A LOOK INSIDE THE JOURNALISM TOOLBOX

All tradesmen have certain tools that work for certain jobs, and most tradesmen have one tool that is handier and more effective than all the others...like a hammer. For a journalist, the hammer is the still photograph. If used properly, a still photograph can capture attention and evoke emotion faster than any other medium. But the thing about pictures is that you have to be able to see them (shocking, I know).

It seems easy right? If your greatest tool is visual...then you take every advantage of its visual strength.

However, even some of the most prestigious photojournalist websites could use a little review of the basics:

What Works and Doesn't Work: MSNBC

~Does: layout http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3842331/

The layout for the MSNBC link to photojournalism is perfect. The photo (seen above) immediately grabs your attention and, not only that, anyone who knows what's going on in the world is instantly thrown into the midst of a dramatic story. This definitely inspires viewers to click on the picture and be directed to the photo slide show.

~Does(mostly): slideshow

Photo slideshows are great and with a nice little text blurb they are a perfect way to catch up with the weeks news. Only problem with MSNBC is that I wish the background behind the pictures were black so that they pop more. The slideshow is standard...nothing fancy but it gets the viewer all the pictures so it does it's job.

~Does: multimedia http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24765917

The internet offers opportunity for a new kind of interactive journalism and MSNBC's multimedia packages utilize that to the max.

What Works and Doesn't Work: World Press Photo

~Doesn't: layout http://www.worldpressphoto.org/

The layout for this homepage is all wrong. The link to the photo slideshow is practcially impossitble to find...And it's not even buried in anything exciting to read or look at! Snore...

~Doesn't (but close): slideshow http://www.worldpressphoto.org/50years/

Being not very computer savvy and rushed for time, it took me a while to find a slideshow but once I did, they are very high-tech and visually appealing. The 50 year anniversary one is especially interesting although it is more multimedia than slideshow. Unfortunately, just a plain old slideshow is almost impossible to come by and that's what I want as a photojournalism viewer.

~Does (mostly): multimedia

The multimedia itself is pretty cool...especially the interviews...but the text information that introduces them is so bland and so difficult to read because of the tiny font, I don't even think I would stay on the website long enough to find it if I weren't looking for an assignment.

Keys of Online Photojournalism

The one problem with online photojournalism is that the desires of viewers are still being studied and they vary widely due to each individual's level of technological ability. However, with this comes an infinite variety of ways to present information. The essential groundworks, however do not change--a picture is a picture is a picture and a few elements are necessary:

1. Photo must evoke emotion
2. The bigger the better
3. Black background makes the picture pop
4. Make the pictures easy to get to and give the reader the option of just the pictures and not having to wade through a lot of information to get them.
5. Short, informative blurbs are key...and if they link to a full story, even better.
6. Make everything as easy to find as possible for the news consumer. If they use online news they are probably pressed for time.

As stated earlier, photography is a journalists most powerful tool and the internet has made that tool even more powerful. A good photo is a quick one-two emotional punch and can effect a reader in ways a print or broadcast story never could. The internet gives the journalist a million ways to present that photo. The only thing to watch out for, is that the journalists not out-pace the technological knowledge of the consumer...too fancy takes away from the simple power of the photo.

How many clicks does it take to get to the center of a slideshow?

And I Just Can't Get Enough... Photos

Journalists have to choose quality over quantity when they publish photos in print. But online, they can get quality and quantity. A photo usually enriches a story and is often the main element that brings a story to life. Online news has no limit to how many photos it can include. Slideshows are a good way to organize this overflow of photography.

Slideshow strengths

• Many photos, all in one place without cluttering up a news story.
• Captions and short descriptions of the photos, just enough to tell what's happening.
• Grabs the attention of readers who don't get reeled in as easily by headlines.
  

This Week in Pictures/Photos:
MSNBC vs. Yahoo! News

MSNBC's slideshow has a few more photos (with each pertaining to an individual story) than Yahoo's slideshow does. It also has a whole separate slideshow with audio for the big story about Hurricane Ike.

Both slideshows have good short descriptions of the pictures, but I think Yahoo's title captions are more catchy and interesting, like "The sea came to town."


Photos catch the eye more than words or numbers do. Therefore I think it is smart of Yahoo to have thumbnails at the bottom of the slideshow instead of numbers to click on.

Shutter with Happiness: Photojournalism Improves News Sites

Surely, the invention of the digital camera in the '70s made photojournalists everywhere "shutter" with happiness. 

The burgeoning popularity of the Internet reached out with its Webbed fingers to caress and finally to enclose this newfound medium in what would become a perpetual and symbiotic embrace.  Their love children were numerous and popular, despite their strange names – Photobucket, Flickr, ImageShack, etc. 

