Multimedia journalism

Multimedia journalism is a certain way of presenting journalistic material. It is a media product that is dedicated to one topic and combines several formats – photo, video, text, infographics and interactive. There can be different combinations of formats but this material always has a common sense, a purpose, a theme, an idea and a problem. In this sense, multimedia journalism is on a par with television, radio and newspaper journalism.

For the most part, the term “multimedia journalist” is understood to mean someone who can make material for a newspaper, a website, shoot a video clip, and so on. But judging from your interviews, you put a different meaning in multimedia journalism. What is that?

It’s a different way of presenting information, a different way of thinking creatively. Just as a TV presenter is distinguished by his sensitivity to a good frame and movement, just as a radio presenter picks up the “right” sounds and half-tones of interference, just as a “wordsmith” knows the printed word, so a multimedia presenter is distinguished by his ability to combine them.

There are different specializations in multimedia journalism, including one that has become a popular image – the mobile journalist with a multimedia backpack. A person who owns both the word and the picture and the interactive. Yes, there are such people. But this is one of the specialties, it is not the only multimedia journalism.

Contrary to popular opinion, multimedia journalism is not the business of individuals. This is a teamwork, and highly qualified. There are multimedia journalists, there are single-media. And this is normal. There is no need to retrain everyone in the editorial board as “backpackers”.

Then there is the question of competent management – how to coordinate the multitude of various business processes in an editorial office so that media products are cost-effective and interesting to the audience, and the work in an editorial office does not lead to overwork and nervous breakdowns. There are already established schemes and algorithms that can be used to audit the work of editorial offices and decide what changes need to be made. But this is not the task of journalists. It is the task of media managers.