Media Tips

We’ve collected and summarised a range of practical tips from experienced journalists and media professionals. Whether you’re preparing for an interview, recording your voice, shooting video, or editing a story – these insights can help you improve your craft and approach each task with more confidence and creativity.

Interviewing: do your homework

For an interview to be successful, it is essential to establish a good connection with the interviewee. If a person is not very sociable it does not necessarily mean that the interview will fail. For an interview to be a good one there are three key factors – time and place combined with the interlocutor trust. But those will not help if the interviewer has not done his/her homework – preparation is the absolute must, and that most certainly does not mean grabbing information at the very last minute, and only the latest information available, but rather using the knowledge about the protagonist accumulated over a longer period of time. The research (extensive) has to involve both publicly available information and also the interviewer’s own sources.

Interviewing: assess your protagonist

For a conversation to be successful it is very important to choose the right approach from the start. People are different so it is essential to take into account the psychological type of the interviewee. In some cases, you have to knock him/her out of their comfort zone. But, more frequently, a calming tactic works best, whereby in the beginning of the conversation topics such as childhood, youth and hobbies are discussed. The most important themes can be fired suddenly like a cannon as well as inconspicuously integrated into the conversation. Sometimes a specific question can be asked several times in different variations, so as to prompt a thorough answer. In all cases, an assessment of the interviewee’s psychological profile is a must and that, above all, requires careful listening and observation.

Get the most from your voice

As well as being a journalist I am also a comedy writer. My series “Taking the Flak” broadcast on the BBC and based on my own experiences, was the story of British journalists covering a war in a fictional African country. We filmed in Tanzania and Kenya for several months and I learned some excellent techniques on performing and voice from our actors which I now use in my journalism.

Despite the fact our voice is a powerful tool for broadcasting, very few of us journalists look after our voices the way actors and singers do.

So here’s a few tips to get the most from your voice:

Before you are recording your voice for a report or going into studio to broadcast, you are often sitting at a desk crouching over a computer, so always spend a minute stretching in any way that is comfortable. Then hang your head down and let your hands reach to the floor. This will open up your chest.
After stretching, massage your face and try some gentle neck rolls. This exercise will warm up your neck and throat muscles.
Do the “Lion and Fish” exercise. These are funny faces which will stretch your face and mouth; open your eyes and mouth as if you were a roaring lion. Then scrunch up your mouth and eyes as if you were a fish. Go back and forth between Lion and Fish a few times. Have fun with this!
When you are recording for a TV or radio story, arrange the microphone so you can stand up. Your voice will be much stronger and richer.
Always use your hands and animate your face when you broadcast or record your script.
If you are in studio for long periods, stand up and stretch when there is a break—in fact get everyone in the studio to join you, it’s a great way to keep your energy flowing.

And here’s a tip on things not to do…this happened to a BBC colleague Quentin Sommerville when he was doing an investigative story about drugs trafficking and seizures.

Editing: build the story

Often the real work of the interview begins when it has already been transcribed. It should be built in such a way that is truly engaging, but at the same time preserving the structure and the essence of the conversation. It is crucial to decide what to use from the interview material and what to leave out – what best tells the story. It is also important to know how to correctly shorten the text without changing the core information and how to structure the conversation so it does not get chaotic.

Useful DDJ blogs

Data Journalism is constantly developing and pushing the boundaries of innovation. Here are some blogs I find particularly inspiring to follow:

Learn more about them from the list I compiled while working at Infogram. If you are eager not to miss a post from these blogs, you can create an RSS feed using tools like Google Chrome plug-in “RSS Feed Reader”

iPhone video basics

If you own an iPhone, you always have a handy, easy-to-use camera in your pocket. It is useful for instant reporting, as well as filming where bigger cameras would attract too much attention.

The video quality can be good, so long as you follow some basic tips:

Clean lens
Know where lens and mic are
Use airplane mode while filming
Reduce resolution to record more
Landscape or Portrait
Focus and exposure – tap to adjust, press and hold to set
Move finger up and down to adjust more
Do not zoom when filming – move closer
Light drains battery
Keep it steady – bring arms close to body / lean on something
Film each shot for 10-15 secs

One of the first iPhone-only news reports was produced by BBC’s Matthew Pryce. He reported from the storm-hit Sardinia in 2013, and later explained the technique in a blog. His report was up on the BBC website soon after it was recorded, and was in the top 10 most viewed BBC News clips of the day.

