Who’s it for?

10 New Ways to Make Money in Journalism is the first in a new series of books aimed at writers, broadcasters, students, social media types and anyone interested in finding new ways to make money in the modern world of journalism.

About the writer

Adam describes himself as a multimedia journalist, lecturer, blogger and writer. He left his full time job as a radio reporter in the North East of England to pursue a freelance career in London. We’ve also had the pleasure of working with him and can confirm he’s a thoroughly top bloke. We asked him why he feels now is the time to launch the book:

It’s never been a better time… the industry is ripe for change you can almost feel it in the air, poised, just waiting for someone to come along and make it happen. The best thing is anyone can be this change – it doesn’t matter how old or young you are and for the first time, experience not necessary!

Contents

You’ll find the book divided into ten practical sections covering content aggregation, setting up a hyperlocal site and even creating your own multimedia collaborative. The tone is both informative and inspirational, think self help meets how-to guide.

From the offset the book encourages you to remind yourself why you went into the industry

Even if you’re familiar with multimedia journalism you’re likely to find many parts of the book useful. For example, Adam has helpfully added hyperlinks to many of his case studies, turning the book into a textbook-like anytime resource. This also makes the book in our opinion more useful in its ebook form.

Highlights include the excellent “Things you can do right away” sections at the end of each chapter which offer practical first steps towards creating your new business.

What it isn’t

In contrast to more technology based books such as Mark Luckie’s The Digital Journalist’s Handbook, this book focuses more on the business and moneymaking side of modern journalism. For example the section on building smartphone apps offers some pointers but you’ll need to invest in further reading to know your objective-c from your cocoa.

Legal issues and the technicalities of starting up a new business are also not covered so be sure read up more on this before opening your first venture. We received the UK copy of the book and understand there will also be a more US focussed version.

Our verdict

10 New Ways to Make Money in Journalism is like having a friend who knows everyone, everything and loves keeping you up to date. It’s the friend that doesn’t always know about everything in detail, but knows where to point you to find out more. In essence, it’s a combination of Adam’s expertise, knowledge and contacts  and an excellent way to bring you right up to date in 2010.

10 New Ways to Make Money in Journalism goes on sale on 21st May 2010 priced at £6.50 ($9.50) for its first week and then £10. Find out more at Adam’s ebook microsite.

This article has been published on Not On The Wires

Picture CC from Flickr, Tony Case

She’s shaken up the world of pop music… can she do the same with online video?

The art of photojournalism, which I’ve recently been exploring, teaches you to treat an image, moving or still, as a statement – a crucial segment of the story you are telling.

Just like television, those images form part of a sequence, but the similarity ends there. So can Gaga’s latest music video - Alejandro – help us reinvent news?

Instead of being lead by soundbites of interviewees, photojournalists let their images tell the story. It’s often more subtle and forces the reader to make their own judgements. As a trained broadcaster - this completely new way of working has pushed my understanding of the storytelling process.

So when I heard that Gaga’s latest video was directed by a Steven Klein, a leading photojournalist, I couldn’t wait to see how this photojournalistic approach to composition and style would translate into the moving images of a music video.

Alejandro is 8:43 of painstakingly lit shooting. It may not be to your musical tastes, but there’s no denying the magnetic appeal of this carefully composed and considered piece of video:

Cliquer ici pour voir la vidéo.

Telling a story

To start with, consider the first two minutes of the video carefully. No words are uttered, and yet as a viewer you’re still experiencing “a story”.

It’s in complete contrast to traditional television where the viewer is drowned in soundbites and drawl from the reporter. Pictures are often an afterthought referred to as “wallpapering” in the industry.

This video is nearly nine minutes long and yet has 17 million views, while no piece of online journalism has this. Could this pictures-led approach become a new way to tell news stories?

Isn’t this Videojournalism?

In a word, no.

Videojournalism has often focussed on letting the subject tell their stories; by doing that they are typically led by the soundbites of the interviewee. It’s a growing area and one that I have a lot of respect for.

But photojournalism is more about creating a moment, a situation, an experience inside an image. These moments can often be staged, just like a film, in order to convey the artist’s vision.

Purists might say this goes against the journalistic values of truth, but when you strip a story down to its bare components, is there not something more powerful in these moments than simply following an audio track?

This is not an argument for this style of video to replace current television news conventions. But it’s clear that those current conventions struggle to work online. And many younger people no longer engage with online news… but can you blame them when the conventions are so clichéd that Charlie Brooker has parodied them in this clip:

Cliquer ici pour voir la vidéo.

Gaga’s video will have benefitted in terms of hits from the fact that it’s a pop music video. But Klein’s approach to engaging with the audience using imagery is worth careful study.

If a respected photojournalist is making music videos for Lady Gaga, what can other journalists learn from this?

That they too can make music videos? No. That their craft is more closely related to other popular artforms? Quite possibly.

When journalists start thinking outside the box of our own conventions, we’ll be able to reinvent the news package into something more engaging; something that challenges audiences through pictures as well as audio.

Story initially published on Not on the Wires

Crédit Photo CC Flickr :  Q Thomas Bower