At the end of November, my colleague Andrew and I attended Newsrewired – a digital journalism conference hosted by journalism.co.uk at Reuters in Canary Wharf.
On the first of two days we watched as speakers from a variety of publications took to the stage to discuss various aspects of digital journalism – from storytelling for mobile to immersive video. This was then followed by an (optional) day of training.
Day 1: Journalism Conference
Taking to the stage were speakers from the likes of Reuters, WikiTribune, Quartz, Buzzfeed, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian.
The most interesting part of the day for me came from the Guardian’s deputy editor VR, Nicole Jackson. Nicole explained that they are using virtual reality as a new way to tell a story using the same principles they would to write a feature but creating it in a way that makes us re-think something we may have seen many times before. Limbo, for example, is a virtual experience of waiting for asylum. There are currently 31,500 asylum seekers in the UK waiting for a decision on their asylum status – this alone is a shocking figure however, by putting on the headset and watching this short film, you can experience what it is like to be in their shoes and as a result understand how it really feels. You can step inside the story here.
You can find out more about what we took away from the day here and hear the audio, alongside the slides here.
Day 2: An Introduction to Podcasting
Podcasts have made a comeback over the last few years with everyone from bloggers to news sites jumping on the bandwagon.
So, with this in mind – when given the option of three training courses which also included – ‘Online Media Law Refresher’ and ‘From Snapchat to Instagram: Stories on Social Media’ – we decided podcasting would be the most beneficial.
This practical workshop was lead by former BBC producer, Jack Soper. In it we learnt how to create content, then record, edit and publish it online – discussing interviewing, script writing and the use of music and sound effects, along the way.
We are taking the skills we learnt and now attempting to put them into practice by creating a podcast about the ‘Blogging for your Brand’ eBook our team created for Zazzle Media. We intend to focus on the first volume and what better place to start than with ‘why you need a blog.’
Find out more about newsrewired and book your tickets here.
