MOBILE REPORTING TOOLS
Allison Blood, Jacqueline Mejia, Matthew Schmertz
Convergence Capstone
May 12, 2011
What is a mobile reporting tool?
As journalists across multiple platforms know, the face and structure of
journalism is changing rapidly and vastly. The ‘traditional’ tools journalists once carried
in their backpacks and toolkits – tape recorders, HD cameras, notebooks, photographic
cameras – might become a series of deadweight tools within the next five to ten years.
With the advancement of mobile reporting tools, journalists can report anywhere
and at any time, all with a push of a button on their app or mobile device. This allows
journalists to instantly connect to their audience, and for their audience to actively
participate and engage themselves in the content being posted.
But before one can truly understand the value of a mobile reporting tool, the very
definition of this type of tool had to be explained. What exactly is a mobile reporting
tool? The easiest way to break down the meaning of such a new concept for many people
– including journalists – is to break down the parts of the word: mobile, reporting, tool.
First, with mobile, this means that the writer can take their tool wherever they need to-
in a very fast and easy manner. Gone are the days where a journalist needs to lug around
a handful of tools, instead, a journalist can tote a lightweight iPad, iPhone, or Android
phone and a few hardware tools in order to attain great coverage of an event. Second, a
mobile device can definitely be a reporting tool due to the capability of the multitude of
apps and hardware tools that are out there for journalists to use. Journalists can use what
may seem like an ordinary mobile phone device or tablet to another person to update
their audience through multiple live Tweets or posts in micro-reporting applications such
as ScribbleLive, edit photos through instant photo applications like Photoshop Express,
take landscape photos with the Pano app, or instantly transfer files to an editor or source
through Textforce and Dropbox. All of these apps, as well as several others, will be
covered more in depth throughout the course of this paper to showcase how apps and
tools can be used in the field. Finally, the tool part of a mobile journalism tool part can
aid journalists in advancing their reporting in the field through supporting audiences and
listeners with adequate coverage. These tools can be used to present audiences with
immediate, multimedia coverage through photos, blogging, videos, text pieces, and much
more.
Why did we pick this capstone?
After discussing the definition of a mobile reporting tool, the next question that
needs to be answered is why did our group choose this capstone as our final senior
project? Although each one of us chose this particular capstone for different reasons,
each of our fundamental purposes helped us understand the depth and structure of mobile
journalism in different ways. To be valuable in the workplace, you have to have something that other storytellers don’t. In a climate where news departments are shrinking and the online community is growing, knowing how to tell a story in different ways does make an applicant more marketable. For a capstone, that’s helpful. Also, we are lucky that the RJI mobile blog has a reputation and a fair amount of traffic. This lends us some credibility, and helps out with the reviews. Also the expert interviews were a great way to network with those who have similar interests to us, and were a valuable insight into how (and if) news stations are using any types of new technology.
Jackie wanted to learn more about the mobile journalism industry and how it can be used as a business model to structure the evolution of journalism throughout the transition from traditional media tools to the new and revolutionary media tools. Matt was more interested in the development of mobile journalism tools as part of the capstone project – how did mobile tools improve upon existing technology? How does a developer decide which apps to update and how did these updates facilitate better communication between an audience and a journalist?
Allie’s story for why she wanted to do this capstone is probably the most interesting one
of all since she is actually a broadcast major. Allie said she wanted to do this capstone in
order to see how the progression of journalism would shape itself and specifically, how
would this relate to the broadcast journalism industry.
What did we do?
To summarize our process, we did our best to forecast the future of mobile tools in journalism. How we did this was more tedious than simple pontification. At the direction of our RJI Fellow Will Sullivan, we talked to some experts in the field of Mobile Reporting. They were not all easy to get ahold of, so we found some on our own. They didn’t always give us the answers we were looking for, but we found that we need to be flexible in our research and what we begin to look at. It was from these interviews and the reviews from last semester that we chose what we wanted to review for the project. Some reviews we updated, most were new. We did most of them on applications for iPhones, Androids and the iPad2. After we picked them out, we each found a few events that we wanted to test out the apps for. Some of the tests didn’t require an event to report on, so we found time on our own to test them out. After each, we wrote a blog post for the RJI Mobile Blog. We decided each should have at least one link to a review or a site that has the specs for the tool, but also should have a picture or video in it. This was easy for many of them, as we could use the photos, video or audio we produced from testing the app to post on the blog. With one app I looked at in specific, the Wordpress for iPhone app, I was able to do the blog review, as the review. It was not as pretty as the other reviews I did, but it gave a good sense of how the app worked. In the final weeks, we chatted as a group as to what the conclusion of our process was. Was it only for self-betterment? Was it only to get to borrow cool tech gadgets from the J school for a semester? Or did we actually learn something? We certainly didn’t make a focus group or take a survey or measure anything statistically. But we can make some educated guesses on where some of this technology will go, based on what the climate is now, and the improvements that can be made to the current technology.
