Milca Rivera: Lessons I've Learned So Far
Unfortunately, I was unable to write about what I learned from being the reporter on the first story; but, luckily, I was the sidebar reporter for the second story and what I learned from both positions is exactly the same.
First, as journalism becomes more of a multimedia experience (and if I find a position in journalism that doesn't require that I be a "one-man-band") communication between writers, designers, photographers, etc. is extremely important.
Second, time is not always on a journalists side and having a back-up plan is necessary.
Third, I've learned, if I am given the time to work on a story, it is imperative to use the time given.
Fourth, stories can turn in directions a reporter never expected and that can be a good thing. I tend to go into interviews with a set of questions, but I'm learning to go with the flow of the conversation to build upon what people I've interviewed have said. In other words, I've learned it's important to really listen when conducting an interview.
Fifth, attempting to conduct an interview via speaker on a cell phone while holding a recorder near the phone causes too much static over the phone line.
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Milca Rivera: Lessons Learned, Assignment 3
I was apprehensive about being the mojo for the third assignment, but a couple of things occurred that worked in my favor.
First, I was able to work early on the story because of Jill's advisement that the Jazz Ensemble would be practicing the Thursday after the topic of our story was decided. As a reporter, I had to wait to be contacted back in order to conduct interviews which meant, at times, I was working past deadline ... yeah, I didn't enjoy that either.
Second, while I had planned on creating a slideshow and adding audio separately, professor Zell showed the class a program called Soundslides which made creating a slideshow WITH audio extremely easy.
All that said, I did run into some issues. Rather than using my Canon Powershot to take photographs, I decided to use the Nikon D50 the school provided me for photojournalism. I was not pleased with the pictures I took of the ensemble because I was getting close to the students but they looked far away in the pictures. I found out on Tuesday that I have been shooting on the lowest file setting which means poor quality photos. The lessons I learned from that experience is to bring and shoot with both cameras and try not to shoot with a camera you're not familiar with.
I also ran into an issue with my recorder. I was recording on low quality sound and when I plugged my RCA recorder into my computer, the extension of the audio file was .VOC. Professor Zell informed me that RCA's will not create MP3's unless the recorder is set to the highest quality. I had to attempt to convert the .VOC file into an MP3 which turned out to be one heck of a feat. Using Winamp and Switch audio conversion programs I was able to turn the .VOC file into a .WAV file and from a .WAV into an MP3. It was head-ache inducing learning process that took almost three hours.
Another issue I encountered was attempting to create an embed code for my Soundslides presentation. It was a good bit of work that required a personal web server. Lucky for me, Thayesha is in the process of creating a website so it worked out!
Overall, I really enjoyed working with multimedia. It titillates the side of me that loves design and I hope to start creating some in-depth multimedia pieces in the near future.
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Milca Rivera: Lessons learned, assignment 4
Tuesday, I felt confident that I would be able to put the blog together Thursday without issue. I even took a look at previous posts in edit mode so I could understand how to put a post together in order to keep the look of the blog consistent.
Once Thursday rolled around, I was still feeling confident, but as soon as I started working on the post I had to deal with font size issues, understanding how page breaks work, what order to post entries and inserting HTML.
In actuality, none of the aforementioned issues were difficult to deal with. Blogger is user-friendly and I'm lucky enough to be the final person to act as blog editor so I didn't have to decide on the look the entry. There was also a class full of people who had acted as blog editors, including my three fellow group-mates, who could answer any questions I had. Professor Zell was also available to answer questions.
Being the blog editor turned out to be the easiest position (although I may change my stance on that if I receive a bad grade). It also turned out to be my least favorite position. The way the tasks are divided is great because the writers and mojo don't have to worry about posting their own stories, but at this stage, the look of the blog had already been decided so my main responsibilities were to write cutlines and make sure I kept up the overall appearance of the blog.