Writing to pictures

Unlike radio or print where the words are the main conveyors of the story, with television the pictures should dictate what you write. A common mistake is to describe what the pictures are already showing. Instead, the best television scripts enrich the pictures and use them to tell the story in a natural way. Here are a few basic tips to follow when writing to pictures:

Look at the pictures before writing
Opening shot and closing shot are crucial
Pictures inspire the lines. Be selective with your words. Don’t describe what you see
Use language that would be “understood by a truck driver but not insult the intelligence of a professor” (Ed Murrow)
Take time to compose your opening line
Your sentences should convey: 1. Narrative, 2. Atmosphere, 3. Context
Make each line hold hands with the next
Listen to the sound. Let pictures breathe. 10% should be a natural sound. Close your eyes and listen.
Talk to the editor and the cameraman. Try out the lines in the team
Talk to yourself. Rise and fall, rhythm
Finish. Go back and polish – “there is no such thing as good writing, only good re-writing” (Mark Twain)

Innovation in journalism

Many people believe that innovation is something you do when you have the latest expensive equipment or software. In fact, the best examples of innovation in news often did not require any advanced technology. They are what we call editorial innovation – a good idea turned into a good story and told in a creative way, often by combining multimedia elements.

Check out this video – this amazing story (and one of the most popular BBC videos in 2016) came out of a letter on a computer screen.

Tips for beginner photojournalist

Research your topic

Become an expert on the topic you are going to shoot. Study the way everything is organized, look at how similar stories were shot before by other professionals. This knowledge will help you to see and capture the subject from the most interesting angle. It will also be much easier to find a common ground with the central character of your photoshoot, as you’ll be able to speak the same language.

Call your leading character

Your shoot or photo project cannot start until you or your producer makes the first call to the main character of the photoshoot. Be clear and honest during this conversation. Explain the story you want to tell and your motivation behind it; how much time the shoot is going to take and where the photos are going to be published. Your “hero” has to trust you to let you into his often imperfect world. Just remember that many people refuse to be photographed not because they are hiding the truth, but because they are too stressed about how they are going to look in pictures.

Rehearse

If you have opportunity and time to visit the shoot location in advance — do it. Put together a detailed plan of the photos you are going to make. Such a plan has to include wide and medium angles, as well as detail shots, which will help you tell your story better. While making this plan try predicting the moments when your story will be at the peak of drama and looking most expressive.

Don’t stop

If something does not go as planned during a shotoshoot, do not give up. Instead, try gathering as many shots from different angles as you can. It is important to not stop but just keep shooting.

Keep context in mind

And finally a tip for those just starting their journey in photography. Do not shoot just the objects or people on their own, as they are not really interesting by themselves. Shoot them in the visual context of the story you are telling. Each image you create is a sentence, and it has to contain and express a thought.

Magnum Photos agency

representing some of the world’s most renowned photographers. The website features their best word.

The World Press Photo Foundation

a major force in developing and promoting the work of visual journalists. The website has a rich archive of award-winning press photographs.

Lensculture

a resource for visual journalists who want to keep up with the latest trends and debates in contemporary photography

The New York Times blog on photography.

The TIME magazine blog on photography

Greatphotojournalism

online community of professional photojournalists, featuring their very best work.

Photojournalism Links

a FB page hosted by photo editor Mikko Takkunen, providing links to interesting photo projects around the world.

NOOR

a photo agency and foundation.

The Reuters blog on news photo journalism

VII Agency
represents 19 of the world’s preeminent photojournalists, the site features some of their best work.

Data visualization and information design: mind the difference

Can you tell which of the following images is data visualization, and which is information design?

We oftentimes mix data visualization with infographics, as it would be the same thing and it is a pitfall that creates misunderstandings. In a nutshell, data visualization represents one data set in a visual way – the data tells it all. Whereas infographics and information design use more than one data set, stand-alone figures and schemes expressing an idea.

If you seek to create an infographic, it is not enough to use simple charting tools. Take a look at tools like Infogram, Piktochart, Venngage, Easily. They are the easiest way for creating an infographic for online use, as they usually charge for downloading.

If you need a quick way to have an infographic as an image, we suggest using Powerpoint or Keynote and tell it all in one slide.

If you seek to visualize your data, tools as Datawrapper, Tableau and Highcharts do the job best.

Planning your story: Focus, why it’s needed and how to formulate it

What for?

Do not think in terms of what your text will be about. Think — what is it going to be created for? More precisely, why will your audience be reading it? These are examples of poorly-written planning pitches, “I will write about a press conference on snow removal problems” and “I will write about snow removal problems”. However “The city has just one snow-removing machine in working condition, so only the central street will be cleaned in the upcoming week” — is already better. Or this example wouldn’t be bad either: “If it is going to snow hard, central street will be the only one to drive through.”

“Imagine..”

It is easy to test if you are clear about your story’s focus. Imagine that you talk to a friend or relative and you have to tell him or her the story, starting with “imagine..”. So, everything after that “imagine..” will be the focus.

For example, “imagine, a press conference” or “imagine, problems with snow removal” — these bland phrases do not work. A much better version would be “imagine, if tomorrow it snows really hard, there will be no one to clean our streets”.

