Cell Phone Journalism-David Stephenson (University of Kentucky)

Walking into the session I was hesitant because I think social media and journalism can sometimes be a really bad combination. Things could be easily misunderstood and people could take things differently than they should be interpreted.

He began by showing clips filmed entirely on the iPhone, you could barely tell the difference. Even the audio was recorded by the iPhone-definitely not impossible depending on how you use it. “Just working with a smaller camera.”

Cell phones are pretty remarkable tools. Clean the photos up afterwards because it’s the content that matters. Cell phones make you more invisible, no one shies away from a cell phone. It offers reporters an advantage of blending in, of course sometimes you want to dress as the photographer but other times you don’t because cameras change things.

Several extremely famous photographs were taken on cell phones at the Empire State Building shooting, Libya, on the campaign trail, Dan Chungs Olympics, etc.

Instagram has very positive sharing possibilities. Just like another social media site.

Quick tips:
–It’s all about the light: makes good pictures, great pictures.
–Never use the mobile zoom, take the picture and crop it later.
–Learn how to lock exposure and focus: Photos will improve 100%
–Silence your inner critic
–Edit, edit, edit: Restrain from taking a picture of everything, only post the best.
–Technical proficiency is overrated.
–Filters don’t replace a good eye.
–Shoot from the hip for better candids: Hold phone waist level and tilt away.
–Give yourself assignments & deadlines: Top 20 images of one thing from different angles.
–You have to know what you want to see before you see it.
–Study other photographers.
–Always be ready. The best camera is the one you have with you.

Equipment Audio: Can hook up mini jacks, microphones, etc to your iPhone. Some of it is relatively cheap.

Equipment Stability: Tripod, gorilla pods. You have to keep the camera steady-separated the amateurs from the pros.

Equipment Lenses: See what you can afford, look at reviews. You can zoom with your feet.

Apps:
Bambuser- good for breaking news, provides live streaming video.
Ustream
CoverItLive- live blogging app, allows you to post text, pictures and more. Short updates on the iPhone but one way of using it is to write text.
TweetBot- for twitter-using journalists
Hipstamtic & Instagram
ProCamera-645 pro, filter storm, DMD, EYE-FI.
*Don’t not get an app because you don’t want to pay for it.

As a Northerner staff, we do not have an Instagram. I think it would seriously improve our social media following and will allow us to use it for breaking news. What do you think? Let me know, cliffords1@nku.edu

Post by: Brook Clifford, Staff Writer.