Participants in the Sensing the News workshop worked in small groups to develop reports on the new technologies explored during the conference. NewsLab and the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota asked them to put issues of cost aside, and simply to consider what journalists might do with 360-degree video, Web cameras, immersive audio and the like.
INTERACTIVE AND IMMERSIVE AUDIO
The group decided first to define what it is they were talking about. Interactive: you can contribute, participatory, call in, add audio files, manipulate audio. Immersive: like 360 degree sound, a special, stereo environment.
Uses in news: Oral history indexed by topic so you could choose what you want to hear. Bird sounds, categorized by zip code, so you could hear birds in your neighborhood, and add your own. Sonic dictionary. Tours of proposed designs, like a new theater, hear the acoustics, audio tour. Walking tour of historical sites, similar to what Janet Carter, an installation audio artist based in Toronto does. You get a headset and stereo walkman. Her footsteps are your guide, you walk at same pace. (Imagine these other uses: Let people hear speech in original language while you read the text in your own language. Have the writer read a story so you experience it in their words. “In their own words” over a couple of still photos, aftermath of a hurricane for example, with several people’s versions. See Washpost.com U Street example.)
Education: Audio recording and production. Give students parts of story. Let them line up clips and create sequence. Demonstrate use of microphone, how placement affects sound you get. How to be attentive to sound as you are out recording. Listening skills.
Technology: Could you manipulate where you are in the sound the way you can with video shot with multiple cameras? Not yet developed in audio technology.
Research: Impact of audio in comprehension and memory. What are the limits of audio quality. The rule of thumb is that if the audio continues people will stay with story, even if video is gone. What is needed to be able to produce this kind of audio? Decisions about when you make an audio vs. a visual story. Now it’s often based on functionality, but it should be an artistic decision as well, knowing when to use your craft (immersive audio makes it feel as if you are in someone’s head…). In the experience of WashingtonPost.com, no one clicks on the audio-only version when video is available. What would motivate people to pay more attention to what they are listening to, that is, to choose the audio-only version? Suggestion: a “no wait” sign?
WEB CAMS
Livewave.com is an example of a current Web cam that can be user-driven. It allows you to cover news from wherever you are: Logan Airport, I-93. The cams are cheap, software is cheap, but they need a lot of bandwidth, which is expensive. They are designed for professional coverage. “Drive it yourself” cameras. Issues? What is the implied right of privacy in public space? Jeff Gralnick points out that the privacy problem is not what you show but what you say while it’s on the air. ABC used video of a street scene and talked about smuggling. A person who could be identified sued, and had a case. Warning to industry–think about it. Flexibility: Use Web cams for live reporting, anywhere you can get online using a laptop, camera and digital cellphone. Education: rehearsal of on camera presentations. Example: Inexpensive software like Visual Communicator by seriousmagic.com. Includes greenscreen chromakey, drag and drop video capability. Web cams: orange micro, firewire. USB1 type gets you bad quality. Buy a firewire card for $40, plug it in, stream at a good rate on a 200 Pentium. Moving toward using this (Web cam video) in IM.
360 DEGREE PHOTO AND VIDEO
When and why use it? When there is lots of action; when you need to provide context; when the user drives and the journalist guides; to expand view of existing image (pulling out to go wide, show still image and let user see the context in which it was taken so you can get the environment photographer was in); when you want to take the viewer where he or she can’t normally go (distant or unsafe places); to unmask what’s going on behind the scenes (empty room). When not to use it? Not for all cases or stories. There are times when framing either with camera or words gives you focus and provides definition to make a story work. Otherwise it may not make sense. Applications? Tours, press conferences, smaller enclosed places rather than large landscapes, riots or breaking news. The journalist can say: if you move left you can see…but the user would drive the image. Imagine an intermediate experience. Not a reporter narrated or just user driven (no instruction or context), but reporter as guide: I’ve been here, I’ve looked around, let me give you some advice. 360 as metaphor for reportorial experience. Lots of work to be done to make this functional, better quality. Upside: no need to shoot as many shots to get all the action. You could offer two paths, allowing for an unmediated experience, with the addition of hotspots (links in the video) to provide interactivity. Downsides: you need an interesting shot in 360. Ideally you have at least two interesting things and you are between them. Must haul extra equipment. Loss of focus–360 could broaden context too much.
Technical: Preplanning is key. Issues: when you use a fish eye two shots are needed to create one 360-degree image, which has ethical implications, because you have to take them at different times. This is how it’s done now in 35mm: lots of shots, quicktime VR, ethical implications, altered image. This is no good for action situation, only landscapes, because you can’t have things move while you set up the second shot. Are you in the photo or not? If not how do you take it? Robot? Beanie? How do you see what’s going on behind you? How do we tell people the 360-degree function even exists so they will use it.
Audience: Allows journalists to explain what journalistic choices have been made. Why we make the decisions we do to take the pictures we do, cover the situations we do. It breaks down the us/them dichotomy. The audience can tell more about the credibility of news organization.
Education: Use a 360-camera to show journalists in action, give students the experience of an entire situation they might find themselves in.
