This TED Talks by Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, demonstrates visually the warped world view presented by US network television, where Anna Nicole Smith and Britney dwarf all international news except Iraq.

The map above represents the seconds dedicated to news stories by country in February 2007, a month when North Korea announced plans to dismantle its nuclear facilities, there was massive flooding in Indonesia and in Paris the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced its study on the impact of human behaviour on global warming. She attributes this absence of international focus to the lack of foreign bureaus, which have been reduced by half. There are no network news bureaus in India, Africa or South America – home to 2 billion people.

“The reality is that covering Britney is cheaper”.

It would be interesting to conduct a survey that explores that numbers of journalists working at networks and newspapers generally. Anecdoctally, there are less journalists who have to produce more stories but we all know that quantity does not mean quality. It takes time and money to produce quality journalism, especially investigative pieces and while, like teachers, most journalists are not there to make lots of money the declining real wages of journalists impacts of the quality of the news that we receive. It is ironic that in this information age, most online, print and television news is recycled from the wire or worse, press releases.

All I can say is “thank god for the ABC“. Australia’s publicly-funded, advertising-free broadcaster has a loyal and sizeable following and takes seriously its mission to inform the nation. Most of my international news comes from the ABC, which unlike commercial, profit-driven networks, maintains a genuine commitment to investigative reporting, accountability and knows the difference between what’s in the public interest and what the public are interested in.

Dean Shareski has created a Design Matters Keynote for the 2007 Flat Classroom Project.
This is a remix of his presentation for the K-12 Online Conference in which Shareski challenges the fact that “creativity and design are often seen as frivolous or at best icing on the cake of learning” and presents reasons why design is an integral part of effective communication. He gives specific techniques on how to improve design when it comes to using multimedia and technology so that projects are of excellent quality.

Having worked as a newspaper sub editor before becoming a teacher, the importance of design is something that I feel passionate about. One of the big ideas we discuss as part of the senior English curriculum is how “meaning is shaped” in different texts, whether they are visual, written or multimedia. Design plays a key role in this shaping of meaning and I’ve written about the importance of visual literacy here and here.

In newspapers, a favourite maxim is that “white space is your friend” and sums up how design should be based on the principles of simplicity in order to make the information you are presenting accessible and engaging to the chosen audience.

Some of the main ideas in the presentation are:
Planning: As Eisenhower said, “plans are nothing, but planning is everything.” Storyboarding and having a clear concept before you begin are important aspects of making an engaging video with a clear message.

Imagery: Dean advises that students should avoid using Google to find images and instead find images on dedicated sites such as flickr.
“When you are publishing to an public audience, simplicity is so important.”

Have a clear, concise message that you are wanting to convey.

Having white space, or negative space enables you to focus on the things that are really important.

Simplicity in communication. If they aren’t adding to your message it’s likely they are taking away from your message. Think about how you are transitioning from big ideas.”

Constraints: Whatever we do we need to ask ourselves “can we make it shorter?”

Originality: “Being original doesn’t mean you can’t borrow ideas as we all do that. Consider one or two features that might make your movie different, not just to stand out but to add to the message. Third, how do you elicit emotions from people, even if you want to inform you want people to feel something about your message. The images, font, audio can all contribute to this. Look at movies and advertisements and ask what do they want me to feel.

Inspired by Dean Shareski’s K-12 presentation, Clay Burrell has also explored the significance of design, in Cutting the Crap (from student iMovies). In this eight-minute video Clay shows how to 1) find content on Creative Commons, 2) use Zamzar to download YouTube and other videos for mashups, and 3) do advanced Ken Burns Effects.

The section on finding images using a Creative Commons search is especially useful as it is important that we reinforce to students that content on the internet is copyrighted and that there are rules that govern how we legally (and ethically) use other people’s content.

Downloadable version http://tcs.cybertipline.com/psa/BulletinBoard_60.mov (Quicktime, 6MB)