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Digital storytelling: making smart choices Emma Carew Grovum / @emmacarew | ecg@thedailybeast.com

Warm-up activity: 1 min Brainstorm as many types of storytelling building blocks as you can.

Warm-up activity: 2 min Who is your audience? What are they looking for from your newsroom? How do they ingest/consume your coverage?

Warm-up activity: 1 min Describe the staffing, digital skills and organization of your newsroom.

What’s in your storytelling toolkit? WORDS Headlines Articles List Cards Captions Documents Newsletter subject lines PHOTOGRAPHY Main image for stories Embedded/additional images for stories Slideshows and galleries Photo essays Shareable images VIDEO Video story Raw/live video Audio-only stories Live streams DATA Chart, graphic or map to accompany a story Chart, graphic or map stand-alone story Interactives News applications

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MOBILE Push alerts SMS updates Native mobile apps Card-style storytelling Mobile interface Email newsletters SOCIAL MEDIA Post existing content to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr User-generated social media posts Native content generated for social: Facebook Live, Periscope, Vine, Snapchat Other emerging?

Group Activity: 5 min Sort your storytelling toolkit into four main buckets based on how long each task would take:

● less than one hour ● more than one hour ● less than one day ● at least one day

What’s important for this story? ● Fast ● Exclusive/scoop ● Comprehensive ● Visually appealing ● Voicey or edgy ● Update-able ● Shareable ● Interactive

Iterations ● What’s the smallest, simplest piece of content this story needs to get out

the door? ● How quickly will you update with the next version? ● And how much will the story/presentation grow with each step?

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Group Activity: 20 mins

● Assign a scribe, a timekeeper and one person to report back. ● Each table will be assigned TWO scenarios (spend roughly 10 mins on

each):

1. Small, local newsroom focused on broadcast (TV or public radio):

There’s a local natural disaster occurring (tornado, earthquake, flooding, take your pick)

All hell breaks loose at a planned event (like an annual festival)

2. Medium, national web-only with a focus on video,

There’s a natural disaster occurring (tornado, earthquake, flooding, take your pick), and it may or may not be in the area where you are located, but it is a big enough deal for you to cover.

There’s a last-minute scandal (drugs, sex, or otherwise, take your pick) leading up to a national awards show or sports championship (take your pick), and now the scandal is drawing all the attention away from your planned coverage.

3. Large, regional, daily newspaper with legacy ownership There’s a violent attack (many injuries, no casualties), and

it’s breaking news in your region (school shooting, mid-sized explosion of a non-terrorism-related cause).

You’re sending a small team to Rio to cover the Olympics. Whom do you send, and what roles will they play?

● Answer these questions:

1. What platforms and digital storytelling techniques would you use to tell

each story? Why?

2. How many and what kind of staffers would you put on each story?

Report back: 15 minutes Volunteer groups will give a short summary of their answers to the questions.

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Tutorials on tools Google News Lab: Offers lessons on how to use Google tools to research, report, distribute and optimize stories. https://newslab.withgoogle.com/tools Includes:

● Google My Maps: http://bit.ly/googlemymap ● Google Fusion Tables: Creates “free choropleth maps (intensity

maps) with just a few simple steps. This makes it easy for journalists to visualize and publish demographic data, such as election or population numbers.” bit.ly/GoogleFusionTables

Tutorial: Storytelling apps and tools: Has links to many data-visualization tools and lessons on how to create them. http://bit.ly/berkeleytools by Paul Grabowicz and Richard Hernandez at Berkeley Advanced Media Institute. Includes:

● Google Charts: https://developers.google.com/chart/ ● Google Forms for interactive quizzes and crowdsourcing:

https://www.google.com/forms/about/ Tutorial: Picking the right media for a story: “This tutorial takes you through the different types of media – video, photos, audio, graphics/maps and text – and the kinds of stories or characteristics of stories that lend themselves to the different kinds of media.” http://bit.ly/pickmedia by Paul Grabowicz at Berkeley Advanced Media Institute.

10 trusty digital tools journalists should try right now: Most are free. Includes Videolicious for video editing, Silk.co for data visualization and Canva for graphic design. Compiled by The Poynter Institute, it includes links to free Poynter webinar replays for some tools. http://bit.ly/10digtools

Webinar replays on 20 digital tools at NewsU.org: The Poynter Institute’s NewsU.org has 20 webinar replays, each on a different tool, including Tableau Public, TimelineJS, StoryMapJS and Videolicious. http://bit.ly/newsutools