Penn State College of Communications comMedia

Storytellers have better tools now. And to keep newspapers healthy, we need to learn how to use them, Mellon said.

Mellon worked for the Pittsburgh Press in its heyday, when the paper was setting the standard for multi-page picture stories and dominating the annual National Press Photographers Association contest. Steve was an integral part of that team. The reason he wasn't photographer of the year was because he lost to a co-worker, Randy Olson. After the Press closed, Mellon took a brief hiatus to photograph and write a book, and to work as a commercial photographer, before returning to newspapers as a photojournalist for the Post-Gazette. In the last two years he has become a pioneer in multimedia reporting.

In mid-July, Mellon was speaking at the inaugural Keystone Multimedia Workshop, a hands-on educational event organized by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and Penn State's College of Communications. The participants had been working full bore for more than 12 hours that day, but Mellon had their complete attention.

The audience included a cross section of Pennsylvania journalists, half professionals and half students. Experience levels ranged from a veteran Philadelphia Daily News staff photographer to a Pittsburgh freelancer trying to expand her reporting repertoire. The students (and a college professor, too) came from four different institutions and a variety of experience levels.

All the participants were there because they are on the front lines of an evolving news industry that's placing increasing value on journalists with multiple reporting skills.

The five faculty members have more than a combined century of newspaper experience. They also share a surprisingly consistent vision of the possibilities multimedia brings to modern reporting.

 Their message: Newspapers know more about their communities than any other news organizations. The print product has strengths in portability and the display of images and typography that are competitive with the Web. Multimedia reporting allows reporters to literally give the subjects of their stories an online voice in a way that can't be duplicated in print.

Simple story-telling technique matched to the right narrative can have stunning impact. Faculty member Seth Gitner, of the Roanoke Times, shared a video that included a series of time-lapse photos showing small flames of hope spreading across a hillside during a candle-lighting ceremony in the aftermath of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Will Yurman, of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, brought a year-long multimedia project in which he profiled all of Rochester's 2007 murder victims in a series of audio slideshows, one of which included the harrowing voice of a mother describing how she learned of the death of her son. Mellon showed a video in which he shared the sad experience of several women watching the demolition of a Pittsburgh hospital where they worked for many years. He also elicited peals of laughter with a video he produced with his 9-year-old daughter Chloe, documenting the Mellon family's visit to the Great Wall of China.

Faculty presentations were just part of the workshop. Armed with audio recorders, still cameras and video camcorders, the participants fanned out across Gettysburg during Bike Week, an event that attracted more than 20,000 motorcycle enthusiasts. The faculty provided one-on-one coaching for five students each. They stressed the importance of producing tightly edited, audio-driven stories and the workshop participants delivered - producing 44 multimedia reports in three days. The subject matter ranged from biker pickup lines to a Gettysburg woman's struggle to deal with the suicide of her spouse.

The day's work was shown each night in an open critique. Most of the participants chose to produce quick turnaround, high quality daily stories - the kind of work newspaper Web sites thirst for. Some chose to do multi-day projects, learning how to produce tight stories with impact and shelf life.

The group had plenty of fun, too. Adopting a suggestion from Gitner, workshop organizer John Beale, a senior lecturer at Penn State, shepherded faculty and participants to contribute to a group video in which bikers were asked to use their voices to duplicate the noise their motorcycle makes. The resulting team project was posted to YouTube, Facebook and ComMedia (view below).

And Mellon provided one last lesson as he demonstrated how to make a panoramic picture by assembling everyone for a group photo before the workshop adjourned.

Story index by photographer

Doug Bauman, student, Penn State University

Janet B. Campbell, staff photographer, Erie Times-News

William Colsher, student, Penn State University

Rob Englehardt, staff photographer, Erie Times-News

Robert Esquivel, staff photographer, Uniontown Herald Standard

Steve Falk, staff photographer, Philadelphia Daily News

Ashlyn Holsinger, Penn State University, graduated Spring 2008

Bill Kalina, staff photographer, York Dispatch

Shannon Keough, student, Cabrini College

Lauren Little, staff photographer, Reading Eagle

Sonya Miller, graduate student, Penn State University

Jessica Nambudiri, student, Penn State University

Jillian Smith, student, Cabrini College

Matt Stanley, staff photographer, Burlington County (NJ) Times

Melissa Tkach, multimedia producer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Other participants

Deepak Adhikari, Alfred Friendly Fellow, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Cosmas Akuta, faculty, Cheney University

Sam Siringi, Alfred Friendly Fellow, Kansas City Star

The video

This video was a group project inspired by workshop director John Beale. Workshop participants and faculty joined forces to ask motorcycle enthusiasts to use their voices to reproduce the noise their bike makes.

-- Curt Chandler is a senior lecturer in the College of Communications at Penn State. He has a degree in newspaper writing, but spent most of his 28-year professional career working as a photojournalist and picture editor. In 2000 he became the Editor for Online Innovation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He joined the faculty at Penn State in 2007 and was a coach at the Keystone Multimedia Workshop.