How to Plan the Story In Online Journalism ? In a major online media site such as CNN, planning involves a team of a writer, editor, and technical staff - including a multimedia specialist. Jeff Garrard, executive producer of CNN Interactive, says the planning process begins by listing the stories to be covered on a laminated white board like an oldfashioned blackboard. "It doesn't crash," he quips. Then a writer and associate producer team up. The writer sifts through wires, CNN reports and video feeds. The associate producer tracks down multimedia elements and consults with a multimedia designer. A Web editor then searches the Internet for appropriate links. A writer for a small online news site or even a major online newspaper may have to consider those elements without such a support team. Some questions to consider for planning: Does the background for the story lend itself to links to separate Web pages?
Should background or related elements be presented as a timeline or visually instead of text? Should multimedia elements, such as audio or video, accompany the story? Does the story lend itself to discussion questions or other interactive elements that will involve readers?
What visual elements does the story need: maps, photos, etc.?
Who needs to be involved early in the process: Web editors, designers, multimedia specialists?
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• Gathering Information
Reporting for the Web involves gathering material for brief and in-depth presentation. Even if a site doesn't feature audio and video now, it probably will in the future. Robin Palley, former Web editor for
the online Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, says writing for the Web has to start with reporting for the online site. Palley says print reporters should take tape recorders and computer disks to a news event. They should tape interviews for sound bites and ask if a full text of a speech or a complete list of science fair winners is available in computer form to post on the Web, she says. Reporters also need to gather information to update the story or plan the next step. A follow-up story could be posted on the Web in an hour rather then waiting for the next broadcast or print edition. Every news Web site becomes more like the all-day television or online news sites of CNN Interactive and MSNBC. Competition of online news sites and the need to be current are forcing a return to the days when newspapers were published all day long, Palley says. "I think the time will come when we will need a rewrite desk."
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• Organizing Information
• Nonlinear stories pose enormous organizational challenges.
Should they be written in chunks linked to other Web pages?
Should they be written in one long screen with or without links to internal topics?
Before writers craft the story, they should outline. In online storytelling the word "outline" has been replaced by a more palatable term: story boarding. And this is a crucial step in online writing. A storyboard is a diagram like an organizational chart. Each chunk of the story is a box on the chart, including audio and visual elements. The storyboard is a concept borrowed from film or cartooning where each panel of the cartoon is a box in the diagram showing the sequence. Related Web pages for background and other elements are parts of the storyboard.
Dividing the story into subtopics is another way to envision its parts, even if it will be presented as one complete story. Leah Gentry, editorial director of the online Los Angeles Times, describes the nonlinear storytelling process as deconstructing and reconstructing a story. She suggests: Deconstruct: Divide your story into component pieces. Look for similarities and relationships between the pieces. Group those that are similar. Reconstruct: Then use a storyboard to diagram the relationships between the groupings. It doesn't have to be fancy, Gentry says. "Mostly I scribble on paper. It becomes a blueprint for your site." "Every story has a micro element, the part of the story that must be linear," she
says. "For example, a man walks into a room and is shot. The man must have walked into the room before he can be hit with the bullet, so that sentence is the micro story, a linear part that explains what the story is about. It could be a sentence or paragraph similar to a nut graph or several paragraphs." The macro story is the rest of it -- contextual and related information -- in an order the reader can choose. Gentry say a story also works using a point of view strategy. A story could contain a cast of characters, and the story could be told several times filtered through the eyes of each character.
Not all parts of the story have to be text, Gentry says. Images or multimedia elements can also tell the story. But she warns against using technology for technology's sake. "It must furtherstorytelling." she says. "Anything that doesn't is just noise and it gets in the way of information." A storyboard might look like this:
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