Apps for mobile journalists

By: Hannah Schmidt

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Thompson Foundation

The smartphone has advanced since it first debuted. Now it has greater streaming ability, storage capacity, and photo and video quality.

Journalists now have easier ways to shoot, edit and share content faster than ever and in any situation. As assistant professor Karen Mitchell says, "The best camera you have is the one in your hand."

Here are some of the apps available for mobile journalists to capture and edit audio, photos, and video.

Are we missing one you prefer? Let us know.

Event alert: Crash course in Web design

By Bridgit Bowden

Photo courtesy of Flickr user mararie

In online news, Web design is an important factor in keeping readers engaged with content. Poynter says it only takes 50 milliseconds for users to "form strong, long-lasting impressions about your news or information website."

So no matter whether you write a blog or are putting together an online portfolio, what layout, colors and fonts you choose are crucial.

Not sure where to start? Join ONA Mizzou as Rob Weir, director of digital development for the Columbia Missourian, leads a crash course on the fundamentals of Web design. You'll walk away understanding the proper design workflow and what makes a site user-friendly.

• When: 6 p.m., Thursday, March 6

• Where: Palmer Room (100 Reynolds Journalism Institute)

Bring a laptop to follow along with the workshop. See you there!

NBC goes all in for online coverage at Sochi

By Cole Kennedy

Screen shot of the NBC Olympics website Feb. 7

This past Friday, at 10 a.m. CST, the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics kicked off in Sochi, Russia. NBC won't broadcast the show until primetime in the U.S., as the network has done for every Olympics in far flung timezones.

But with the advent of social media, the audience is no longer unaware of the events as they happen. NBC had been hesitant to live stream many events in the past. The network had concerns the stream would cut into primetime ratings. However, the online audience made very vocal complaints about the tape-delay strategy, according to an article on Mashable.

A breakdown of online mapping tools for journalists

By Andrew Gibson and Elise Schmelzer

Creative Commons photo courtesy of zabdiel

Journalism professor David Herzog led a workshop Thursday explaining how to build interactive maps with Google Fusion Tables. During his presentation, he mentioned several online cartography tools journalists might find useful.

We've outlined many of those tools below. They're broken into three categories: beginner, intermediate and advanced.

For each, we've listed pros, cons, examples and whether it's free.

Are we missing anything? Tell us in the comments.

Workshop alert: How to build an interactive map in 60 minutes

By Elise Schmelzer and Andrew Gibson

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Tomi Knuutila

Maybe you want to track all the cool places you've been. Perhaps you want to create an in-depth map that shows today's domestic migration routes, like Forbes did. Or maybe you want to collect and share the best sledding hills in town, like ABC 7 in Detroit.

Whatever your goals may be, having the ability to tap into all the geographic information online is invaluable both inside and outside the newsroom.

Join the Online News Association at Mizzou as journalism professor David Herzog leads a one hour workshop on how to build clickable, customizable maps with Google Fusion Tables. Herzog, also the academic adviser to the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, will highlight his favorite examples of mapping in journalism and briefly introduce other online cartography tools.

• When: 5 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 30
• Where: Microsoft Application Development Lab (42 Walter Williams Hall)