Soundslides

Joe Weiss, the creator of Soundslides, wanted to develop a tool to help journalists "quickly and artfully" build audio slideshows. Makes sense to me: That's what I think of when I think of online journalism -- speed and creativity.

"There's a deliberateness in the editing [of still images], there's a deliberateness in the visuals." I like that Weiss pointed this out. An unedited video caputures everything that happend, simple as that; there is much more editorial involvement when a slideshow is created. The "storyteller," as Weiss calls journalists (he is talking particularly about mulitmedia journalists, it seems) has to choose which 10, 15 or 20 stills he can use in his show -- and which ones he has to leave out. Deciding what to include and what to omit gives journalists who use still slideshows much more control over not only what is being presented as news, but how it's being presented. Creative control is impossible in the cut-and-dry world of print news, and is more difficult with video.

"There haven't been a whole lot of ... hard news stories done in audio slideshows." I read this right after I wrote the paragraph above.

"The most important thing is not your photojournalism. The most important thing is not your audio journalism. The most important thing, overall, above anything else, amen, to the end of it, is the story and how well you communicate that to the human being who's on the other side of that computer." I think Weiss made a lot of good points in the "pitfalls" section of the interview. Most audio slideshows online are too long. Every picture should be meaningful; every picture should add something to the story. More pictures doesn't make a better piece -- good pictures do.
I also liked his discussion of transitions, and how photojournalists aren't trained in taking "transition" photos to show story progression. Having the perfect picture to backup your audio is crucial to a good audio slideshow, but it was comforting to know that Weiss believes quality narration can also backup your pictures; journalist can link the pictures with his words if there is no discernable link visually.

I'm excited about working with audio slideshows. Sometimes, when I'm writing the news, I feel like a parrot simply spitting back the sights and source quotes from news events. Weak analogy, but you get the idea. Anyway, I'm excited to try out this new medium and my abilities as a news storyteller.