Electric Fishwrap has moved

On Tuesday, a man shot and stabbed his way through his neighborhood in the small town of Alger, about 15 minutes from my newspaper’s office. Six are dead, including a Skagit County deputy, and four are wounded. Countless others are deeply affected. Prosecutors accused Isaac Zamora of six counts of first-degree murder and four counts of first-degree assault. In court Friday, Zamora said “I kill for God. I listen to God” (article and audio here).

Skagit County has been swarming with state and national media since the attacks. Our paper, the Skagit Valley Herald, has been packed with stories since the day after the attacks.

Nothing like this has ever happened here. People are in shock. It is times like these when communities need their newspapers most. As gruesome as the details are, people want to know why this happened. People need to be able to process the tragedy.

Yesterday as I walked into a church that held an open prayer service, someone told me that they appreciated the newspaper and what we are doing. Before that, a barista at a coffee shop said the same thing when we were making small talk. People are also visiting our forums to talk about the tragedy and what the community has lost. This is why quality journalism will never die.

Information is part of the grieving process, too.

Since Tuesday, I’ve produced two videos (here and here), helped other reporters uncover hard-to-find sources, shot still photos, ran to court to get essential documents, made copies, written or contributed to three or four stories and helped other reporters produce audio and video. It’s been a wild and heartbreaking week.

Yesterday I wrote my first education story since Tuesday. It felt comfortable to write about something other than the killing spree that drew the nation’s eye to Skagit County.

Two weeks ago, Skagit Valley Herald editor in chief Don Nelson sat down with the reporting staff and told us about some upcoming changes in the newsroom. (For the curious, I asked Don permission if I could blog about this and he gave me the green light.)

Reporters were handed a four-page outline of how we can incorporate the Web into our daily reporting.

Here’s a brief outline of the new Web strategy. If you want to read the entire four-page handout (culled to three pages with my excellent paper-folding-and-taping skills), read the PDF here (includes bonus doodles).

• Editors will select which stories have the best potential for multimedia during their weekly editors meeting. At least two stories per week will be assigned for “multi-platform” presentation.
• Editors are responsible for coordinating the production and editing of the multimedia.
• Photographers must “think video” for breaking news.
• Photographers are a “first priority” to train in video production and editing. Editors and interested reporters come after the photogs are trained. Training will come from in-house or online sources.
• Reporters are responsible for audio recording and editing, including narration and interviews with subjects.

Reporters seemed skeptical and skittish because of the layoffs around the country. Even our own newsroom is not immune from this recent trend. Our business reporter position is frozen. Someone mumbled “do more with less,” which earned a funny statement from Don Nelson:

“I hate the phrase ‘More with less.’ It’s a despicable lie,” Don said. “I prefer ‘Different and better.’”

(For the record, I hate “more with less” with a passion, and Don’s comment has to be the most awesome comeback to it that I’ve ever heard. Cynical journalists are free to disagree, but I still love my job.)
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I was checking my Web site on other browsers, and I realized my clips were not viewable. (Oops!) Well now they are. Click on the Clips tab at the top (or here) and browse away. I reorganized about 100 pages and hopefully got all of the links pointed in the right direction. Please let me know if you come across one that doesn’t work.

Anyway, some of my favorites from the past few months:

• Regifting: The art of ditching those bad gifts
• Feature on a local production of the Nutcracker and the search for a man to play the Prince
• How many valedictorians do you really need?
• City government rules against home for troubled boys

Enjoy!

A couple of years ago I went to a narrative writing workshop with Tom Hallman, a Pulitzer-prizewinning reporter from the Oregonian. Just like anything else, narrative writing takes time to learn. (There is a form to narrative writing. Just read “Writing for Story: Craft Secrets of Dramatic Nonfiction” by Jon Franklin and you’ll see what I mean.)

Reporters asked how they would ever find the time to learn this new style when many of them have story quotas. The short answer was prioritize your work and realize that not every story deserves your full attention. The long answer was learn at home, read books, try new things with your copy on your own time.

The same can be said for multimedia. I know a number of reporters who want to wait on the company to teach them multimedia skills.

Colin Mulvany, the multimedia editor at the Spokesman Review, says reporters should train themselves on their own time.

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Our paper just bought three audio recorders. In the waning days of 2007, the managing editor walked up to me and handed me the company credit card with orders to buy audio recorders and microphones and not to go too much over $300. I pushed it to $400 and we got some nice stuff. (Edit: I got three Olympus DS-20 for the newsroom.)

But who is going to use them? When I got here I was the only one who recorded and edited audio. After I bought my Olympus DS-40 I sold my two-year-old WS-100 to a coworker, and she’s been playing with it for a couple of months. I don’t know if anything has been put on the Web yet, but she’s learning and so far very enthusiastic about it.

Anyway, the paper has held one audio training to get reporters and photographers used to the new devices. Only two people showed for the first training, a photog and a sports reporter who already has his own recorder. The second training was postponed due to lack of reporters.

Mindy McAdams has some great suggestions on how to get reporters used to new recorders and also the editing process. I’ve been asked to lead the reporters through the learning process in the next to-be-scheduled audio session with the recorders and I think I’ll try to use this tutorial to ease them along.

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Here’s the link to a story I wrote about the Burlington-Edison High School leadership club that went to visit the flood damage in Chehalis for themselves. I really had fun writing this. The audio I really had to throw together fast because only one person at the company currently has the ability to convert files from one format to another (that will soon change).

First off it’s always great to go and see the students doing stuff instead of phone interviews. I’ve always believed you get more out of seeing things in the classrooms and observing.

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My persistent pleas to include audio with selected stories have been answered. Here is my second audio piece for the Skagit Valley Herald:

On their toes: One dance school’s desperate search for “The Nutcracker” Prince

Check out some of my old audio from my site (anything from my podcasts section, the further down the older it is page moved due to transition to Wordpress, 7-17-08, visit clips section instead and look for the audio icon). I’ve come a long way. The Western Washington SPJ group has held trainings throughout the fall here, and I’ve learned a lot by attending the sessions.

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Two questions I am always asked about audio production:

1. Does recording audio interfere with reporting?
2. How long does it take?

First, a bit about my background. I started helping with audio podcasts at my last paper. I didn’t actually edit anything down, rather, I marked the clips I wanted and sent it to a Web editor, who then cut the clips out for me and sent it on to a special projects editor (who then collected it all into a podcast).

So technically, I never edited audio for any newspaper. I have, however, taken it upon myself to learn Audacity (a simple audio editor) on my own. After learning Audacity, I produced some podcasts for a video game fan site I visit (which I won’t post here, but everyone seemed happy with the quality).

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For a bit more than a year I’ve been obsessively tracking the movements in the Online reporting world. I consider myself a storyteller first and foremost, and I will do whatever I can do to help tell that story in the best possible way. That means using other technologies than just the printed word.

I’ve always been a gadget geek: I have owned my own digital recorder for nearly two years (and am considering an upgrade), a microphone (thinking of buying another two and a splitter), computer programs and other tools to help me learn, on my own, more about Online reporting.

But for those who are not tech-saavy, please read this great post by Mindy McAdams: First lesson in audio for journalists. This is a great summation of what you need to do to start collecting audio.

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