Hey Elise // by Elise Hu

And have yourself a good cry.

That giant horn of plenty was the highlight of my weekend.

Over the weekend, Photographer Brad and I made a quick trip to Des Moines to drop in on the presidential campaign trail, where six of the eight GOP candidates took part in a social issue-themed roundtable discussion while seated behind a gigantic cornucopia. Other observations:

Christmas is really around the corner. At the county GOP event in the morning, where Ron Paul was the featured speaker, there were lots of ill-fitting holiday sweaters and sweatshirts. The expected number of American flag-themed polo shirts turned up, also.

How about that cornucopia, people. Tell me it is not distracting. I have no idea what happened during some of the forum because I was so fascinated with that thing. A sample of the tweets and comments I got about it:

• What’s with the “horn of plenty” in front that looks like the trash heap from Fraggle Rock?

• From here, it looks like a homeless person sleeping.

• On the floor, is it a body in burlap??, a conservative conceptual yule log?

Christmas card photo?

The horn-of-plenty was not just a draw for me and Brad. Rhonda and Kent, a couple from Des Moines wearing these matching Christmas colored flannel outfits asked Brad to take several photos of them in front of the cornucopia in hopes of getting a good Christmas card photo. Posing in front of the cornucopia actually made us late to the next thing, the governor’s birthday party.

While rushing to the Iowa governor’s bash, which all the candidates were planning to attend, we accidentally crashed a wedding at the Altoona Adventureland Hotel. We asked the bar staff where we were SUPPOSED to be, and they said, “You need to go to AdventureLAND, not Adventureland.” Yep.

Newt Gingrich is most definitely the man of the moment. People mobbed the guy as soon as he came in, even though he wasn’t that nice to them and was generally surly during the forum.

After the long day of work, all the boys ignored me at the microbrewery place to instead pay attention to their cell phones. We watched two college football games on the TV screens but that wasn’t enough. They followed the other two on their phones. To be fair, Young Danny was actually focused on final edits to his story.

In perhaps the most amusing part of a weekend of amusement, a Democratic fundraiser who came into the bar for a nightcap started complimenting us on our fashion. He started talking us up about football, but then pivoted to asking about our various backgrounds. “I wanted to get at where you’re from cause you all are dressed pretty sophisticated for Iowa,” he said. To photographer Brad, he said, “I pay attention to fashion, and you’re pants aren’t Carhartts, so I figured you weren’t from here.”

A scene from The Paper, one of my fave newspaper movies.

A few weeks ago I rounded up some friends — at the last minute — to take part in the pub quiz at The Argonaut, an H Street bar that’s annoying to get to and yet always packed. My sorry teammates will probably never forgive me for sharing this, but of the 12 teams that took part in a seven-round pub quiz, our team — Quantitative Pleasing — placed last. We blame the small size of our team (four players compared to the 10 plus that other teams boasted), and two ridiculous categories: “Name that Cat Breed” and “Comic Books.”

The ignominious “prize” for coming in last place is the losers get to choose a category for the next week’s contest. We chose “Movies About Newspapers” and quizmaster Michael was nice enough to send me the questions, even though our team was unable to make it to see these questions presented live. See if you can answer them. In true pub trivia fashion, no cheating with your mobile devices!

(more…)

Assignment Editor Kim Deal, me and Andy Still. Had WYFF's then-news director Andy not given me the chance to cover the legislature and campaigns, who knows what I'd be doing today.

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Television news is inherently a team sport. Reporters are nothing without their photographer partners, and the visual stories created in the field are nothing without the teams of producers who craft them into something larger — a newscast, a series, a documentary.

One of the most high-functioning and family-like teams on which I’ve played was in my early twenties, in South Carolina. It was on that team that I was first given a chance to cover politics with regularity. And South Carolina is a place that’s shaped my perspective in indescribable ways.

I moved away five years ago after a couple memory-packed years here, and hadn’t returned until yesterday.

