So the idea of podcasting still makes your skin crawl. And let's not get started with blogging...

But multimedia storytelling and journalism are forever intertwined.

Acknowledging that fact -- and embracing it -- not only makes for good cocktail conversation. It's a necessary career move for any journalist, Miami Herald managing editor for multimedia Rick Hirsch said yesterday. He and Tom Davidson, general manager of Sun-Sentinel.com, gave a presentation on what journalists need to know about "new" media.

But to ride the multimedia wave, not every journalist has to start packing prosumer cameras (although it wouldn't hurt) and learning Flash. You don't even need to get down with the lingo. You just need to start thinking like a multimedia journalist.

"You don't have to be everything. But you do need to know what multimedia elements can do to make your story stronger," he said.

Hirsch recommends:

For reporters: Add one more element to your thought process. How might this story work on the Web?

For line editors: Think about the multimedia aspects of the story.

And don't forget the key question. "Who is the reader of your Web site? May be different than the reader of your newspaper," he added.

"If you're a journalist today, I think the idea that, 'Oh, that's not for me,' is a death wish. ... Survival depends on you."

So teach yourself. Hirsch did. To learn what it took to edit video, he bought himself a MacBook and a camera and edited some footage. He wanted to figure out how much time it took, how much skill was involved and the quality of product he could expect from self-training.

The same thread that kept running through the entire weekend came up in this session, too: "Reporting is the core of what we do," Hirsch reminded his audience. It's just a different kind of delivery platform that he and Davidson preached.

With technology improving constantly, newspapers' multimedia operations are constantly behind the curve, Hirsch said. And they tend to be slow to move. "We are losing ground while we're sitting here talking about whether we should be doing this or not."

The beauty -- or the bane, depending on which way you look at it, he said -- of the Internet, though, is its trial-and-error nature. Staff blogs, for instance. If they work, great. Keep doing them. If readers don't like them? Can 'em.

"The reader drives," he said. Vroom.

-- Meg Martin, associate editor, Poynter Online

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National Writers Workshop -- Fort Lauderdale Archive

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