The Center for Innovation in Media

The Center for Innovation in Media, better known around campus as, the CIM, is home to Middle Tennessee State University student media and a professional National Public Radio station.

The CIM houses Sidelines, an editorially independent daily digital and mobile news site and monthly printed newspaper, MT10 and MT10 News, a television station that produces five student newscasts each week and a variety of entertainment programming, WMTS 88.3 FM, a student run radio station with music, news and talk and Match Records, a student run record label that helps develop, record and promote signed musicians.

The Center is also the home of WMOT 89.5 FM, a professional NPR station with news, talk, jazz and other music programming. WMOT is produced by professional radio staff and a group of MTSU journalism students.

In addition to student and professional media, the CIM is a place of innovation and exploration in media. Through partnerships and creative teamwork the CIM helps create mobile apps, data visualizations, data bases, websites, video projects and other media.

The CIM is a part of the College of Mass Communication and is located on the first floor of the Bragg Mass Communication building.

Val Hoeppner is the director of the CIM. Hoeppner has worked in digital, mobile and multi-platform journalism for more than 15 years. Hoeppner was multimedia director at the Indianapolis Star and later worked at the John Seigenthaler Center in Nashville as the director of education for the Diversity Institute. Hoeppner is also a well known media strategist and trainer, working with companies throughout the United States. She is an instructor for MTSU, the Poynter Institute, the Newseum Institute, Native American Journalism Fellowship, and APME News Train.

Hoeppner is the director of Innovation J-Camp and will be the lead instructor July 13-17, 2015.

February 11, 2015March 3, 2015

Snapchat for News

Messaging app Snapchat has become a hotspot for news with the addition of the Discover button.

CNN, National Geographic, Vice, ESPN, People, Food Network, Yahoo News, Warner Music, Cosmopolitan, Comedy Central and the Daily Mail have all added story channels to Snapchat.

Most of the Snap channels are posting five fresh stories Monday through Friday. Some of the stories feature video, some photography, gifs, memes and written stories.

Media companies throughout the U.S. have taken notice and are producing their own news Snaps.

One of the tools you can use to produce a Snap news video is the Videoshop app for iOS. Video Shop costs $1.99 and helps you edit to your favorite social media including Vine, Snapchat and Instagram.

By using the timeline tool in Videoshop you can see what clips need to be trimmed to produce the best video. You can add text (which is encouraged in Snapchat), voice over and music.

The Discover media section is way for media companies to reach a younger, more diverse audience. Whether the experiment will work is yet to be seen.

February 11, 2015March 3, 2015

Apps for High School Journalists

Apps for Journalists

Mobile Storytelling – 2015
Val Hoeppner, Digital, Mobile, Social and Multi-platform Storytelling and Training
[email protected] – @vhoeppner

EVERNOTE – A note-taking app that syncs text, photos and audio to Internet connected devices. Journalists can use it to take notes, write stories and captions and submit for editing. FREE — available on iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Nokia platforms.

DROPBOX – Dropbox allows you to view files on the go, download files for offline viewing, sync photos and videos and share links to your files in your personal Dropbox. Dropbox is a simple solution for archiving mobile media. FREE — available on iPhone, Android and Blackberry platforms.
GOOGLE DRIVE – Create and edit documents and spreadsheets. Store and share photos, videos and audio files. Connected to multimedia apps on iPhone. FREE on iPhone and Android

GENIUS SCAN – A PDF app that allows you to scan a document, create a PDF and email it as a JPEG or PDF. The Genius Scan+ version costs $2.99 and allows you to send scans to Dropbox, Evernote and Google Docs. FREE — available on iPhone.

TAPE A CALL – Record incoming and outgoing cellular phone calls. No time limit on recordings, upload to Dropbox, Evernote or Google Drive. $5.99 Available on iPhone and Android.

iTALK – iTalk Recorder is an audio recorder with high quality files. Press the big red button to record; press it again to stop. Files can also be saved to Dropbox with the Pro version. FREE for the basic edition, $1.99 for iTalk Pro, which features Dropbox uploading. Android has Voice Memo which is free.

VSCO Camera – Simple camera app that allows you to lock focus and exposure points. The app includes some basic photo editing tools. FREE — available on iPhone/iPod.

FILTERSTORM – A photo-editing app for the iPhone and iPad. Filterstorm contains editing tools similar to Adobe Photoshop on your computer. You can edit using layers, curves for adjusting tone, color correction, sharpness, noise reduction and a history brush. Filterstorm has two important features for journalists: 1 – the ability to add IPTC or caption information to images and 2 – the ability to send images directly from the app to an FTP server, email, Dropbox and more. $3.99 — available on iPhone and iPad.

Buffer – Share to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and App.net from one place and at optimal times. Add up to five tweets/posts to your “buffer” for automatic posting at the best times throughout the day. You can also schedule the buffered posts. Use the app, web version or post from Feedly. Free — available on iPhone.

HootSuite – Allows you to manage multiple social accounts from one app. Manage multiple Twitter accounts, Facebook, Foursquare and LinkedIn. This app automatically shortens links and allows you to schedule tweets. Free — available on iPhone.

FILMIC PRO – Shoot video with manual controls like focus, exposure, white balance. Shoot various frame rates and monitor your audio levels.

IMOVIE – The updated version of iMovie for iOS 7 is one of the few video editing apps that has two tracks of video and two tracks of audio. Trim clips, bring them to the timeline, split clips, detach audio and much more. $4.99 for iPhone and iPad.

February 9, 2015February 9, 2015

Who, When and Where

Innovation J-Camp will be held July 13-17, 2015 in the Center for Innovation in Media at the College of Mass Communication at Middle Tennessee State University.

The workshop will teach high school students to be innovative digital journalists, able to tell stories for multiple platforms including: video, web, mobile and print.

Participants will use the latest video, audio and mobile gear to produce a package of multimedia stories for posting on a website they will build during the camp. Canon USA is a sponsor of the camp and will provide the latest digital video cameras.

Each day students will learn about new digital platforms and will be given hands-on assignments to compliment classroom instruction. Students will spend the majority of their time in the field gathering stories and working with camp instructors to edit their stories into digital packages.

Multi-Platform Storytelling Daily Flow

Reporting and writing a news story
– What’s news? What makes something news worthy?
– Interviewing – Asking the right questions
– Note taking and quotes
Hands-on reporting assignment
– First five graphs
– Adding transitions and details to your writing
– Finish the masterpiece – how to close the circle on a story

Photography
– How to use a Canon DSLR camera
– Composing a picture
– Defining moments, telling a story through images
Hands-on assignment
– Editing photos using Adobe Bridge and Photoshop
– Edit a photo story for online publication

Video storytelling – shoot and edit video
– Video storytelling basics
– Interviewing for video and audio
– B-Roll – how to get the right shots for video
Hands-on assignment
– Editing video with Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere (possibly iMovie since its in most schools)
– Edit a video story for online publication

Build a website and publish stories
– Basics of WordPress
Hands-on assignment
– Build a WordPress website and post story, photo story and video to your site

February 9, 2015February 9, 2015

2015 Innovation J-Camp

Innovation J-Camp will be held July 13-17, 2015 in the Center for Innovation in Media at the College of Mass Communication at Middle Tennessee State University.

The workshop will teach high school students to be innovative digital journalists, able to tell stories for multiple platforms including: video, web, mobile and print.

Check out the Innovation J-Camp Daily Schedule (Link Goes here)))