Basic interviewing and note-taking techniques, ways to improve environmental reporting and more in this week's Digital Media Mash Up, produced by the Center for International Media Assistance.
12 basics of interviewing, listening and note-taking
As a writer I would NOT give myself high marks for the crafts of interviewing, listening and note-taking. But I have sat at the knees of journalists who are experts at these elements of craft: John Sawatsky of ESPN, Jacqui Banaszynski of the University of Missouri, and Tom French of Indiana University – all of whom have taught at Poynter.
Not long ago, I taught a workshop on these topics to the young men of Poynter’s Write Field program, about 40 minority students attending middle school and high school. They found my lessons useful, so I thought I would pass them on to a larger audience. (Roy Peter Clark, Poynter, 8/19)
Five ways to improve environmental reporting
In the weeks following the death of Cecil the Lion, a 13-year-old African lion killed during a trophy hunt, media outlets big and small wondered what would now become of the lions still living in Africa. Scientific American interviewed the researcher tracking Cecil, who said the hunt had served as a catalyst for millions of people to “express their enthusiasm for the value of nature.” The New York Times questioned if all the rage directed at hunter Walter Palmer might in fact undermine efforts to save the lions, reinvigorating an old discussion of the value of trophy hunting toward conservation. Zimbabweans wondered if we had all lost our minds.
Taken collectively, the stories of his death show that media coverage of the natural world has enormous power to influence it—or, at least, how much we believe it does. (Columbia Journalism Review, 8/19)
Tips for crowdsourcing stories from BBC, WBEZ Chicago and The Ferret
In a media industry swept by rapid change, the role of the audience has evolved significantly – eyewitness media's increasing presence in the news now makes people active participants.
However, determining what is worth covering is still largely an editorial decision, but would some stories be better or different, and would they even make it into the news at all, if the audience had their say from the beginning? (Journalism.co.uk, 8/21)
A community of news: ProPublica expands crowdsourcing, exchanging expertise with other newsrooms
Over the next year, with the support of Knight Foundation, we will be working to improve how we engage communities to help us create journalism that spurs change.
From our inception, two things have distinguished our journalism: our focus on deep, investigative reporting and our use of data to explain how systems meant to serve the public can often fall short. We employ classic investigative reporting and big data techniques to both expose problems and illuminate potential remedies. (Amanda Zamora of ProPublica, Knight Foundation, 8/20)
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Main image CC-licensed by Flickr via Chung Ho Leung.
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