Yesterday would have been the 40th birthday of Chris Gulfman, a talented and reliable photographer who was an even more reliable friend. His gruff exterior masked one of the kindest hearts, a heart that is still beating somewhere, in the recipient of one of Gulfman’s many organ donations after he died suddenly half a decade ago. An undiagnosed brain tumor ruptured in his brain overnight, and more quickly than we could say aneurism, he was gone. (more…)

Like any self-respecting journalist, I spend 90% of the run-up to a deadline either procrastinating or scouring the internet for ways to procrastinate. These are the aids in my deadline avoidance this weekend:

Esquire’s Guide to Marriage (complete with a quiz!)
Writers take on the beginning, middle and end stages of marriage with short essays. I love the “middle” essay, about fighting. As for the quiz, my husband-of-nearly-one-year Matty scored in the “she’s probably not going to leave you anytime soon” range, which is respectable. He did lose 100 points somewhere in the middle for saying “guy time” within the last six months.

Jimmy Lai Animates the News
My first exposure to Taiwan’s NextGen Animation was after the Tiger Woods scandal, when an avatar for Elin Nordegren chased the cartoon Woods with a golf club and bashed in the front window of his Suburban. By 2010, I was fully obsessed and went to NextGen’s YouTube page after any major news event, to see how the animators imagined things going down. The man behind the cross-cultural meme tells the NYT, “I could make a big business out of recreating the amazing images of the news, because what we get on TV is always the last bit of image. What happened before that image is always missing.” The interview gets really funny when he starts talking about the inspiration for his Asian clothing line, Giordano.

The Queen Pop Needs Her to Be
The Times runs a piece similar to a NY Mag cover feature of a year ago, about the workaholism and artistry and post-modern brilliance of Lady Gaga. Fun fact: Even with all the costuming and elaborate stagecraft and dancing, Gaga never lip syncs at her shows. I really gotta go see her live sometime.

What the Frack is Going On?
If you haven’t seen it yet, you gotta check out The Fracking Song, which is both an educational and entertaining explainer of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. No, really.

Unless you’ve been in a cave, you know the news. Special forces killed public enemy number one, Osama/Usama bin Laden this morning and recovered his body. A spontaneous crowd flooded to the front gate of the White House and just after President Obama’s address to the nation, we started seeing some shots of the revelry on the T-V. So, being the news junkies that we are, Mr. Hu-Stiles and I drove the three miles to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., illegally parked and literally ran to check out the action. The air was thick with the smell of winning and weed. The crowd was dominated by drunk, fratty types and what appeared to be foreign journalists. We heard lots of “U-S-A, U-S-A” chants and an occasional rendition of the national anthem. A quick slideshow:

“New jobs, and more jobs, good-paying jobs.” -Haircare magnate and former Democratic candidate for Texas Governor, Farouk Shami

Want a job in journalism? Have the patience to deal with me and Ken Rudin? Apply to be a part of the NPR project I’m working on! It’s called Impact of Government (for now) and it’s a local-national collaboration between member stations and NPR to do broadcast and online news focused on how state government affects people. So far, four states are hiring for digital and/or broadcast reporters, and their job descriptions will tell you more (or I can, too). Here’s what we have so far. Questions? Email me.

FLORIDA
Digital Reporter (WUSF Tampa)

PENNSYLVANIA
Multimedia Reporter (WHYY Philadelphia)
Multimedia Reporter (WITF Harrisburg)

OHIO: Cleveland
Broadcast Reporter
Digital Reporter

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Concord
Broadcast Reporter
Digital Reporter

INDIANA: Bloomington
Broadcast Reporter
Digital Reporter

More jobs in more states coming soon.

On Saturday after I spoke on a panel called “News as Infotainment,” two lovely ladies from Frontline (FRONTLINE!) came up and asked me for examples of interactive and “infotainmenty” news presentations I really loved. I didn’t have time to go over them in person, so here you go, ladies:

New York Magazine: It’s Time to Play ‘Sheen, Beck, or Qaddafi?’

