Filed under: Uncategorized
‘Convergence’ is uniting more than the mediums used by reporters. Convergence is also uniting reporters. Behind the scenes, reporters are coming together to tell their personal stories and share their skills.
Digital recordings and the World Wide Web have allowed reporters to move their information more and more fluidly, more efficiently, and streamlining video, audio, and copy on one front. This is requiring once isolated reporters to come together in a spirit of education.
The Dallas Morning News videographer and editor Jake Batsell attends classes at UNT to tell his convergence testimony, and Lisa Parisot is teaching print journalism students her skills from a long career as a television news photographer. Skills once belonging to multiple individuals – a writer, a videographer and a photographer – are being required from the same individual in today’s journalism world. Therefore, the sense of community is building as each skill set is shared through oral communication – lectures.
Lisa Parisot has employed multimedia techniques as she educates. Her blog and Mac Web site mix photos and text. Slideshows of her cameras offer a reference resource to students. Through teaching classes, she brings journalists together in a field where independence is valued and necessary to report aggressively.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Angela Evans, a docent at the Denton County African American Museum and a daughter of a longtime Denton family, the Kimble’s, speaks with great pain about the “tools of beauty and torture” in one museum display cabinet.
She is referring to the hair straighteners, hot comb and hair grease, which she encountered routinely in her childhood.
“We had a standing appointment every Saturday, and it hurts me just to look at these combs,” Evans said. “I had burns on my ears, the back of my neck.”
Artifacts that represent the lives of an historical line of influential Denton County residents hang in the three small rooms of the Denton County African American Museum on Carroll Boulevard in Denton.
Angela has a low, hoarse voice and an upbeat, light pace of conversation. She was born in 1951 and has lived in Denton her whole life. She lives on Solomon’s Hill, on the south side of the railroad tracks on Prairie Road. This is southeast Denton, where the majority of the African American community in Denton lives today.
Photos of Angela’s family – primarily her Uncle Buddy (“Bu-tt-ee”) and mother – are in several photos on the walls of the museum, and most of the other photos capture familiar faces to her.
Angela laughs at the memory of old women with bleached white hair that turned blue with the over application of blue bleaching dye; one century-old bottle rests in the display case below the other hair products. The Denton County African American Museum captures history that wasn’t all that long ago, and a sense of legacy is built upon artifacts that still resonate with living residents of Denton.
The museum building is a 104-year-old house renovated and stripped of décor, and it still smells of fresh paint and gleans with newly laid laminate flooring. The base of the two smaller rooms has been installed to match the original wood floor in the den. A month after the opening of the museum, which was celebrated in mid-February, the painters are still prowling around the exterior of the museum, inspecting their work and making final touches. The landscaping is unfinished while in progress, with pipes winding around the dirt lawn.
Inside the house, display boards tell the story of the African American community in Denton, beginning with the forced move from Quakertown. Unlike traditional museums, most of the images on the walls are digital replications; there are few original photos, rather scanned or digital images a printed on the laminate boards.
Cabinets in the smaller rooms offer interactive elements to the exhibit. Photos on wooden rectangles rotate on a spring hinge, revealing a description and brief biographical information about the individuals in the photo.
As a new docent, Angela is still learning the presentation of history at the Bayless-Selby House Museum, the Victorian-era house neighboring the African American Museum house. The two-story Bayless-Selby House Museum with a front porch dwarfs the African American Museum.
The Bayless-Selby house is only twenty years older than the African American Musuem house, but their differences are striking. Chief among them is their residents. While the Bayless-Selby farmhouse was home to Anglican families who were nursery farmers and truck drivers, the smaller museum house was owned by a white general contractor and most likely rented to African Americans in town. Also, the African American Museum house has been relocated more than once, the first time without the will of the African American community.
In the early 1920s, the largest African American community in Denton existed under the name Quakertown. The community contained stores, a doctor’s office, and other private businesses catering to the community’s needs. However, its close proximity to Texas Woman’s College was frowned upon by the white Denton community, and in 1922, the community was relocated. A city park was established in its place.
Many houses, including the African American Museum, were lifted and replanted on Solomon Hill. The new park was known generically as City Park until the last few years, when it was renamed Quakertown Park.
Although she guffawed at the unlikely thought of the Bell family in a photograph at the museum being the namesake for the major Denton thoroughfare, Bell Avenue, Angela says that the old Denton black families now have a say in the community.
“They make a scene; they’re movers and shakers in a much louder way than the new Denton families,” Angela said. “When they don’t like something, the families will get together and discuss.”
The impact of the ‘old Denton families’ is active and present in today’s Denton County. Many of the families present in the photos are still the Old Denton families; such as the Fox’s, prominent television personality Debby Denman’s family and the Kimble’s.
On Solomon Hill, Angela recalls living in the neighborhood with uncles and grandparents. In her youth, her family built a new house just up the street, where Angela still lives with her mom.
