:: LNR Journalism ::

Writer's block? Reflections on a blank paper

Think Traffic :: This morning I found myself staring at a blank screen. I needed to write a blog post but couldn’t think of any ideas to write about. After about 30 minutes of reading to stimulate my brain, I started wondering: why is it easy to come up with blog topic ideas sometimes, while other times a good idea can’t be found to save your life? I started thinking about the most successful things I’ve written over the past few years. I realized the most popular and engaging things I’ve written were also some of the easiest topics to come up with.

How to come up with story ideas - Continue to read here Corbett Barr, thinktraffic.net

How to get traumatized sources to share their stories

Poynter :: When people have been traumatized, they’re often reluctant to talk to the media. There are ways of getting them to open up, though, and of showing them the value in sharing their story. I talked with five journalists who have interviewed sexual assault victims, people with mental illnesses and parents who have lost children. Here are 10 tips from them.

A guide by Mallary Jean Tenore, www.poynter.org

Storytelling: Explore Kennedy Space Center with Google Street View

YouTube :: Google Maps in collaboration with NASA is enabling people around the world to take a trip to the doorway to outer space. This location is our largest special collection of Street View imagery to date, totaling 6,000 panoramic views of the facilities, and expanding our mission to document the world's most amazing places.

Source of this video www.youtube.com

NASA on Google Street View, maps.google.com

HT: Jolie O'Dell, VentureBeat

The New York Times builds contextual multimedia into the flow of a story

Nieman Lab :: Sharp-eyed readers of The New York Times may have noticed an unusual collection of links within Amy O’Leary’s Thursday story on sexual harassment in the world of online gaming. 

The links had a shaded blue background and tiny icons, and when clicked, up popped a video or an image — floating on top of the story but integrated within the flow of reading it. The Times calls them “quick links,” and they’re intended to add a new way for Times reporters to add depth to online storytelling.

"Quick links" - A report by Justin Ellis, www.niemanlab.org

The 2012 Summer Olympics: A giant coming-out party for the animated GIF

Nieman Lab :: Did you hear about the Olympic fencer who refused to leave the piste after losing to a computer glitch? I didn’t watch it on television or on NBC’s web livestream, since I don’t have cable. But I did watch the next best thing — maybe the better thing: BuzzFeed’s strangely compelling and haunting recap, presented in videos, still images, and animated GIFs.

Storytelling with animated GIF's - A report by Andrew Phelps, www.niemanlab.org

Visual journalism: Advice on building interactives and engaging the audience

Journalism.co.uk :: News outlets use interactives for a number of reasons: to tell a story in a different, more visual way; to enable the deeper exploration of a large dataset; or maybe to offer greater context or to personalise the issue for the user. But overall, the goal will be to interact with and engage the user.

Digital storytelling experts outline key factors to consider when producing interactives, including personalisation, user journey and the importance of 'clickability'.

A report by Rachel McAthy, www.journalism.co.uk

Live chat today: How writers can navigate the boundaries between fact & fiction

Poynter :: Fiction and nonfiction share a border. The name of that border is “Storytelling.” In a live chat at 3 p.m. ET, we’ll talk about the strategies and standards that govern all good storytelling, and explore how to use them responsibly and creatively.

Title: How writers can navigate the boundaries between fact & fiction
Date: Thursday July 26, 2012
Time: 3:00 PM EDT

Reminder alert available - Announcement by Roy Peter Clark, www.poynter.org

A return to evening editions? Elevating the significant information above the noise

ReadWriteWeb :: Evening Edition brings you today’s world news without push notifications. It has no streams or feeds. It doesn’t do [BREAKING] or [UPDATING]. It’s delivered by website to your device of choice every weekday at 5 p.m., and it’s just the right amount of reading for the subway ride from office to home.

Clipped from: evening-edition.com (share this clip)

A report by Jon Mitchell, www.readwriteweb.com

Inside the Story: A masterclass in digital storytelling from the people who do it best

Inside the Story :: In a world where anyone can pick up a camera and tell a story, there's only one way to make your journalism stand out and get noticed. And that's by being very good, by betting the farm on quality. But what does it take to produce standout storytelling? This unique book lets you listen in on 25 of the world's best digital storytellers. They each share one golden piece of advice, the sort of wisdom only experience can teach.

Currently available in 4 languages: English, Deutsch, Español, and Catala.

Download your free copy here www.insidethestory.org

Collaborative art project: Exquisite Forest, crowdsourced storytelling

Exquisite Forest :: This Exquisite Forest is an online collaborative art project that lets users create short animations that build off one another as they explore a specific theme. The result is a collection of branching narratives resembling trees. The project was conceived by Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin, and produced by Google and Tate. It makes extensive use of Google Chrome’s HTML5 and JavaScript support, as well as Google App Engine and Google Cloud Storage. A physical installation is located in the collection galleries on Level 3 at Tate Modern.

It will be open for approximately 6 months beginning on July 23, 2012.

Explore the project here www.exquisiteforest.com

HT: Cendrine Marrouat, Examiner.com