But all that was a bunch of superfluously convenient fluff.  The epitome of their union – their truly prodigal daughter – was Online Photojournalism.

People no longer had to settle for smudged black-and-white photographs to visually comprehend the News. Everybody's standard was raised when they were given the power to view bigger, high-quality and high-resolution images of current events.  The record of what was going on around everyone became substantially more accurate and aesthetic – it brought the consumer of news one step closer to omniscience.  

Yahoo! News:

This is a perfect example of the miracle that is Online Photojournalism.  

Yahoo!News presents each week in 12 photos – every photo contains a succinct description of its content.  The most recent week is featured at the top of the clean and simple main page, with a main photo that links to a slideshow that is effortless to navigate; beneath it, an easily accessed archive to preceding weeks.

The site is so navigable and uncluttered that the news consumer can feel almost godlike in the control that is offered him.

Reuters:

This online photojournalism site is a little more intimidating.  

It includes many more features – in addition to the Week in Photos and its archive, Reuters includes pictures of the month, pictures of the year, portfolios and more.  

Although there's more room for confusion on their website, there are also more opportunities to keep the news consumer interested once he figures out what's what and where.

Also, the slideshows on the Reuters site are more user-friendly than those of the Yahoo!News site.  You can click on each photograph to get to the next photograph, rather than having to click on small arrow icons.

Truly supernatural.

How to Perfect the Lovechild:

Problem: Neither Reuters nor Yahoo!News provide links to bigger images of each photograph; therefore, neither site makes full use of the power of online photojournalism, which allows the news consumer to view brighter, better and bigger images.

Solution: Include links to bigger images!

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

We all know what happens when people visit online news sites. They click on the intriguing headlines, scan through the stories, get distracted and move on. Reading dense articles online just isn't interesting to most people. What is interesting, however, are the pictures.

It seems that online news readers share some traits with children-they want to see the pictures. 

The web provides a great outlet for photojournalism, because there is endless space. Unlike a newspaper, you don't have to choose just one photo for a story. I can't tell you how many times I've started to read a story and stopped once I noticed there was a slideshow to go along with it. If I can get the point of the story through pictures and short, concise captions, why would I spend my time reading?

I had never looked at either Reuters or the World Press Photo websites.  Both offer pictures, but in very different ways. 

Reuters: Photos all day, every day

What I first noticed about Reuters was the sheer volume of photos. It can almost be overwhelming. But the website does a good job of organizing the photos so users can easily navigate through the site. Their photos are arranged in slideshow formats, and examples of slideshows include:

• Editor's choice-the best pictures from the past 24 hours
• Pictures related to recent news-when I visited, the Emmys were featured
• Pictures of the month
• Pictures of the year
• You Witness News-the best pictures sent in from citizen photojournalists

Another benefit is that Reuters allows you to take pictures from the site. You simply drag them to your desktop. Reuters also gives you the option of sharing them, through platforms such as e-mail or even facebook. 

Some of the pictures I chose to share (from Reuters):

World Press Photo: Pictures with an impact

The World Press Photo site is not the best website I've visited. The link to the photo gallery was initially difficult to find, and users are unable to take or share the photos because of copyright laws. While I understand the need for copyright protection, it seems that the inability to easily share the photos prevents them from being seen and making an impact -- the purpose of photojournalism.

The thumbnails for the photos were also very small, so you couldn't tell what the picture or even the story was until you clicked on them. Captions accompanying the photos were also short, and often repetitive. Most photos had 2 or 3 general sentences, and only 1 sentence about the specific photo.

 

The World Press Photo site, however, did have some advantages over other sites:

• Powerful, emotional photos
• Some photos were arranged by story, so you could see all the related photos
• Smaller volume of photos makes it easier to browse without frustration or wasted time

Moral of the story

In the end, I found that browsing through pictures online is more of a leisure activity. It's easy to get lost in the slideshows, clicking on links to more and more pictures. More than once I've found myself starting on a slideshow and realizing, an hour later, that I've got homework to do. Small thumbnails and overwhelming amounts of photos may deter some users, but in the end, they are a small price to pay for the images you get in return.

MSNBC Photos have edge over Yahoo

I believe it is unfair to compare the quality of photographs on daily news websites such as MSNBC and Yahoo News to the photos one sees when visiting a site specifically designed for photography. But, comparing photojournalism on various news websites is fair game. 

Both MSNBC and Yahoo News have a similar format in displaying slide shows of the best and most relevant photographs from the week. I enjoy the sl

ideshow format and I appreciate that both websites allow you to scroll through the pictures at your own pace.

However, there are also some aspects that differentiate the two websites.