Today there are black city officials and many more unofficial leaders in Denton County. Although the African American community was banished from Quakertown, its presence did not fade. The families are deeply rooted in Denton society and culture, contributing to the legacy of Denton history.
Filed under: Feb 21 2008
Kosovo Serbs burn border points
Serbs set fire to UN and police vehicles at Jarinje.US urges reform as Castro quits
Unlike the photo of the Kosovo crisis, this photo of Fidel Castro is emotionless. It serves almost as a simple headshot, allowing the reader to see his face while reading his story. The photo was likely chosen because of its most recent status. It feels slightly off center and very casual, with his Adidas jumpsuit, sweet smile and home-like setting. This photo provides for the story an understanding of the reality of Castro’s age and appearance. I agree with the motive of inserting the most recent photo with the breaking news, however, the informal photo does not seem to match the serious nature of the article.
Ugandans reach war crimes accord
Returning to an emotionally provoking photo, the story of the Ugandans’ war crime accord is fleshed out with a powerful photo that adds a strong undertone to the story. The initial understanding of the players in the article is defined in this photo, despite its vagueness. The boy in the photo is pensive, innocent and sad. Little can be gathered by observing the photo independent of its caption, which says, “The Lord’s Resistant Army is known for its brutality.” With this accent to the photo, the other elements of the photo – the boy’s wheelchair and expression – become results of his victimization. The photo, with its caption, suggests that the LRA attacked this boy, and the image creates a strong sense of sympathy for him. This photo seems like a stock photo, like the Castro shot, rather than one correlating with a given event, like the Kosovo image above. I think the power and composition of this photo is strong, but I question its appropriateness, especially since it is not correlating to the event reported. Too much of a personal relationship is built in the report due to the image, regardless of the setting of story, which remains very institutional and general.
Filed under: Feb 14 2008
This video documentary by The Washington Post videographer Travis Fox captures Pakistanis mourning the death of their prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.
Much of the clip lacks dialogue, observing the practice of men and several women who have gather at the site of Bhutto’s last speech and assassination. The scene is set visually with shots of the people, landscape, posters and prayer books. The only background noise is the (seemingly) natural sound of birds and wind, and this quiet disturbed only by nature reveals the somber still that has settled in the city.
Two Pakistanis speak to the camera in English, explaining their decision to visit the site and their spiritual grieving process. Others are recorded praying in another language, perhaps Urdu.
Without text or photos to complement the archived story, no supplemental information is provided. (At the time of the initial screening, the video may have been linked to text.) As it is, there is no background information available directly from the site. The Washington Post Web site does have a search engine adjacent to the video box, where the event can be searched.
The video clip provides a lot of information, providing a visual and emotional connection to the consequences of the assassination. It allows the viewer to begin to understand the perspective of some Pakistanis, who otherwise could not have easily communicated their emotions and surroundings with Americans, and the world.
Filed under: Jan 31 2008
A team of more than 15 people at The Dallas Morning News worked together to create the multimedia package, ‘Yolanda’s Crossing,’ the story of a young Mexican girl who is made her uncle’s mistress beginning at age 11 then kept in silence as he moves her to and across America. In addition to running text in the newspaper, the dallasnews.com presentation of the story comprises a map, timeline, photos, video and audio clips, and scanned official documents.
The text is the most extensive piece of the package. ‘Yolanda’s Crossing’ is a long-form narrative in seven parts. The story slowly recounts her youth, beginning with the initial rape scene, and unfolds her journey in each part. The text is used to develop scenes and dialogue of her childhood, laying a foundation for the other elements of the multimedia package.
Each of the subsequent visual elements layers a sense of reality to the story’s foundation, the text. The photos are emotionally charged, offering expression plus vibrant colors where the black and white text is void. One photo of Yolanda in present day allows the reader to look into her eyes, a solemn expression and tears on her cheek, and the deep-seeded pain within her is at once evident.
The map and timeline aid the reader with simplified bullet points that capture the story at a glance and allow the reader to visualize the great distance Yolanda and her uncle traveled across the continent. Scanned official documents, such as birth certificates and police and hospital records, bring the story’s mundane details alive and make the characters relatable and human.
Unfortunately, the video clips were problematic. They are intended to roll the photos in a stream with a text overlay conveying Yolanda’s commentary. However, the videos would not play without abruptly stopping every two seconds (granted the story has been posted for a year, I learned today). Also, any audio or motion picture recordings were not evident, despite a link suggesting their presence.
Also, the site for the story is a little difficult to navigate, as the text and varying visual elements are located in multiple locations and linked back and forth, but it is not a great challenge to understand the spread.
Nevertheless, the elements of this package are very well-rounded, heightening the sense of reality suggested initially by the text. Despite a few distractions, the visual artists and writers have worked together to successfully present a deeply researched and moving story.
