June 1, 2015
Last week we observed the men and women behind the curtain entering content during severe weather coverage. There is yet another curtain behind the first curtain. And you don't pull the curtain to reveal the wizards, you walk downstairs. You should pay attention.
Richard Cox is the director of new media operations over the people who design and build the websites for KOTV in Tulsa and KWTV in Oklahoma City. So, the web producers upstairs enter content about daily news, weather and sports. The web tech people downstairs build the functionality, interface and appearance.
First we talked about science fiction books because Richard has had three syfy books published to good reviews but no riches, yet. I've written a screenplay about the world's most famous UFO scientist, not published, not a dime.
After squandering time for about fifteen minutes, we got down to what we were actually here for.
Richard said their websites had doubled page views since last May. Doubled. Another manager told me that the NewsOn6 website had more page views than all the other Tulsa TV websites together. All the other TV news websites plus the Tulsa World newspaper. What? I greatly admire the newspaper's website for having a vast number of stories present and past. But the Tulsa World is not known for video, even though they have quite a bit, and they are not known for severe weather or breaking news coverage. TV has a giant advantage in these areas.
Richard Cox next clicked into Google analytics which track every interaction viewers have with every part of the web page every minute. Remember the severe weather in Tulsa last Friday? KOTV had more than 400-thousand page views. News9 in Oklhahoma City had had a much bigger weather event a couple of weeks before with tornadoes and severe flooding in the OKC metro. KWTV had more than a million pages views.
Everyone credits owner David Griffin for his vision years ago when the web was losing money. Griffin put his money where his vision was. He believed the web would make money if he invested in the infrastructure and hired enough people to keep it constantly updated with new content. Other stations are lucky to have half the web staff in this building, and I'm just talking the web producers upstairs, not the web designers downstairs. I don't know what to think of that kind of resources in- house. So, everyone says the investment in new media is paying off. I don't know if the number$ will be shared with me, but I'm going to ask how much money web and new media make.
...............
Note: My thousand-mile ascent through new media is best understood if you start with earlier posts. I suggest starting with post titled: "First Revelation: Smartphone Video."
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Monday, June 1, 2015
Severe Weather Slam Dunk
Friday, May 26, 2015
The morning started with the grind typical of all morning news meetings. We were still in flood conditions as the rains continued to fall in a record month for rainfall, giving us too much of what we had prayed for during three years of drought. It seemed a straightforward day ahead covering the high water.
At about 2 p.m., that all changed when we got a severe weather warning. What followed was an impressive display of new media muscle. The TV-broadcast weather team was already in continuous coverage as were all their competitors. The web producers were right on the heels of the on-air team, maybe five minutes behind. One of them, Garrett Powders, is an RSU alum. Garrett and another web producer knew to start feeding the website, while web manager, Richard Clark, instantly stared feeding social media.
It was more than regurgitation. Each of them pulled media from multiple sources, weather radar, helicopter video, and photos and video from the field to create a product different from the on-air broadcast. Each producer made her or his own decision about what material to plug into the website, Facebook and Twitter in a product that can be described as new arrival in the royal pantheon of news coverage. Which form is now dominant? It depends on where the customer is. If you're watching at home, the TV is king. But most people are somewhere else, especially in the middle of the afternoon. Through alerts from weather apps, robust coverage on computers at work, smartphones and tablets, everyone, everywhere could know if tornado, hail or lighting was headed their way. Also, the TV broadcast was being streamed on the web.
For a traditional media guy, it was magic. No, I'm not so old that I don't access the new world, young whippersnappers. I, too, often hit the radar online and have a weather app on my iPhone. Thank you. But to see it as the producers are entering this content click by click, picture by picture, was exciting and enlightening.
The question is, how does any station get these new media users over to their newscasts or sell to them in the ten seconds they are checking radar. The reality is many young people will never become regular viewers of TV newscasts? As I heard one student express, "If the news is important, it will find me?"
The morning started with the grind typical of all morning news meetings. We were still in flood conditions as the rains continued to fall in a record month for rainfall, giving us too much of what we had prayed for during three years of drought. It seemed a straightforward day ahead covering the high water.
At about 2 p.m., that all changed when we got a severe weather warning. What followed was an impressive display of new media muscle. The TV-broadcast weather team was already in continuous coverage as were all their competitors. The web producers were right on the heels of the on-air team, maybe five minutes behind. One of them, Garrett Powders, is an RSU alum. Garrett and another web producer knew to start feeding the website, while web manager, Richard Clark, instantly stared feeding social media.
