Andrew C. Nelson

iphonereporting:

Typing 140 characters and adding a link or photo is so 2010.

Too many news organizations merely toss web or broadcast content in a tweet.

Here’s an example of content created on mobile for mobile.

Great how-to. I took advantage of this at an ordination at a Catholic church.  

I looked for opportunities when photos could tell the story. I shot three photos: of the candidates entering the church, when they prostrate themselves during the service and lastly, as they greeted family, friends and loved ones after the service. Beginning, middle and endI shot with the Camera+ app, editing them on the fly. I wrote out a script and recorded it using the Soundcloud app sitting in my car in the parking garage, uploaded it and put it out on social media. 

Here’s my first attempt.  Thanks for the tip. 

Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry.The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks.Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river. — Will Durant

My writing during these past 19 years has been all about the events on the banks of civilization. I am pleased I’ve been able to those stories in newspapers. 

UPDATE: A 360 view of the Bow Bar 

A recent pub crawl took me off the well worn Royal Mile to a bunch of friendly Edinburgh pubs. 

I’d visited the tourist-friendly Edinburgh Castle in the past, so there was no need to spend time there. Just a stone’s throw away, however, were a bunch of fun pubs.  

And an unexpected bonus wandering the streets was the unique view of the castle besides the often photographed Princess Street. 

I’m diving in to the Census and the American Community Survey for stories.

I have from the American Community Survey

DP03

SELECTED ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS  

​​

​I’d like to see how these characteristics have changed over time.

I’m thinking the 2000 Census may help. I’ll see where that road leads me. 

 ​

Being in a room of very smart people can lead to navel gazing or be a kick in the butt to learn more. I tend to go for the latter. 

That’s how I felt at January’s Computional Journalism conference at Georgia Tech. (Here’s a Storify of day one, which I attended.)

Here are three ideas that resonated with me : 

.@philmeyer4: Best strategy for market research in journalism is to figure out what audience would want *if they knew about it*. #compj

January 31, 2013

.@motamman: Journalists tend to love the outliers. What happens in the middle doesn’t make for good stories.#compj

January 31, 2013

95% of journalists won’t be paid to be journalists. What skills can we give that 5% that will be paid? -Lemann #compj

January 31, 2013

My #Storify story “Atlanta Press Club: Reporting in a Social Media World “ sfy.co/p3Bm

I took advantage of the new archive feature that Twitter is rolling out to find my first: 

talked with Web guru about using twitter for work

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson) February 18, 2009

Quickly followed by my first RT:

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson) February 18, 2009

@mattjduffy was a friend before Twitter and we remain close.

I considered Twitter early on as a tool for journalism. About a week after my first Tweet, I found a sport columnist at the Atlanta paper who was joining the Catholic church. I tracked him down with its advance search, probably something about Lent. It turned into a story for my faith-based newspaper. 

@markbradleyajcI write for the Atl Catholic weekly. Looking for peeps doing Rite of Election. Is that you? Can we talk?

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson) February 26, 2009

and then a tweet looking for others. 

A writer looking for folks joining the Cath. Ch. at the Rite of Election. Love to hear from you. #Catholic #Atlanta

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson) February 26, 2009

I took some classes from Poynter to learn more about Tweeter uses for journalism. Early in March, I spilt my own account from my work and started my newspaper’s Twitter account: @georgiabulletin. 

For news from the Catholic Atlanta Archdiocese, check twitter.com/georgaibulletin. That’s the place to go for Catholic news.

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson) March 12, 2009

That’s why I need an editor. Hat tip to EA.twitter.com/georgiabulletin

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson) March 12, 2009

About my running:

Half marathon next month. Need to hit the pavement.

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson) February 26, 2009

Novelty of being mobile:

Sent from phone.

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson) February 25, 2009

Biggest month with 191 tweets, June 2012

Thanks for attending my mobile journalism workshop.It went really well. Grt question from folks keen on developing skills. #cmc12

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson) June 21, 2012

Early photo I could recover

http://yfrog.com/7gflbjs. Let sleeping dogs lay.

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson) July 25, 2009

I used Thinglink on my paper’s blog to turn this photo into an interactive graphic.

I embedded audio, along with Web links and other information to engage the reader.

A man who’d been a Catholic priest for nearly 70 years was buried recently. 

I used Storify with photo, video, Tweets and video to tell the story of his funeral. 

You can read it here.

A friend recently died. I was pleased to serve as a pallbearer. One of the privileges of being a writer is able to put into emotions into words and share it on my paper’s blog.  

So, here it is: 

In “As Befits a Man,” Langston Hughes wrote

I don’t mind dying—
But I’d hate to die all alone!

The pew sitters were shoulder to shoulder Saturday. Ushers brought out extra chairs and still people filled the back of the church, two and three people deep. 

Certainly, Yolanda Colin didn’t die alone. 

I was honored to be a pallbearer at her Aug. 25 funeral. I like being a pallbearer. It is the last time I can help a friend. It is one small way I can help deliver them to their final place of rest.