Ethics: Issues of photo manipulation arise; also need for permissions–people may not know they are on camera. Who teaches this? Teacher training is needed. Let students know this may not be reality for a long time. Impact on newsroom: Adding to existing job requirements. Journalists will not thank us. Who takes images: solo reporters? Teams? Photojournalists? Reporters? Both? Training on equipment, how to report with it. If everyone is required to do it, quality won’t be high enough. Union issues.
Research: If you put the journalist into the picture in some way, what would audience think of this? If they see us and see what we’re doing, the audience could better understand what is involved. You may not need a reporter on camera, can provide information in text or track. If the user doesn’t navigate should they see a director’s cut? Do audiences want more than passive visuals, to be able to drive? In terms of technology, need to develop one camera that can take 360-degree photos, regular shots, panoramas, and video.
3-D PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO
Uses: Illustrative or explanatory journalism, to show what it’s like in the field (eg: mountains and caves in Afghanistan). The technology lends itself to experiential journalism. It provides emotional access–connects people to the world, providing more sensory information. The technology is not ready for prime time. Needs to lose the goggles, need to synch everything including zooms. Could you switch a monitor from 2-D to 3-D? Need one camera so it would be less cumbersome than shooting with two at the same time. Issues include need for high bandwidth, seamless software. Users could submit their own 3-D elements for stories. 3-D forces outside of news will be adopting this, especially the gaming industry. It would be great to add this to 360 goggles, and add directional audio. Might as well put it all in there. Audience impact: 2-D gives a distance, but 3-D would bring people in closer. This could have good or bad implications. 2-D offers a level of protection, 3-D thrusts you into it. Would need to label what you’re doing because people could be upset by graphic images. In coverage of disasters, for example, there would be no separation. But it could also create a sense of community.
Newsroom: Training needed. Still need good craft. Similar to the transition from darkroom to Photoshop.
Education: Anything to keep them awake! Imagine a mockup of a scene to train students to observe, and report before going out in the field. Or bring it back and let them see what they missed.
Research: 3-D changes perception of information. What is the best way to view it? Accessibility issues (some people can’t see it). The news industry should be prepared for a generation coming in that is 3-D savvy. This is really the only technology not yet in use by news media. Will people begin to accept this as reality? You are creating that impression when it is not the case. Are you distorting, lying, by using this? Will the audience be harmed by it?
FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
Thirty years from now: Device becomes a non-existent issue. It’s about uses, not tools. “Everything from anywhere.” We won’t think about the tools any more than we think about the telephone, or the pipe sending the water to the fountain.
Issues: Convenience; portability; manipulability (what can you do with it); collection is ubiquitous (maybe everything is monitored, a Web cam on every lamppost, a camera in every phone, so how many reporters do you need to send in the field?) Control of news events becomes like sports events now. War coverage might be only on CNN because they own the rights. Dissemination may be more artificial intelligence or more people, not clear. Also not clear whether content will be more or less important than distribution. But we still need journalists as filters, helping to take data and information and produce knowledge.
Ten years from now, imagine these scenarios and roles, a kind of information food chain:
- Information collector. A 15 year old girl. I walk around with a device that inputs audio, video and text, indexes it, and pumps it out. I get paid a small amount of money for walking around. I have GPS on my device. I collect weather data. I get small micropayments to give it up to wholesalers.
- Information broker. Images as property have become more important. Being at the right place at the right time is what matters. Ordinary people are taking winning pictures. I am a small company looking for hot new properties and pulling them down. I take it in raw form and package it as stories. I can buy information on an Ebay-type service in the hope I can turn around and sell it to distributors. On a good day, there might be 5-6 views of the same thing which I can cut together to produce a package that will sell.
- Publisher/editor of leftist publication. I am okay with links to NGOs which become news gatherers. They go to demonstrations and government meetings. I need contact with information brokers I can buy stuff from. I need talented writers, editors, packagers and reporters. Essentials that I provide include speed and analysis. I don’t spend money dispatching people to scenes. I use off the shelf software for computer assisted reporting, powerful sifting of databases most important. I will pay for investigative work.
- Re-publisher. My Web site and I have become one and the same. I don’t go out much. I sit in front of my screen. People are into republishing. We started with data, then information, then knowledge. Some of us got to wisdom. It’s fashionable to say, “I’m in information.” News was about hierarchy, now it’s about collaboration. It’s all about creating knowledge. I sit here sifting. Being a finder is just as important as being a writer. Information comes in minimal units. Cut and paste is where I began and what I’m still doing. I use Newsblaster to lay out whole spectrum so I can cut and paste. It’s really just a matter of figuring out what to do with it once I got it.
- Communicator. I talk with friends and family all day through hand held devices or even my refrigerator. When something happens I almost always hear about it first from one of my friends.
- Game mod. I get news on my handheld. I send news that ways too. When you file a news story a Web bot will pick it up and add it to next news cycle. I make more depending on viewership, and I can tell how I’m doing by watching the pocket logo on the anchor, which changes depending on how many people are checking the news.