It was more than regurgitation. Each of them pulled media from multiple sources, weather radar, helicopter video, and photos and video from the field to create a product different from the on-air broadcast. Each producer made her or his own decision about what material to plug into the website, Facebook and Twitter in a product that can be described as new arrival in the royal pantheon of news coverage. Which form is now dominant? It depends on where the customer is. If you're watching at home, the TV is king. But most people are somewhere else, especially in the middle of the afternoon. Through alerts from weather apps, robust coverage on computers at work, smartphones and tablets, everyone, everywhere could know if tornado, hail or lighting was headed their way. Also, the TV broadcast was being streamed on the web.
For a traditional media guy, it was magic. No, I'm not so old that I don't access the new world, young whippersnappers. I, too, often hit the radar online and have a weather app on my iPhone. Thank you. But to see it as the producers are entering this content click by click, picture by picture, was exciting and enlightening.
The question is, how does any station get these new media users over to their newscasts or sell to them in the ten seconds they are checking radar. The reality is many young people will never become regular viewers of TV newscasts? As I heard one student express, "If the news is important, it will find me?"
Interning in My Sixth Decade
I've been taken on at my former arch rival as a geezer intern. It's been almost ten years since I was at KTUL, the ABC affilate in Tulsa. Now, May 26, 2015, at KOTV, I'm at the CBS affiliate, wondering if they would welcome me or string me up, and the ceilings are high in their beautiful state-of-the-art new media megaplex.
I find myself doing a fellowship sponsored by the Oklahoma Associaiton of Broadcasters to help prevent college professors like me from becoming obsolete, you know, like teaching Morse code instead of Tweeting. Have I been left in the dust of a new media stampede?
Hey, wait a minute, now. All good stories still have at their foundations good writing and good video. I'd go so far as saying those two fundamentals are not only the foundation, they are the walls and roof of the house, too. But the wiring has changed, and the windows have changed. Now, you can look out all of the windows at once and the news will come to you. News will find you wherever you are, and it must be fed every minute.
News Director Ed Trauschke could not have been nicer. Tuesday was the mega-meeting day when many of the mid and upper managers from the slightly bigger KWTV in Oklahoma City travel 90 miles to the co-owned KOTV in Tulsa to share plans and build teams across the markets. Such is the design of owner David Griffin, who has build a statewide media powerhouse centered in the two largest cities in the state.
Ed let me hear secret campaigns they were about to spring on the competition, including my old station. It was four meetings in one day, and all I could think of is how nice and trussting they were to include me, and, also, how much I hate meetings. Insert chuckle here, please.
I was happy that I had contributed to the morning story meeting with new information about a firefighter who had lost his life by being sucked down a drainage pipe in nearby Claremore, Oklahoma, after rescuing six children from their flooded home. I had worked the story for NBC News as a freelance field producer, and ended up sharing inforation with Tony Russell, the KOTV reporter on the scene Sunday.
In my first day at KOTV, I met a lot of new people and ran into two of my students who now had good jobs at KOTV. I let them know we at Rogers State University were proud of them.
I find myself doing a fellowship sponsored by the Oklahoma Associaiton of Broadcasters to help prevent college professors like me from becoming obsolete, you know, like teaching Morse code instead of Tweeting. Have I been left in the dust of a new media stampede?
Hey, wait a minute, now. All good stories still have at their foundations good writing and good video. I'd go so far as saying those two fundamentals are not only the foundation, they are the walls and roof of the house, too. But the wiring has changed, and the windows have changed. Now, you can look out all of the windows at once and the news will come to you. News will find you wherever you are, and it must be fed every minute.
News Director Ed Trauschke could not have been nicer. Tuesday was the mega-meeting day when many of the mid and upper managers from the slightly bigger KWTV in Oklahoma City travel 90 miles to the co-owned KOTV in Tulsa to share plans and build teams across the markets. Such is the design of owner David Griffin, who has build a statewide media powerhouse centered in the two largest cities in the state.
Ed let me hear secret campaigns they were about to spring on the competition, including my old station. It was four meetings in one day, and all I could think of is how nice and trussting they were to include me, and, also, how much I hate meetings. Insert chuckle here, please.
