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Open Journalism & the Open Web
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The audio toolkit of the programmer journalist
Hi all. As I mentioned in my introduction, I'm a developer (PHP/Ruby), blogger and digital media explorer and over the last year or so have been heavily involved with the UK-based startup Audioboo (audioboo.fm), who created an iPhone app that allows the user to upload high quality audio files to the web, recorded on the phone. They gained a fair amount of traction when journalists and bloggers (notably the Guardian) started using the app, famously during the G20 protests in London, and have started to make inroads in the States. The app is now available on Android and through the browser.
Last year I built boobase.com (built using the Ruby microframework Sinatra for the geeks amongst you) which takes advantage of the fact that these sund files (or 'boos') can be geotagged to plot them on maps. I'll record a boo abround this topic tonight and you will be able to see and hear any boos tagged 'openjournalism' by going to http://boobase.com/openjournalism.
The iPhone/Android app is free and I consider it a powerful piece of kit for the modern journalist both in terms of recording high-quality web audio and also for plotting data. I hope this opens up a discussion around audio, a medium which seems to be forgotten in our rush to embrace video and the flashier media available to us.
Thoughts?
Thanks for sharing this David! I can see how this would be really helpful if you're doing spot news reporting with multiple reporters and citizen journalists and would like to visualize where their stories are being reported.
Indeed. And if you go to http://boobase.com/openjournalism you'll notice there's a Twitter widget on the right hand side that also tracks the openjournalism hashtag - and I notice someone has created a Twitter list of the course participants. The juice is truly flowing!
This is fantastic. Thinking of ways to play with this now. Well done!
Hi Dave,
I've done some audio production and it sounds like a great tool. I think journalists are still figuring out how to use sound on the web -- there's a sense that it doesn't need to be "radio quality" but I feel like too often people feel that means it doesn't need to meet basic standards for clarity.
Sound is also a weird space, efficiency-wise. It costs more time, effort, and money to produce a audio piece than it does to produce a written piece. But it's not as exciting as video, so is it worth the effort?
The "audio costs more than words" dynamic should drive people to find niches where audio has more value. For one, it's safer to record in dangerous situations than to take notes. Another is where the ambient noise level or characteristics are important (gunfire, night sounds). Look to radio reporters to see how they craft soundscapes.
What do you mean by dangerous situations? If it's a question of identifying yourself as a journalist, then you get into ethical questions about recording without your subjects' knowledge.
Also -- creating sound-rich pieces is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of added time & effort. You can't just record interviews over ambient sound and slap together an NPR-sounding piece. There's a real art to incorporating ambient sound with interviews in situ, managing volume levels, etc. There's certainly value to it! But on the web -- do people listen to those sorts of pieces, if they're produced by nonradio organizations? The vast majority of popular podcasts, for instance, are just popular radio shows, re-packaged.
>What do you mean by dangerous situations?
I did not have anything specific in mind. My intent was more to start a conversation.
Dave,
This is really cool. Just heard your audioboo and look forward to trying it out during this course and thinking about how this can apply to the stuff I'm doing right now.
Mai
Hi Dave, The app seems very cool, where can we download it to use it in android 1.5? I counldn't find it from argentina
Regarding the previous comments about the cost of audio, bear in mind that the Audioboo app and service is free (there is also a pro service that allows things like moderation, batch uploading etc) and that the sound quality is second to none.
In this, as in many other areas, digital media is driving down costs and democractising the production of content.
Chris Amico (one of the presenters in this course) has a great bank of resources called 'Tools for News'. Under the audio category, you'll find more than a few gems: http://toolkit.snd.org/tools/audio/
Mariano - the Android version is being pulled for the moment but you can still record through the browser and call in via phone (see site for details). Would be amazing to hear some audio from Argentina - I'm a great fan of Borges and would love to visit your country some day. One of the Audioboo staff lived in Argentina for some time.
Dave, thanks for answering. I'll wait the android app, and in a while I'll try to use it from the web or the phone browser... Does location works with gps or/and wifi? Talking about Borges, I recommend the reading of The Aleph to everybody, was he talking about the net? Please ping me if you're here.
Looks like we have a new openjournalism audioboo at http://boobase.com/openjournalism!