The ramblings and rantings of the actor, the pundit and the dictator have collectively compelled us as a nation, and while the three men are from vastly different backgrounds, the words that come out of their mouths are strangely similar. As the magazine wrote, “To demonstrate just what a struggle it is to distinguish between the mad ramblings of an entertainer, a despot, and a newsman another entertainer, we’ve put together this quiz. If you get them all right, you are some kind of savant.”

Vanity Fair: Qad Libs

Qaddafi is leading to all sorts of creative inspiration. Vanity Fair’s “Qad Libs,” based on the childhood word game “Mad Libs”, allowed readers to “create a realistic hard-line speech by inserting your own bizarre words into the colonel’s actual defiant address.” The magazine allowed readers to fill in a string of nouns, adverbs and adjectives in their interactive form to create their own Qaddafi rants. Amazingly, every customizable rant seemed right on.

Budget Puzzles, by The New York Times, Sacramento Bee, American Public Media, and more

In response to the nations gazillion trillion dollar deficit, and the frightening shortfalls of state governments around the country, media companies have followed in The Times’ footsteps with interactive budget puzzles that allow the user to find ways to balance the budget. Poynter’s recent piece discusses the limitations of these puzzles (the game writers get to set the parameters of what to cut or revenue to increase) but this is a great way to make real the budget troubles of governments, teach readers about the decisions that have to be made and allow for audiences to prioritize what they think is important.

The Chillout Song, by Ze Frank (my hero)

Frank’s project teaches us a beautiful lesson about how technology and social sharing can enable human connection. As you’ll read in the story he lays out, he received an email from a girl named Laura who was stressed out and felt hopeless; she asked for a song to help calm her nerves. Frank asked her to describe her feelings, which then led to a sketch of a song that he then asked his audience to record themselves singing. It led to a gorgeous result, no pitch correction required, that you can now purchase online.

Our panel this lunch hour would pair well with the panel featuring Ze Frank that we attended yesterday. The premise:

Literature need no longer be defined and combined by the objects that contain it—books and magazines and pages. New Media technologies like Augmented Reality, Transmedia Storytelling, and Interactive Stories offer new ways for narratives to be created and experienced. How can writers work to create new forms of storytelling? Experts who are committed to this vision will talk about examples of work and discuss the opportunities in this emerging field.

Old Model: Story is fixed (print story, for instance), and audience is captive and submissive.

New Model: A dynamic story that allows for personalized engagement and narrows the gap between writer and reader.

How?
Do more than connect text and images on a page, i.e. a children’s book. Let’s try and make it into a “digital book.”

1.) Asset Assessment. Know what text assets you have, and which audio characteristics would accompany it.
2.) Visual Layout. Start with changing orientation to horizontal instead of vertical. When photos take the large part of the screen, put a text box on there with some opacity to see the image behind it. Or, since HTML5 allows it, you can write directly on the screen, without a text box.
3.) Interactive Elements.
- Allow the audience to move the photos on the page, personalize the scale, etc.
- Allow the audience to record into the book
- Allow the audience to color in a photo

Or, Use Social Media as a Narrative Platform

Character/scene development can happen with social profiles and blogs, creating an emotional connection. For example, illustrate the characters with profiles on Facebook. Use status update and photos to deepen the plot or introduce backstories. Use blogs to shift story perspective, highlight internal dialogue.

Activate audience participation by using microblogs like Twitter and Tumblr to create engagement and build community. It’s an opportunity for readers to share ideas about the story that can later be integrated into future story development. As feeds are shared and you’re having dialogue, you’re pulling more people in.

“With interactive storytelling, I feel like we have so many story tools to choose from,” said presenter Esther Lim. “Consider your audience and how they consume content. Design the level of reader participation you want to build. ID the best social media platforms for your story.”

Prepare for your audience, as different people engage in different ways. Typically, you’ll get three tiers of content consumers:

Passive Consumer
Occassional Participant/Lurker
The Die Hard Fan

Going Forward…
Just start with what you know, if you’re new to this. Why bother? On the business side, you can lower costs since marketing is built into the product. On the creative side, this is addictive and fulfilling.

Make it easy for people to participate and make it worthwhile with some sort of reward or personal satisfaction that someone could gain.