I was happy that I had contributed to the morning story meeting with new information about a firefighter who had lost his life by being sucked down a drainage pipe in nearby Claremore, Oklahoma, after rescuing six children from their flooded home. I had worked the story for NBC News as a freelance field producer, and ended up sharing inforation with Tony Russell, the KOTV reporter on the scene Sunday.
In my first day at KOTV, I met a lot of new people and ran into two of my students who now had good jobs at KOTV. I let them know we at Rogers State University were proud of them.
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Third Revelation: Smartphone Video
So, if you want your revelations in order, start with the post, "First Revelation."
...............................................
OK, so now it's a year later, May 2015 (man am I good a keeping up with my blog or what?)
A small tornado struck Broken Arrow, OK. Once again, I called the Weather Channel. Now, I knew a national news organization would use video shot with my smartphone.
I still can't believe it, but this year there is a twist. Only last week, I started learning how to use Dropbox (only two years behind my daughter who was a senior at UCO). Now could I send bigger, higher-quality files faster? If I did, where would they go? If they went there, how would anyone else find them, let alone put them on the air? I still don't know the answer to these questions.
My first job was to be on the air a few times doing phone reports for The Weather Channel. They introduced me as an NBC producer, since NBC owns them. I guess that's not a lie, since I work for NBC as a freelancer. But it made my head quite big until I thought, "Now can I pull off getting them the video?"
After clicking around on my iPhone's sending capabilities and Dropbox's mysterious tabs, I found the right combinations to send and receive videos.
Cover video:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f37ob5ikwsrzx06/CoverVid2-Cole.MOV?dl=0
Interview: Yes, if you have four walls to block the wind, stand close and cup your hands around the phone, you, too, can get decent-tolerable audio. It is even better if you have a roof, which this lady did not.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fsoao779gxbcgev/INTV-Carol%20Cole.MOV?dl=0
...............................................
Third -3rd- Revelation
A small tornado struck Broken Arrow, OK. Once again, I called the Weather Channel. Now, I knew a national news organization would use video shot with my smartphone.
I still can't believe it, but this year there is a twist. Only last week, I started learning how to use Dropbox (only two years behind my daughter who was a senior at UCO). Now could I send bigger, higher-quality files faster? If I did, where would they go? If they went there, how would anyone else find them, let alone put them on the air? I still don't know the answer to these questions.
My first job was to be on the air a few times doing phone reports for The Weather Channel. They introduced me as an NBC producer, since NBC owns them. I guess that's not a lie, since I work for NBC as a freelancer. But it made my head quite big until I thought, "Now can I pull off getting them the video?"
After clicking around on my iPhone's sending capabilities and Dropbox's mysterious tabs, I found the right combinations to send and receive videos.
Cover video:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f37ob5ikwsrzx06/CoverVid2-Cole.MOV?dl=0
Interview: Yes, if you have four walls to block the wind, stand close and cup your hands around the phone, you, too, can get decent-tolerable audio. It is even better if you have a roof, which this lady did not.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fsoao779gxbcgev/INTV-Carol%20Cole.MOV?dl=0
Second Revelation: Smartphone Video
So, if you think the top of my head came off last year, imagine what happened a year later on April 29, 2014. I was watching Travis "what's his name?" on KOTV, and he said two had died in Northeast Oklahoma in the town of Quapaw. I called The Weather Channel and they hired me to be a freelance field producer, which I've been doing for NBC and ABC News since 2006. Imagine my surprise on arriving about midnight, and they told me they did not have a photographer. "What kind of VIDEO camera do you have?" the assignments editor asked.
I said, "I don't have a video camera."
The assignments editor inquired further, "Do you have a smartphone?"
Feeling the bulge in my pocket, I thought, "I can't use that, can I?"
He said, yes, use that. "O.K.," I ventured.
So, that's how I discovered my iPhone 5 was a 1080p, high definition, video camera. Soon I learned that as long as I did not do any quicks pans, I could get good quality video. Later the next day, it dawned on me that I might put together a whole reporter package-PKG. I wrote this PKG in my car and, a few weeks later, voiced and edited it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWxuisIskGU&index=2&list=PLVdaPMeENCoyr9y38gWpchmXoMlz0PgAN
As you can tell, the audio is terrible when a slight wind blows. However, if you get out of the wind, you can get pretty good sound by cupping your hands around the ends of the phone and standing about 1 to 2 feet away. Look at the color, too, just natural room light, overhead fluorescents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTwyHOqFMPw&index=1&list=FLWtVUUI1Qw0Dg3kbTEwmLUw
I said, "I don't have a video camera."