MSNBC

• Slide show contains more photos
• Audio accompanies some slides/stories
• Most newsworthy photos at beginning of slide show
  

Yahoo News

• Fewer international photographs

I prefer how MSNBC uses audio with some of their sli

des, and I like how the site puts the photos relating to the biggest news of the week at the beginning of the slide show.

Then there are the actual pho

tographs themselves, and while I can't say this is always true, I feel as though the photographs on MSNBC from this past week were better at showing emotion than those on Yahoo news. 

MSNBC and Yahoo News both had photographs of traders on wall street with hands on their heads in an "I can't believe this just happened" expression. While the photographs are similar, the MSNBC one offers me more as its closeness allows me to feel the trader's

pain more so than the other photo.

The same is true with photographs on both sites relating to the Metrolink train that crashed last week. The MSNBC photo shows a victim being carried away and elicits a feeling of emotion that is both strong and powerful. The Yahoo News photo doesn't come anywhere near as close in evoking the same emotions from me.

While the quality of the photographs on each site may differ from week to week, the way each site is formatted will not. That's why for me MSNBC reigns supreme.

Picture perfect Web site

Web sites would not be nearly as attractive and alluring without pictures like the one shown above. The bright, rich colors seem to pop as the light of the computer screen spotlights the photos. News Web sites like Yahoo! News and Reuters use this to their advantage, displaying numerous pictures each day.

Comparing Yahoo! News and Reuters

Yahoo! News exhibits “The Week in Photos,” demonstrating the alluring quality of colorful images. On the other hand, Reuters devotes a whole Web page to pictures.

The Reuters page includes:
· Editor’s Choice gallery
· Story slideshows
· Pictures of the Month
· Pictures of the Year
· Portfolios of various photographers

Despite the vast amount of pictures available on Reuters, the site makes some mistakes that Yahoo! News does not.

· The Reuters pictures are simply too small. Usually when users click on a photo for a gallery, they expect to see larger images. The pictures on Reuters’ slideshows got smaller than they were on the front page of the site. Worse still, the ads in the slideshow are almost as large as the pictures. It is extremely distracting.

· While it is true that the Internet allows for a seemingly endless capacity to exhibit pictures, that does not mean we should try to use it all. A slideshow of 24 photos is too much. People do not have the patience to click through that many, and it is easy to get lost in the whole thing.

· Yahoo! News and Reuters both show the thumbnails of the pictures in the photogallery, but Reuters has the pictures going vertically across the side of the page. This is a minor issue, but our eyes naturally scan from left to right and perhaps Yahoo! News’ horizontal method is more pleasing to the eye.

Some of my favorite pictures:

REUTERS/Mick Tsikas

REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

REUTERS/Darren Whiteside

REUTERS/ Marcelo Del Pozo

Broadband makes me picture happy

Slideshows are amazing. They simply and effectively convey a story. You can see the painful sadness and the exuberant happiness. You can see vivid colors and subdued tones. 

So a good picture gallery website is essential. If your slideshow is unappealing and/or clunky, no one will check out your pictures. 

The two I compared were the Yahoo's photo page and Reuters' page. 

YAHOO! News — "This Week in Photos" Home Page

Pros

• Each gallery has a thumbnail link with a picture example
• The galleries are sorted by category, and you can choose which to view. 

Cons

• Very plain layout. It's just a bunch of boxes around pictures

YAHOO! News — Slideshow

Pros

• Photos are large
• Thumbnails are small, but not too small

Cons

• Should add a link to the actual story (or stories)

Reuters — "Photos" Home Page

Pros: 

• Galleries for the day, month, year
• Has different featured galleries on the pictures home page with thumbnail photos
• Have other assorted galleries farther down the page
• Prettier design

Cons:

• Categories icon is on the left in tiny font so it's hard to spot
• Previous slideshows don't have icons so you have to read each subject

Reuters — Slideshow

Pros:

• Clicking a photo will bring you to the next one
• No auto-play

Cons: 

• Photos are not that large
• Thumbnails are too small
• Thumbnails are more convenient when they're at the bottom or the right side of the page
• Should add a link (or links) to actual stories

CONCLUSION

The Reuters website has a more professional home page, but Yahoo does a good job of sorting its other photo galleries. 

Both the Yahoo and Reuters slideshow players were easy to use. Reuters had the "click-through" option for the photos, but Yahoo had larger photographs. 

Both slideshows should add links to their slideshows to their actual stories so that more people would read their content, especially because pictures can show so much more than words. So more pictures can only enhance a story more. 

And since the Internet has all the space in the world, why not use it?

When Photos go Digital

With the advent of the Web, photographers have been provided a new medium to showcase their work. There are several websites that are known for their excellent display of photos from the news. My favorite is the World Press Photo website. 

