Drone Storytelling: How to get started

This month we delved into drone storytelling for our Innovation in Focus project. Here are five tips to help you get started if you’re new to drones!  1. Your first drone should be one you can crash — a lot Buy a cheap drone for practice so you can crash it without putting a dent in your finances. … Continued

Augmented reality: How to make it easy, affordable and fun

For newsroom leaders already struggling to produce and monetize daily content, I understand how augmented reality tools might seem out of their reach. Though tools from Google, Amazon and Apple can be daunting with their requirement of coding knowledge, there are tools that make it easy for those of us with small budgets, little to … Continued

Fact-checking: What’s true and false? Columbia weighs in

We interviewed residents in Columbia, Missouri, to see which claims they felt were true or false before we showed them the results of our fact-checking. Does the public feel that fact-checking websites are useful? Watch and see. And explore our fact-checker files in GitHub.  In our expert segment, we speak with Angie Holan, editor of PolitiFact, about her work and advice … Continued

Ergonomics: What I’ve learned while battling a repetitive motion injury

Imagine coming to work and not being able to type a story on your keyboard because of intense pain in your wrist, elbow or fingers. It’s a scary thought. I never thought it could happen to me. I’m only 33 years old. But I’ve been suffering from tendonitis for several months. More than a year ago I began having pain in my left wrist periodically. But it usually came and disappeared within the same day. Then suddenly it became more noticeable, and gradually it became a constant companion. I love to write, but I almost dreaded coming to work because I didn’t want to be in pain. Like everyone I use my hands continually throughout the day, so it’s been a slow recovery process.

An ergonomic specialist reviewed my workstation and gave me suggestions for furniture that would help me become more ergonomic. She also suggested various assistive technology such as dictation to help alleviate some of the pain and give my wrist the rest it needed to recover.

—JN

Mobile video: Make it snackable

Alisha Ebrahimji, digital journalist at WFAA-TV in Dallas, speaks about creating unique content in the field for social platforms and what mobile tools are useful when working on deadline.

Announcing a new video series for journalists

Every newsroom is facing the ever-increasing challenge of engaging readers within a digital format. Though great journalism will always be vital, how it is presented as technology progresses has already begun to evolve. As newsrooms experiment we’re seeing everything from amazing testimonial video projects to interactive presentations that include photo, video, games and the written story — all in one online package. In … Continued