The assignments editor inquired further, "Do you have a smartphone?"
Feeling the bulge in my pocket, I thought, "I can't use that, can I?"
He said, yes, use that. "O.K.," I ventured.
So, that's how I discovered my iPhone 5 was a 1080p, high definition, video camera. Soon I learned that as long as I did not do any quicks pans, I could get good quality video. Later the next day, it dawned on me that I might put together a whole reporter package-PKG. I wrote this PKG in my car and, a few weeks later, voiced and edited it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWxuisIskGU&index=2&list=PLVdaPMeENCoyr9y38gWpchmXoMlz0PgAN
As you can tell, the audio is terrible when a slight wind blows. However, if you get out of the wind, you can get pretty good sound by cupping your hands around the ends of the phone and standing about 1 to 2 feet away. Look at the color, too, just natural room light, overhead fluorescents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTwyHOqFMPw&index=1&list=FLWtVUUI1Qw0Dg3kbTEwmLUw
Oops, I forgot.
Oops, I remembered.
Backing up one year in time to June, 2012, I attended the Poynter Institute's "Teachapalooza," hate the name but love the result. Without it, I honestly don't know how I would have integrated new media into my classes. I guess I would have had to tell myself that sticking with the basics of good writing and good shooting is mostly what matters. Well, I would have been right, but I also would have been "blind, deaf and dumb," but no pinball wizard. In other words, to ignore how young people and now middle-aged people are engaging media would have been negligent. At Poynter, I learned about things like Twitter, WordPress, Tumblr, screencast-o-matic, glifs, owlys and other attachments to turn my smartphone into a news-gathering miracle. I also gained the courage to require students to use their smartphones and Facebook to shoot and publish news. The instructors at Poynter convinced me to tell the students to do it and they would figure it out. I didn't have to be the master of new media to require new media in my courses. That was my first year at Poynter, summer, 2012. My second year at Poynter, June 2013, I attended the "Backpack Journalism" seminar to learn about shooting video with DSLR cameras, Canon 5Ds, and editing video with Adobe Premiere. To prove I have no shame, click on the link.
Shooting video with a "still" camera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3aMyvw3IoE
Backing up one year in time to June, 2012, I attended the Poynter Institute's "Teachapalooza," hate the name but love the result. Without it, I honestly don't know how I would have integrated new media into my classes. I guess I would have had to tell myself that sticking with the basics of good writing and good shooting is mostly what matters. Well, I would have been right, but I also would have been "blind, deaf and dumb," but no pinball wizard. In other words, to ignore how young people and now middle-aged people are engaging media would have been negligent. At Poynter, I learned about things like Twitter, WordPress, Tumblr, screencast-o-matic, glifs, owlys and other attachments to turn my smartphone into a news-gathering miracle. I also gained the courage to require students to use their smartphones and Facebook to shoot and publish news. The instructors at Poynter convinced me to tell the students to do it and they would figure it out. I didn't have to be the master of new media to require new media in my courses. That was my first year at Poynter, summer, 2012. My second year at Poynter, June 2013, I attended the "Backpack Journalism" seminar to learn about shooting video with DSLR cameras, Canon 5Ds, and editing video with Adobe Premiere. To prove I have no shame, click on the link.
Shooting video with a "still" camera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3aMyvw3IoE
First Revelation: Smartphone Video
By 2013, my new media skills had progressed, so I was only two years behind my students. However, I have done some things they have not done. When I covered the drought-driven grassfires in NE Oklahoma in June 2013, I was eerily aware that I was stepping across the divide between past and future. Had the top of my skull not popped off due to revelation, I would be able to recount to you how I was able to get the following video out of my cellphone and to NBC News.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0xqo_gScY0&list=PLVdaPMeENCoyr9y38gWpchmXoMlz0PgAN&index=1
In the summer of 2013, the fresh air was reaching my brain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0xqo_gScY0&list=PLVdaPMeENCoyr9y38gWpchmXoMlz0PgAN&index=1
In the summer of 2013, the fresh air was reaching my brain.
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