project went on for two-plus years, and the space still hasn't been created. Our planning took more than a year before one stick of furniture was put in place.
  
  
• Make the space open and flexible. It will increase communication and collaboration. It doesn’t have to be a huge space, but students need to be able to see and talk to each other, and the multimedia “geeks” need to be able to reach out and touch geeks-in-waiting.
  
  
• Give students multimedia tools, software and hardware tools to practice multimedia journalism. You don’t have to spend a lot of money, and you do want your students capturing quality video and audio. See sidebar at right.
  
  
• Let students lead the way to convergence. They may act like they have all the answers and are super media savvy, but they don't and aren't. They need your help and guidance. But, it is their newsroom, and they need to be invested in the plan and the goal.
  
  
• Commit resources – time, money, people -- to a collaborative Web site, and try to make that Web site the core of the newsroom. Give the editor or manager equal footing in the newsroom with the newspaper managing editor or the television station news director. Make sure the Web editor is not just a glorified technician. If some of your courses feed content into legacy media, make sure you include the Web site.
  
  
• Set realistic goals. You’re not going to create the ultimate converged newsroom in one fell swoop. We sure haven’t. Old ways of doing things, old media loyalties die hard. Speed bumps abound. But, if you have a core group of students and faculty who truly want to make it work, you've got a good shot at doing so.

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