Lead and first paragraph

The focus of the story has to be clear from the first paragraph. Because this is when the reader decides whether to keep reading and they will if it is clear what for. And even if s/he leaves the text at that point, the minimum essence of your message will have been received.

Don’t be literal

A focus has to be clear from the first few paragraphs, though this is not the same as a lead. A focus is what must be understood from the lead. When a teenager asks a parent “Are you really not going to come back before 10 on Sunday night?”, what s/he is really interested in is if the family flat is indeed going to be parent-free all weekend. It’s the same thing with a focus.

“There is only one snow-removal machine in working condition in the city”. If tomorrow it snows a lot, our equipment will only be enough to clear Communist Avenue, and for the rest — sorry,” said so-and-so.” “The day after tomorrow they’re forecasting a snowstorm.”

This is a lead. And a focus within this lead could be: “All the snow-removal equipment in the city is out of order, and if there is a snowstorm the day after tomorrow, as forecast, you can only drive in the centre.”

Focus and structure

A clearly-formulated focus will help structure the text correctly without any unnecessary work. For example, the focus stated above suggests that you need to gather the following information for the record:

Equipment. What equipment are we talking about, how many machines are normally needed, how many are broken, when, why and how serious are the breakdowns? Can road sweepers do the job instead? Can the equipment be fixed in time? If yes, when?

The snowstorm. When is the snowstorm going to start? What does it mean exactly? How serious is it? How accurate is this forecast? Who are the forecasters? Can they be trusted? Why?

Transportation problems. What does “only in the centre” mean? What does “drive through” or “drive around” mean? What parts are going to be cleaned in any event? Why those exactly? What roads are busiest with traffic? Where will the biggest problems arise? At what time? Will public transport be working? How?

You don’t need the rest of the information for this story. Transcribe only those parts of the interview that contain the facts and quotes that you need, take only those quotes that are within the scope of your story. You won’t need the rest or you can keep them for other stories.

One text — one focus.

This is true, although you could write several stories on the same topic. This is called coverage. For example, you could first go with a story with the focus mentioned above and the following day a story with the focus “City will be filled with traffic jams, because the money for equipment repair went instead to the Christmas tree installation”. And after that, if the topic is still alive and being discussed, something else can be written.

No focus — no story

If you are not able to formulate your focus in one sentence, you are not ready to write the story, even if you have gigabytes of audio files and hundreds of documents. You just won’t know what to write. Sometimes this is hard to admit, as you have invested a lot of work into it. However, on the whole, this work has no use. That is why before you start gathering large amounts of data and facts, try asking yourself what for.

Focus changes

The focus you initially formulated yourself, before collecting the main information, is more likely a hypothesis. You may have several hypotheses, and in the process of working on the story these can be proved true or not. They can also be specified. Or you can decide that the most interesting thing lies in something else entirely. This is a normal process. However, your hypothesis must finally turn into a statement, which you must be able to confirm with testimonies, examination, facts and illustrations. And this will actually be your story.

Bigger audience through diversity

There is a common misconception that in order to attract more female or younger audience news organisation would have to change their editorial agenda. The fact is that women and young people are as interested in news as any middle-aged men. However, they might be picking up on the different angles of the same story or enjoy it in a different format. So if you want to diversify your audience you need to diversify you content.

To be able to diversify your content, you need to diversify your Newsroom. Make sure that you have a variety of people of different genders, ages and background contributing in the editorial meetings and you will get more interesting original ideas, angles and formats for the stories you cover.

This is a great example of how Brexit and its economic consequences were explained in a fun and innovative way using giffs.

And the advantages of Newsroom diversity go beyond the media outlet, asMaria Hinojosa, an NPR host and producer, argued in her TED talk.

Visualisation beyond charts

A lot of people think that data visualisation is pie charts and graphs explaining complicated statistics. In fact, any information could be visualised in an interesting and accessible way. The danger is to overcomplicate things.Here is the series my team produced for the winter Olympics in Sochi – we took five interesting scientific facts and explained them in an entertaining and accessible manner

Free web tools for exciting content

There are many free or cheap online tools available for you to use these days, which could help you to create better content for your website. Here is one example – it allows you to aggregate a simple Word cloud in less than 1 minute – WordClouds.

There are various templates for more complex projects – the only thing you will need is your own content – Knightlab.
The result is a visually stunning story on any topic. This happens to be on The Game of Thrones.
The best way to be aware of the new things popping up is to follow media professionals, organisations, and journalism schools on the social media.The BBC has a “taster website” where they innovate and experiment. It is called “home of new ideas from the BBC”.

And one of my favourite sources of creative inspiration for Data Visualisations is this page on FB – Information is Beautiful.