On Wednesday, The EP Scholars headed to the Poynter Institute for a more participatory experience. On arrival at Poynter, we were able to sit in on a class taught by Poynter professor Al Tompkins about multimedia reporting, primarily Internet video.
We had the opportunity to listen to real deal professional journalists from all over the nation and from high-profile news organizations – NPR, The Washington Post – and delve into their struggles with converging media. The pros actually asked us a few questions. It seemed like a really unique situation to have veteran journalists make inquiries to the inexperienced.
Throughout the seminar, Tompkins spoke to the pros and the EP scholars about the ethics of video editing. The primary discussion centered on whether or not it’s ethical to deceive the audience by altering video packages and Tompkins provided everyone with numerous examples of ostensibly quality work that had actually been altered to produce a predetermined outcome.
Obviously, mostly everyone present agreed that altering videos to deceive isn’t a move any journalist using video should do, even if the audience is aware of some editing. However, there were a few heated debates among the professional journalists that stemmed from their different backgrounds. Tompkins left the group with these great words of wisdom: “Anything we do to affirm the public’s suspicion that we in the news media aren’t telling the truth is something that is very bad,” he said.
After a tour of the Poynter building, we reconvened in a boardroom with IU grad Wendy Wallace for a bit of a debriefing on the seminar. In the boardroom, the discussion turned to the differences in ethics between journalism and PR. There seemed to be conflicting opinions on whether or not PR people had a code of ethics to follow or not, and while it wasn’t really resolved, the conversation was definitely interesting.
Post-lunch, we met with Poynter Vice President and Senior Scholar Roy Peter Clark. Clark, author of “Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.” He spoke to us primarily about tips from that aforementioned book. He gave us a shortened version of his tips, some of which we discussed thoroughly. Clark talked to us about a theory of reading he calls “X-Ray reading,” which requires us to look closer at quality writing to determine why it’s really good.
Clark also spoke to us about how to use words and punctuation to improve our writing. He noted that the number one thing journalists really do is make important things interesting, not just report the truth. Plus, he played us some John Mellencamp and Sonny and Cher on an acoustic guitar.
e-mail this pageback to Florida: Learning about convergence
We had the opportunity to listen to real deal professional journalists from all over the nation and from high-profile news organizations – NPR, The Washington Post – and delve into their struggles with converging media. The pros actually asked us a few questions. It seemed like a really unique situation to have veteran journalists make inquiries to the inexperienced.
Throughout the seminar, Tompkins spoke to the pros and the EP scholars about the ethics of video editing. The primary discussion centered on whether or not it’s ethical to deceive the audience by altering video packages and Tompkins provided everyone with numerous examples of ostensibly quality work that had actually been altered to produce a predetermined outcome.
Obviously, mostly everyone present agreed that altering videos to deceive isn’t a move any journalist using video should do, even if the audience is aware of some editing. However, there were a few heated debates among the professional journalists that stemmed from their different backgrounds. Tompkins left the group with these great words of wisdom: “Anything we do to affirm the public’s suspicion that we in the news media aren’t telling the truth is something that is very bad,” he said.
After a tour of the Poynter building, we reconvened in a boardroom with IU grad Wendy Wallace for a bit of a debriefing on the seminar. In the boardroom, the discussion turned to the differences in ethics between journalism and PR. There seemed to be conflicting opinions on whether or not PR people had a code of ethics to follow or not, and while it wasn’t really resolved, the conversation was definitely interesting.
Post-lunch, we met with Poynter Vice President and Senior Scholar Roy Peter Clark. Clark, author of “Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.” He spoke to us primarily about tips from that aforementioned book. He gave us a shortened version of his tips, some of which we discussed thoroughly. Clark talked to us about a theory of reading he calls “X-Ray reading,” which requires us to look closer at quality writing to determine why it’s really good.
Clark also spoke to us about how to use words and punctuation to improve our writing. He noted that the number one thing journalists really do is make important things interesting, not just report the truth. Plus, he played us some John Mellencamp and Sonny and Cher on an acoustic guitar.
e-mail this pageback to Florida: Learning about convergence
