Know the Tools

For many years, reporters either went out on the beat armed with little more than a pad and pencil, or a broadcast crew trailing along. Now it sometimes feels we’re one person carrying a whole newsroom of gear in our pockets. But that also gives today’s journalist a big advantage over reporters of yesteryear – even working solo in the field, we can gather our news in a much wider variety of ways. And that means we can find the tool to best tell the story and produce for whatever medium our news organization’s needs.

Your job, then, is to get to know these tools and understand how they can make you a better journalist. In your first few months here, you’ll be introduced to still cameras and video cameras, audio decks and microphones, and a slew of related gear that can expand your reporting capabilities in the field (not to mention a whole catalog of software tools that allow you to efficiently edit what you’ve gathered once you’re back in the newsroom). You’ll also get extensive training in the classroom and labs, through workshops and hands-on with talented faculty and staff, not to mention via extensive online training tutorials like those found on the web site Lynda.com or Poynter.org’s NewsU, both of which will be made available to you after you arrive at school.

But don’t wait until then to get starting learning the tools of the trade. If you already have access to any of that gear – most of you, for instance, have basic point-and-shoot cameras or better – start using them this summer in ways that are more journalistic. For instance, don’t just snap off shots of friends at the beach, look around the shoreline for telling images of the businesses or businesspeople that thrive or struggle there. Don’t just go for a stroll in town, use your camera to capture something of the feeling and reality of the community you live in. It’s remarkable what happens to your journalistic mindset when you carry around a camera and constantly watch for what might make an interesting image. You’ll find you start going out of your way to find them, and your reporting instinct will kick in.

Of course, you don’t even have to carry around your camera to capture images and video throughout your day. Your mobile phone can help you do that as well – most of you have them with decent cameras and sometimes much more. You’ve already received a message from Associate Dean Judy Watson about being prepared with an appropriate smartphone when you arrive at school. It’s fast becoming the ubiquitous reporter’s tool. But again, don’t wait until school starts to begin playing with your smartphone journalistically. You can take photos, capture video and audio, send out status updates on Facebook and Twitter or other blogging platforms, and of course to consume news when you’re away from your desktop.

So let’s get you started with a very simple reporting assignment – a kind of photo scavenger hunt. In the next week, take half a dozen photos that either show us something in your community you’ll be leaving behind when you come to New York, or, if you’re already here, something you’ve found that makes New York feel like home. Post the best of those photos to the Class of 2012 Facebook page. Be sure to share a line or two in the caption about what we’re seeing, and perhaps what device you used to capture it. We’ll spotlight the most interesting of those images for all to see in an Editor’s Pick post.

Good luck getting started with these simple image-gathering tools. And enjoy the hunt!

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One Response to Know the Tools

  1. When someone writes an padagraph he/she retains the plan of a user in his/her brain that how a user can understand it.

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