World Press Photo

This website provides a look at some of the best works of photojournalism for each year, displaying the photos in an easy access thumbnail view that allowed users to click on the photos they are interested in looking at. 

The slideshow feature is nice because users can navigate through the pictures as they please and switch back and forth through the photos. On the side of each photo is a gallery view that shows other related photos or photos in the same series. There is also a short description of each photo as well as the photographer and prize it won during the World Press Photo Contest. 

The overview at the beginning of the site, however, shows all the photos in thumbnail size so it is difficult to view them without clicking to enlarge them. And even in the enlarged version, the photos are small and off-centered, taking away from their effect and causing the eye to wander away from the central focus: the picture. 

A snapshot of the 2008 winning photo - by Tim Hetherington for Vanity Fair - from the World Press Photo website. 

The Pulitzer Prizes

The website for the Pulitzer Prize winning photographs is not as easy to navigate as the World Press Photo page. 

The user has to select a year that they want to view and then must select the photo category to see the winning photo from the year, so there is no way to view all of the photos together. 

The photos also appear first as thumbnails and one has to click of them to enlarge them.

When they are enlarged, the photos appear in a separate window, which does make them easier to view and helps draw full attention to the photo. While this feature is better than that of the World Press Photo, the navigation to this takes far too long. 

A snapshot of the display of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Breaking Photography, taken by Adrees Latif. 

Internet best place for photojournalists' pics

The internet has taken journalism to new heights not only in terms of editorial content, but also in terms of how stories are being covered. The internet has created a demand not only for speed in journalism, but also a demand for visual stories as well. With a growing interest in the visual story behind the editorial one, journalists are finding the internet as the best news outlet to publish visuals that may or may not accompany a larger piece as seen in MSNBC's The Week in Pictures and Yahoo's version, The Week in Photos.

Why photojournalism is better on the web

It is not complicated to see why pictures are better suited on the internet than in any print publication. It comes down to the simple fact that size, does indeed, matter.

The internt is able to supply a limitless amount of space to publish the work of photojournalists without the worry of cramping an advetisor's paid spot in a newspaper. Photojournalists are granted the freedom of choosing multiple pictures to include in a piece, and even have the option of developing a series in addition to publishing their work in color.

Take today's front page of The Los Angeles Times print edition for instance. In the bottom right hand corner of the front page is a story about Metrolink. The front page has no pictures and is placed at the bottom of the page where it barely grabs the readers attention before flipping onto the next page. The online edition of the same story, however, offers a little more excitement and room to display the photojournalists work.

What makes web photojournalism great?

That's easy; accesbility and variation.

Web photojournalism allows for internet news consumers to pick and choose the photos they want to see, when they want to see them, and how they want to view them.

Jumping from news site to news site, photos are presented very differently, but with the same concept in mind: keep it short and keep it simple.

MSNBC's Week in Pictures offers their visitors the option of choosing an audio track with a select slide show, or simply clicking through the pictures while Yahoo's The Week in Photos struggles to keep pace with it's simple slide show of less sophiscated pictures. This is particulary seen in the two media outlets' coverage of the Paralympic Games in Beijing. While MSNC takes a very personal approach attaching the handicap with a person, Yahoo uses an image that disattaches the disability with the person. In addition to these specific example, shown through photographs below, MSNBC takes a more global approach to their news photographs while Yahoo chooses to take a domestic perspective.

Bottom Line

When it comes to photojournalism, the internet takes the prize. The internet can provide an unlimited amount of resources to photojournalists to improve and publish their pictures that print news outlets just simply can't afford - in time or space. So when push comes to shove, the internet gets the final say, and often first, say in photojournalism.

www = Whatever We Want

The options are plentiful. Whether we want news stories, sports scores, games, travel ideas, or cooking instructions, we know where to find it in seconds. That's the beauty of the world wide web. But, as easy as it is to find what you are looking for on the web, it's just as easy to contribute material for others to see. That's where some danger comes in...

There are tricks for writing solid, entertaining news stories for the web that are sure to garner a bunch of attention. But, no matter how clear and concise you may be in writing a story, or how many strong verbs you choose to use, nothing captures the attention of an audience like the extreme.

A recent example comes from the official website of Washington Redskins tight end Chris Cooley. The website had to issue an apology yesterday for showing a male body part for an entire day. The incident created a ton of buzz in Washington DC, where some Redskins (including Cooley) are seen as bigger stars than the president.

While helpful tricks for writing for the web may enhance the number of "clicks" a certain story receives, there's still no power like star-power in terms of garnering attention for a story or website. Drop a few big names, and your story is off and running.