Expert Interviews
We each picked a few of our favorite expert interviews to include in the presentation. These were people who are working in the field either using mobile tools everyday or working to develop them. We asked questions such as what tools they liked best, which they didn’t like, what challenges they saw to the industry and how they saw mobile tools changing journalism.
At first, it was difficult to try to find plenty of these experts to interview. Although these journalists and academics knew about media and how tools can be used in journalism, some of them had never heard or used some of the tools, apps and hardware that we were trying to test out based on their potential opinions and thoughts. Each one of us had to go back to the drawing board and figure out what was the best way to approach the situation in order to attain the information and opinions that we needed. We each set out to not only interview experts we had gathered a list of based on recommendations from Will, but we also took the initiative to look out for people we believed are experts in the mobile journalism field.
Eventually, after profusely emailing back and forth to set up interviews, Jackie was able to talk to MSNBC producer Jim Seida, one of the original iPhone bloggers, Scott Kleinberg, Sonya Quick, who is a big proponent of mobile journalism tools at the Orange County Register, and Len Clark, who currently works with Vericorder Technology, a company that is currently pioneering apps and media tools for journalists.
Here are some of the interviews with the aforementioned experts:
MSNBC Producer Jim Seida:
Seida used iMovie in order to edit the footage that he shot on his phone, Dragon Dictate to type out the text that he was writing for photo captions and Almost DSLR in order to capture pictures.
Seida says that although apps can help in reporting, the tools cannot be an excuse for sub-par work, and should be used with the same efficiency that professional tools require.
He is still a little skeptical about finding the ‘perfect’ app though.
“There are new apps coming out all the time…it’s honestly a challenge to stay on top of them all. The perfect app for most of what we need to do still doesn’t exist and likely never will.”
No matter what he decides to film, Seida says,
“[…] never underestimate the importance of locking a camera down (when shooting video). If you attach your iPhone to a tripod as opposed to hand-holding it, your finished product will look much better online.”
Through her interview with Seida, Jackie found out that the foundation of journalism always stays the same, no matter what tools a person is working with.
Interview with Len Clark:
Clark says that ‘traditional’ journalists would look at his equipment and wonder he was going to produce a quality product.
Clark makes sure to keep his gear bag packed with all the tools he needs to report on the sidelines-or anywhere. Some of the applications he uses includes the Vericorder app software, OWLE camera mount, and a light kit.
As Clark says, “it’s a kit that continues to evolve.”
In regards to mobile technology and the future of apps, here is what Clark had to say:
Q: What are the limitations that you face right now?
A: “You’ve got two major platforms out there, so individuals are trying to find out which is a preferred platform. You also have resistance of change, limited by creativity right now too. It takes experimenting, but it’s fun.”
Jackie felt was interesting speaking with Clark because throughout the interview, Clark portrayed how enthusiastic a journalist is willing to be if he or she is passionate about the work and content being produced through these mobile journalism tools. Clark talked about his experiences with traditional journalists and how they would ostracize him when he was out reporting at live college football games because he did not have the gear that they did, but instead had an iPhone, a microphone and earphones in order to report. Although these journalists snickered at him, he ended up producing content that was on par with what these journalists were doing with traditional media tools. This interview exhibited that a journalist can produce quality work with mobile reporting tools, if he or she is willing to put in the effort to do so.
Neal Augenstein
Allie was responsible for this interview. This was my favorite interview because of his real world experiences using his iPhone to do radio stories. As someone who wants to do radio professionally, he was an inspiration and a good example of how this project can relate to my goals as a journalist.
