The 'Secret' of New Media: Part I

Everyone always says you need new media on your Web site. But no one ever explains what that means.

Well, my Principles of Online Journalism textbook spells it out, but it's already outdated. I don't have the time or expertise to write my own textbook, but I can share what I have learned in the field. I hope I can provide a cheat sheet about how Web sites can utilize new media to their advantage.

Let me tell you the big secret: It's really quite easy.

But it can be time-consuming. And it does take proper resources -- but they don't have to be enormously expensive.

In my next post, I plan to address what I see as the four main aspects of a new media operation: video, audio, blogging and social networks. My focus is geared toward publications; more specifically, I am interested in how a publication can employ multimedia in a journalistic fashion on its Web site. However, the basic principles I'll lay out can be applied to almost any Web site. (Isn't that a sign of the times -- nothing to differentiate the media from the rest of the folks?)

I plan to do several posts about the topic of new media because it is both helpful to me in making sure I preserve my ideas, and more importantly, helpful to any readers who need to be aware of new media as it becomes increasingly important in several industries. I hope it helps to hear just how possible new media is from a journalist who didn't go to school for video production. I'm experimenting myself with how to get good at it, and I hope we can help each other.

I'm reminded of my colleague Christopher Gohlke. He went to London as an intern at a financial trade magazine right out of college and ended up jump-starting an entire multimedia operation. This was two years ago, when you were even less likely to see multimedia at a niche publication. I ended up working under him as an intern and he taught me the basics of everything I know about audio and video. (We now work for different publications from the same company, Asset International.)

Christopher is mostly self-taught with multimedia, and so, like me, he has really learned multimedia storytelling through trial and error. It is rocky at first here and there to teach yourself how to tell a story in a different way, but with the correct support and gumption, it is possible to create professional content.

Yes, I just ended with an anecdote at the end rather than beginning. It's like I'm throwing storytelling on its head! ...Get used to it -- that's what it's all about!