Part of my responsibilities with others was to prepare her casket for the airplane that would fly her remains to her native New Orleans. We tightened the straps around the cardboard box surrounding her ornate casket before the hearse pulled away to the airport.  

I met Yolanda in 2006. I was a newcomer to St. Anthony of Padua Church, Atlanta. It was the annual Men’s Day Celebration. At the conclusion of Mass, the priest called all the men up to the foot of the altar for a blessing. 

At that point, I developed a profound fascination with the floor. Hand to God, I never stared so intently at my shoes and the floor then in those moments. I had just moved from New Hampshire and I can tell you how many times men at my former parishes had been called to the front of the faith community for a blessing. Zero.

And at this point I should say, I am white. Most folks in the parish are not. St. Anthony is home to a vibrant black Catholic community. 

So, to review: Altar calls were not something I did. Ever. I was new. I was conscious that I would be the only white person amongst the two-dozen men. 

Some how Yolanda caught my eye as we shared a pew. With her were her two young boys, who are now teenagers. She nodded that I should go up. I politely tried to brush her off.Thanks, but I’m studying very intently whether I need a new pair of shoes, I hope my actions showed.

She persisted. Certainly, she must have me mistaken for someone else, I thought in my mind. 

But gently, with a whisper to go and a small wave with her hand, she got me out of my pew. I joined the group. 

St. Anthony since that fall day has been my home. 

I treasure that memory of how this woman kindly reached out and made me take a step I never would have taken on my own.

We visited last on Sunday, Aug. 19, as she rested in hospice. I thanked her. We smiled over  the memory. I showed her pictures of my newborn. She told me to plant a kiss on the youngster’s big toe. So said, so done.

Archbishop Oscar Romero, of El Salvador, is said to have paraphrased St. John of the Cross, in his words:  

“In the evening of life you will be judged on love.” 

I hope that as Yolanda moved from this life that her kindness to me was written in big bold letters in the book of life. 

—Andrew Nelson

I worked with our photographer at the Georgia Bulletin to design this custom Google map.

The goal was to use an alternative story-telling  technique by showing landmark’s connected to the “Gone with the Wind” author Margaret Mitchell.  You see, the heir to the estate donated millions of dollars to the Atlanta Catholic Archdiocese and we wanted to showcase one of Atlanta’s most famous residents.

I had seen MSNBC tell a story simply with photos and thought this may be an opportunity to try that approach.

How it came about?

In a planning meeting head of time, I talked about this idea. In my mind, the map could tell the story about her influence in Atlanta. 

The photographer was interested. He and I discussed what would be good landmarks to capture. He busted his butt to capture strong photos. 

We then worked together on the map. He had never created one before, so I gave him a how-to on creating a marker, uploading photos, embedding the photos with the cutlines. Then once it was done, I talked him through how to put the map on the newspaper blog. (www.georgiabulletin.blogspot.com)

The end result was good. But I thought we could have beefed up the cutlines to make the story telling stronger. 

Have you ever told a story with a custom map? What worked? What didn’t work?

View Margaret Mitchell’s Atlanta in a larger map

As engagement becomes the coin of the newspaper/social media realm, the question comes up, when’s the best time to post?

I’ve heard around lunch time, when folks are taking a mental health break at work, or in the evening hours when people are catching up on their online life after hours.

Both sound reasonable to me. Audiences are varied, so what may be best for a small pizza shop may be morning when people start to think about lunch plans would naturally be different for a news organization.

I’ve know two sites claiming they have the secret sauce to boost engagement levels:

1. Crowdbooster

Crowdbooster helps you achieve an effective presence on Twitter and Facebook. We show you analytics that aren’t based on abstract scores but numbers that are connected to your business and your social media strategies: impressions, total reach, engagement, and more. We then give you the tools and recommendations you need to take action and improve each one of these metrics.

2.Timely

What we do is analyze your past 199 tweets and figure out the best time slots. We then use this info to auto-schedule your tweets and learn as your followers grow.

Or if you are DIY kind of person, Mashable wrote a post on how to compile the data on your own to customize it.

I gave a presentation at the Catholic Media Convention on using an iPhone for mobile journalism. I covered what’s needed to to be a journalist on the go, some key apps, examples of different multimedia projects, distribution ideas. I threw in a very funny video to fight “Vertical Video Syndrome.”

MoJo for Catholic Media 2012 on Prezi

Here is some feedback:

Thxs. I hope you got some tips .@connolly_eric: Loving the mobile journalism workshop. Audioboo may be the best thing I’ve learned. #cmc12

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson)

June 21, 2012

aeternusphoto: What a riot! Fight Vertical Video Syndrome! ow.ly/1O4wkF @AndrewC_Nelson Watched it at our news meeting 2day - we howled laughing!

Original Message

Thanks for attending my mobile journalism workshop.It went really well. Grt question from folks keen on developing skills. #cmc12

— Andrew Nelson (@AndrewC_Nelson) June 21, 2012

Storify is a great tool. If you haven’t learned how to use it yet, what are you waiting for?

Here’s a link for the project I posted on my newspaper’s blog.