Richard Koci Hernandez on being a multimedia shooter

The second part of Chris Jordan’s interview with Richard Koci Hernandez of the San Jose Mercury News is live at multimediashooter.com:

“The days of the one-talent journalist are over.”
“If I have to watch another three-minute soundslides…my head’s going to explode.”*

Richard gets deep into the shift from working as a solo photojournalist to collaborating with a team of reporters, shooters and editors.

On one hand, a multimedia shooter or producer or editor needs to communicate with the folks in the newsroom they depend on.

Then again, Richard talks about sending a one-man-band to MacWorld, who programmed a Flash stage, shot stills and video, produced the finished product on his own.

What’s the future of multimedia production at newspapers? A guy in the newsroom waiting for reporters and photogs to show up with the content? Reporters cutting their own audio, photogs editing their own video?

It seems like this is working out differently at every paper. What works for you?

*A little context: Richard was talking about using a 30-second soundslides show with just a few pictures as being a strong way to illustrate a story. Go listen to the whole thing.

AUDIO SLIDESHOW: “The seals are talking to me” – Sentinel Multimedia

I’m looking for some feedback on this one. I had some idea of what I thought we could do with it before the reporter and photog went out, and gave them some ideas. Pretty happy with what they came back with. Let me know what you think.

AUDIO SLIDESHOW: “The seals are talking to me” – Sentinel Multimedia

Joe Weiss talks to Poynter about Soundslides

Joe Weiss, the photojournalist/programmer behind Soundslides, tells Poynter all about it:

“I think that if you just started to do them, the audio slideshow is gonna take about four or five times what it would have taken just to do the assignment visually. … I think what we’re seeing in the industry right now, is that the people who learn these skills, add these skills to their bag, they’ll get on an assignment where they have more time, or they’ll really listen to the assignment and say, wow, there’s great audio here, this could be a great narrative. Then they jump on those.”

via Andy Dickinson, who has been posting tons of great stuff about working with video at newspapers lately.