Neal Augenstein is a radio reporter at WTOP in Washington D.C. He is best known for using his iPhone as his lone reporting tool. He’s been doing so since February of 2010. Augenstein primarily uses VC Audio Pro, which is a multi-track audio editor, which allows him to pull sound bites from those he’s interviewed, do a voiceover and also lay natural sound under it all. He said it’s capabilities are equal to that of Adobe Audition or Audacity: it can manipulate volume, fades and all the rest. The drawbacks he’s found are the microphone quality of the iPhone 4, which is not quite broadcast quality. “I’d say it’s about 92-95 percent as good as if I were recording on a good digital recorder.” He previously used a Blue-Mikey with his iPhone 3Gs, because he said is provided a substantially better audio quality. But the mic is not compatible with his iPhone4, and Blue Microphone hasn’t made an updated version for the new iPhone.
Augenstein said working with the iPhone to transmit video, text and pictures along with this radio stories shortens the time from when the reporter is in the field to when the story is out there for viewers or listeners. For video and pictures, Augenstein said he says he uses the built-in camera of his iPhone 4, and uses 1stVideo (a product by Vericorder) for his video. He said 1stVideo and VC Pro have similar interfaces and keystrokes so it makes it easy to use both in producing content. He did say that the videos should be short and not too complicated because video editing on the iPhone is difficult because it’s small and emailing large video files is time consuming.
Augenstein said the best technique he’s learned for mobile reporting is to realize that journalists have to re-define the news-gathering flow. “In the old days as a radio reporter I would attempt to break news on the radio; to do it anyplace else would be looked at with scorn from coworkers. With all the different platforms now, – we've embraced the radio-web synergy.” He said the multi-platform approach has a “we are them, they are we” philosophy.
There are a few limitations Augenstein has run into. Other than the microphone issues previously mentioned, he said there are no iPhone specific windscreens, which proves difficult for storm coverage or reporting outside when it’s windy. He said when he did hurricane coverage, he had to find a way that he could sit in his car with the windows down to voice his story so that he still had background noise but it didn’t overpower his voice.
When it comes to live calling Augenstein said because of the risk reporters take with a call having poor reception or being dropped, he hasn’t had much luck with apps for calling into his newsroom with live hits. He said even when a reporter can find a wifi hotspot, the connection is often not stable enough for a quality conversation. He said that when the technology does come around to allow such things, it will be a game changer.
As for the future of working with his iPhone in the field, Augenstein said the best thing about using applications for the iPhone is the prices. He said there’s never any harm in spending a few dollars on an application to test it out, which is a far cry from spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on new hardware for traditional media.
Apps
After speaking to 15 experts in total, our research findings had to be broken down to see which gear and tools needed to be tested out based on the recommendations of these experts. We decided to look at the way in which the mobile journalism reporting tool could be used, how much the expert believed the particular tool could affect the industry, and whether the tool or application was an update or not, as some of the factors in the tools that we decided to purchase and test out. A big focus in our testing was to see how the applications and hardware would work on the Android phone and tablet (as an evolution of the past semester’s capstone work).
Favorites
Camera Genius 3.0
This was Allie’s favorite application she tested out. Not only was it incredibly easy to use, but it was also inexpensive. She saw it as a very usable tool for any journalist, be it a photographer to a print reporter who just needed to get some shots while out in the field. It’s applications like this one that are going to make journalism easier and of higher quality, while still being accessible to all newsrooms.
This application is really a great substitute to the camera already on the iPhone. Not only does it sense light a lot better, but it has great editing options. It has all the necessary basic functions like crop and color correct, but it also has effects that can mimic a flash (if for whatever reason the camera didn’t flash on its own) and fun effects like “70s” and “Psychedelic” to make photos more mood appropriate. When choosing the effects, each is previewed in a thumbnail and is easy to select and apply. Then the app saves both the original and the updated versions. After that it’s easy to share the image; the application synchs with Facebook, Twitter, email, Flickr and a few more outlets so you can share the photo to multiple sources at once.
I have been using this application as my main camera app for a few months now, and I have never had a problem taking or sending a photo before. The interface is beyond easy to use and the pictures turn out as well as any other small digital camera I’ve ever had, sometimes better in good light. Also, it never takes long to focus, so snapping a few quick pictures while out on assignment is easy to do. The zoom is fine, but it definitely gets a lot blurrier faster with the zoom on.