Multimedia/Interactive Checklist
Use this checklist to review your story idea and to decide how best to tell each aspect of your story.
I. Story Idea:
Example: Online privacy regulations are in a constant state of flux. This story will give readers information and tools they need to protect their personal information.
II. What Questions Will Readers Ask?
A. Who knows what about my Facebook and other password-protected accounts such as email?
B. What steps can I take to limit my exposure to intrusive individuals or companies?
C. What current regulations exist and what future proposals have been made to curb misuse of personal data?
D. What rights do I have at work or at school when I’m using employer or university computers or servers?
III. Text
The length of your text feature will vary, depending on how much of your story you are telling using multimedia or interactive elements. Use text to attract, explain & focus the piece, a binding element (thread that ties the various parts together).
Options:
Feature: Text story summarizing all of the above points, linking off to other elements
Vignettes: Profiles of victims of privacy invasion and of inventors who devise ways to data-mine social media
Q&A: Interview of a legal expert on latest technologies used to exploit personal information for gain and law’s ability to keep up
Step-by-step guide or checklist: How to privacy-proof your various online accounts
Quote/Tweet collection: Choice insights on the state of online privacy
IV. Photos
Minimally your stories will feature at least a few photos. A single powerful still image has greater impact than video, audio, graphics or text to draw in audience. Well-written captions add another layer in conveying additional information.
Options:
Images: Information shots: photos of all the characters in the story, photo-illustrations for concepts
Photo slideshows: Screenshots or images of documented cases of privacy invasion
Tagged image: Annotated documents describing identity theft
Panorama
360 image/audio
Before and after
V. Map, Timeline, Infographic, Data Visualization
Maps and timelines are used to illustrate stories in geographical space or time. Often, interactive infographics or data visualizations offer unique ways to explain very complicated concepts in a very compact amount of space.
Options:
Map: An international guide to privacy protection, country by country
Chronology/Timelines: A history of technology and regulations related to privacy
Fast facts box: At a glance data on amount of data being processed and sold for profit
Diagram/Animation: A diagram/animation to show how your data is sold by one company to six others
Chart: Comparison of different email providers, level of privacy, use of “key words”
Word graphics: Wordle-type graphic of most common key words in email
Glossary: Definition of technological terms
Interactive database/tool: What do Google ad cookies think about your preferences and demographics?
Bio box: Short bios on key players
VI. Audio
Audio can function in many ways in your story. You might choose to use audio to make first-person or eyewitness accounts more compelling or to develop story characters with particular voice, accent, and speech patterns. Audio can be used to set a mood or tone, to give a sense of place with natural sound or sound effects. And, clearly, in stories where audio is a central theme, to instruct or illustrate.
Options:
Man on the street, voxpop: “What does Google know about you that no one else does?”
Q&A interviews, roundtables: “Privacy Versus Transparency” expert panel
Audio slideshow: Key story characters discuss privacy
Raw audio clips. 9-11 calls, ATC communication, police/fire scanner chatter, phone messages
VII. Video
Video is good for action, dramatic events, shocking behavior, natural disasters, crimes, setting a scene, and introducing key story subjects.
Options:
Modular, 1-3 vignettes: Clip of data-miner at work on your data
Interactive video: Users input Facebook info and a tailored video details potential abuse
Live, raw, streamed coverage: Congressional hearing on NSA policies
Annotated or animated videos: Pop-up fact-check video with CEOs of companies data-mining customers
VIII. Interactive/User Generated Features
Online quizzes offer unique instructional opportunities to engage users with your content. They can be used to test knowledge and to gather user opinions.
Options:
Polls: Would you close your Facebook account if you learned it was selling your friends’ data?
Quizzes: What do you know about your online rights?
Crowdsourcing information, photos, audio, video, data: Has your privacy been invaded? Tell us how.
Document review: Engage your readers to pour over NSA files
IX. Social media
Live blog/Twitter: Coverage of an online privacy conference, Congressional hearings, legal case
Twitter/Facebook datamining: Visualization of mentions of “privacy” related words
Twitter call: What does privacy in the 21st C mean to you in 140 characters or less?
Social media feeds/aggregator: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram feeds on your topic. Or, a mix of all social networks using a tool like RebelMouse.
X. Primary Sources
These can be particularly useful when you are telling a story that relies on “evidence” that can be embedded or linked from your story. Some of your readers may appreciate seeing the proof first-hand, others may want to dig deeper.
Options:
Company memos: How are credit card companies using your data to determine your creditworthiness?
Legal documents: Recent lawsuits against companies using personal data
Emails: Damning emails detailing datamining of unsuspecting customers
Governmental files or reports, declassified info: Leaked NSA documents
Phone, meeting, event transcripts: Evidence from lawsuits, leaked documents
Bills, receipts, tickets: Evidence from lawsuits, leaked documents
Arrest reports, mug shots: Documents from criminal cases against identity theives
XI. Links
Any important sites, documents, data you use in your piece that are available online should be linked. Likewise, link to any related organizations or resources that readers might find helpful.
