Here’s what some smart media folks had to say at MIT today
Some really smart media and technology folks addressed a gathering put together by the Future of News project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab today. The focus was on finding compelling ways to share interesting information produced by researchers — or even gathered by reporters.
Here are a few takeaways, along with some really bad photographs taken with an iPhone.
@philgara, who is part of the #Fold project, spoke about finding ways to satisfy the public’s “hunger for rich, contextual stories.”
In a session about film, Gara offered a few pieces of advice for anyone new to the medium:
1. Sound is key. “Distorted sound is much more jarring than distorted images,” he said.
2. Hold your shots three times longer than you instinctively would.
3. The best stories are closest to you.
4. Record by any means necessary.
Gideon Gil, one of the leaders of the Boston Globe’s Stat project, talked about the online, national health and science publication. It’s set to officially launch in one to two weeks, he said.
In response to a question from the audience, Gil talked about changing notions around verifying the accuracy of stories before they’re published. “It used to be media organizations were very averse to sharing content with sources before it is published. That’s really changed, especially with science,” he said.
Gil also said Stat staffers have done some testing of projects with “people who are not experts, to make sure they understand it.”
Max Larkin, a producer of the Open Source program hosted by Christopher Lydon, touted the value of podcasts as a platform. “The researcher has a unique ability to link to people in a podcast,” he said.
You can follow the podcast at Radio Open Source.
Larkin had a few tips for aspiring podcasters: Don’t expect short-term results and look for information and tips at the website transom.com.
MIT host Matthew S Carroll gave one of the most closely followed talks of the day, addressing the rise of what he called non-narrative story-telling.
He talked about the “atomization” of stories.
“This is clearly the trend. Breaking stories into different particles” so readers can consume and reassemble them “however they want,” he said. “That requires a different kind of writing and a different kind of reading.”
There was lot of discussion at the event about an open-source platform called Fold that grew out of the MIT media lab.
Fold lets story creators smoothly integrate content that is related to their pieces but not key to the central narrative.
Alexis Hope, one of Fold’s creators, said its strengths include the ability to easily integrate outside material such as videos and Tweets.