Example:
Lowlifes.tv: A transmedia story told over a book, blog and video series. One of the characters said “If you want to help, send me an email.” They started giving the reader a series of tasks to get the reader to participate. QR codes would offer additional subplot.

The Nonfiction Storytelling Panel

The Panelists: Ze Frank, Caspar Sonnen (a Dutch guy, natch), Tommy Pallotta and Rob McLaughlin with the National Film Board of Canada.

So we’re here to learn about new ways to tell nonfiction stories, which duh, winning, can be applied to news. Pallotta started making documentaries but switched to animation and now primarily makes media for the internet. Frank has been toying with online media for many years. “I don’t consider myself a documentarian, I work with lots and lots of people to find moments and find a way to bubble them to the top,” Ze Frank. “I have to compete with the rest of the world to find the best way to tell my story.”

Buzzwords and examples (!) from this session:

TRANSMEDIA (noun): Cross-platform storytelling.
Example: Creating a gaming aspect to put you in simulations/give a hands-on experience of the energy crisis. At the same time, having a documentary shown on television but also broken up into clips onto YouTube. To create an emotional anchor, filmmakers then take abstract ideas and embodied them in characters and stories. The combo: a documentary, a fictional part, and an interactive. How to tie it together? In a Pallotta film, they designed three panels at once, that slides left to right with interactive on left, fiction story in the middle, and more info with documentary talking heads and text info on the right. It’s annotated storytelling. “It’s interactive in that if you want to engage more with it, you can,” Pallotta says.

CLOUD EDITOR:
Encouraging people to crowdsource their own projects, by putting up various video archive elements online and putting up an online editing tool to allow the community to take part in storytelling. “I think so long as they’re talking about it, that’s a good thing,” Pallotta says.

INTERACTIVE PARABLE:
Example: The Test Tube: with David Suzuki, which examines what we’d do with our global sustainability problem in an interactive. It involves an online video,  with people contributing on Twitter with their reactions, what they would do with only one minute left in our biosphere. That data that comes in will then get visualized in bubbles that show the community reactions. “Sleep” was the largest bubble.

See also: Welcome to Pine Point, a 25 minute experience that you click through and read and experience the overall story with video elements. This is allowing the print and publishing world to open it up to new possibilities. Nieman StoryLab coverage of this project is worth a read as well.

INTERVENTION STYLE: (aka the Ze Frank style) Not so much telling stories but creating small, weird little engagements that get people to experience something particular or take risks. “When you start saying you’re going to interact with audiences, the problem is it’s really hard to even interact with one person,” says Ze Frank. “The translation to online work is how do we hyper hyper simplify the goal of these interactions?”

Examples:
youknowi.ly: Heavily moderated due to porn. But this is a simple way to share an interaction.
star.me allows you to give stars to people you think are awesome. Your desktop is then filled with appreciations with other people.
zefrank.com/youngmenowme recreates photographs from your childhood. “There’s something wonderfully special in that,” Frank says. With these submission projects, then it’s hard to get meaningful text from the users. He then has to ask questions in a “sneaky” way to get people to open up in a way that’s useful to getting a story.
Pain Pack: Frank opened up a hotline for people to leave their painful experiences. Audioclips were given to sound editors, and they cut them and chopped them into a library of discreet sounds. And those sounds were then given to music makers to create songs just from sounds from the Pain Pack. “The audio of the original recordings is super compelling, the project itself, I cannot figure out how to make it compelling.”

GUIDANCE FOR GOING FORWARD:

- Having a “voice is important to interacting with your audience. If it’s playful, it’s playful, if it’s serious, serious.”
- To finance these things or monetize them after the fact, there’s no pat answer. You have to be creative with the resources you have. “Don’t worry about it right now,” says Pallotta. “Just make it.”
- Scale your idea. If you have a small amount of resources do a soft launch to get people excited and interested in your idea.
- In every industry landscape, the leaders are afraid they are missing something. If you can create a project and pitch it like “this is what they’re missing,” you can make some money.