Jessica Maldonado: Multimedia/Web Journalist of the Year
As editor-in-chief of Hagerty Journalism, I try to encourage my staff to engage the readers and give them more than just a story and to do it the very best way they can. After looking through my multimedia elements from the past three years, I can see that they have improved by becoming more interactive, creative and fun. Through experimentation and learning to use different applications to my benefit, I see that my knowledge on multimedia has expanded and I would be honored to be selected as Multimedia/Web Journalist of the Year.
*look below for brief written reflections of each sample
*most multimedia elements will be at the bottom of the each story
Top Left, SCPS vs. JUUL: This was by far my favorite multimedia element to put together and one that I really got out of my comfort zone to make. I am a big fan of timelines and with the rise of the social media platform, Instagram, as a news outlet for many, I thought it would be a good idea to create an IGTV video and linking that to the timeline in Genial.ly. With this I also got to take a dive into videoing and editing while experimenting with Premier Pro to get the video together.
Top Middle, Do something worthwhile: After Thinglink started charging fees to users, we needed to find a new platform that would allow us to add and create interactive elements to photos and that is when we found Genial.ly, which allowed us to better our multimedia elements. With this story and multimedia element I was able to take my time and experiment with the different features Genial.ly offers.
Top Right, Gaming levels up: While this was not my first multimedia coverage piece, it was the one where I put as many multimedia elements as I possibly could to make this event coverage as fun and as easy to read for our audience. I really enjoyed creating this piece and working with my peers and Adobe Spark. This piece inspired me to try to add something else to my stories to engage the readers.
Middle Left, Homecoming 2018: With this piece, I had the privilege of working with one of my new staff reporters to write this story. In hopes of earning a SNO badge and with the length of this story, we saw it fit best as a longform feature with a few pictures, pulled quotes and hyperlinks.
Center, Life sentence 360: At the time, a relatively new social media platform, TikTok, was trending with memes about everything, including Life360. I saw it would be a missed opportunity if I did not add in some clips from TikTok about Life360, for my audience to enjoy and get a good laugh.
Middle Right, There is no “baby” in youngest: Since this story was an editorial, is was not our usual place for a multimedia element that would be interesting and fit with the story. After looking at past multimedia elements I’ve made, I realized that I had never created a quiz. So, I stepped out of my comfort zone again and created a personality quiz to engage the readers.
Bottom Left, Girl gone VSCO: Another multimedia element using the platform Genial.ly, I was able to combine a survey I did, and some key information gathered about each stereotypical VSCO item and consolidate it into one place. While I do feel like I could have added just a little more to make it more interactive, I think it was a good way to add a fun element to a fun story.
Bottom Middle, Butterfly garden for VE class: Anything that adds to the story and gives something else to our readers can be a multimedia element, including a simple photo gallery. While this was created in my first month of being on the newspaper staff, my knowledge on multimedia elements and our goal to engage readers was limited. However, this piece did give me a sense of what a true journalist does, after attending the event, getting interviews, writing and publishing the story all in the same day.
Bottom Right, One year after Parkland: Looking back at this story, I feel that I could have added a better interactive multimedia element. However, since this was a more serious topic that happened a year ago, a timeline recap of what has happened in the past year was a good element to inform the readers quickly and easily without having to lengthen the story and lose the reader.
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