What are /r/Journalism's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

I'm a big fan of Private Internet Access. It's always been fast, secure, and inexpensive. It seems to be the go-to recommendation over on torrenting and security sub-reddits, too - communities with obvious needs for a good VPN.

When I'm recording interviews for transcription or note-taking purposes, I use one of these. Picks up both halves of the conversation and works with any phone and pretty much any stand-alone voice recorder. The quality is just about what you're hearing on the call itself, though having a proper handset (rather than a flat cellphone face) will probably give you even better results.

If you want to actually use the audio in the final product — and you don't want it to sound like a phone call — you need to have your subject record their end of the conversation locally. NPR actually does this all the time, to the point where they'll send you instructions when they set up the call time.

I've used a handful. They're all about the same. As of late, I've used otter.ai. Pretty much no matter what you use, expect to go back through and clean everything up. Especially if the audio isn't stellar.

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure that you want to give your footage freely to news networks. You should post it to your own website and try and build your brand, but don't rule out that you would be able to collect payment if you have good footage. Don't undervalue what you're doing.

Also, it's possible you're overestimating the ease of doing Internet reporting from a war zone. Connections may be scarce and slow and you might have to deal with the threat of government censorship, depending on where you are of course.

I have a friend that does something similar, though he concentrates more on training people that are already there to do this on their own, and a big part of what he's showing people is how to protect themselves using things like Tor.

> bias vs. biased > > In recent years, we have seen more evidence of the adjectival bias in constructions like “a bias news program” instead of the more usual “a biased news program.” The reason is likely because of aural confusion: the -ed of biased may be filtered out by hearers, which means that bias and biased can sound similar in the context of normal speech. They are not interchangeable, however. The adjective that means “exhibited or characterized by an unreasoned judgment” is biased (“a biased news story”). There is an adjective bias, but it means “diagonal” and is used only of fabrics (“a bias cut across the fabric”).

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bias%5B1%5D

Welcome to journalism in the 21st century. Your publication is clearly short-staffed--like everyone else. It's time to talk to your editor and decide how to manage your workload. At this rate, you'll burn out quickly and there won't be any coverage. On a purely practical level, whenever possible "attend" meetings remotely and use tools like Otter.ai to transcribe them. Good luck.

Here's one that won the Pulitzer Prize and made a significant contribution to the national debate over nuclear weapons:

Hiroshima, by John Hersey https://archive.org/stream/hiroshima035082mbp/hiroshima035082mbp_djvu.txt

A lot of good principles for new reporters is outlined in this book here, Community Journalism by Jock Lauterer https://the-eye.eu/public/concen.org/Nonfiction.Ebooks.JOURNALISM.Pack.Mar.2015-PHC/9780807867754.Univ

On Writing Well by William Zinsser; I read it in highschool and it changed the way I looked at writing. I believe it also put me a head of my peers when I went to university.

Amazing book and a must read for anyone doing non-fiction writing. It was last update in 2006, I belive. Sadly I don't think we will get another update since Zinsser died as of this year.

I don't watch CNN, but apparently it was just confirmed live on air a couple hours ago that this was a recorded interview.

This is according to Vaughn Sterling, CNN's supervising producer. https://twitter.com/vplus/status/890706671588212737

Just reading the number of quotes and the context, it would be hard to capture all of it without a recording device unless he used shorthand--western journalists aren't typically trained in shorthand.

In terms of how, it could be simply placing a recorder to the mic. It could also just be an app on his phone. He's within his right to record the call in the state of New York without notifying the Scaramucci. One app that works well and is free would be ACR, but there are others.

Honestly at this point a 3rd party app that scans written works and searches against similarities through databases (we'll assume the more sensible cheaters are clever enough to substitute the odd word or so, or scramble a complex sentence into two simples even while keeping the bulk of a purloined submission), and just spits out "plague-quotients".

/u/craigerator has an app that is already a program that parses text for analysis, that might be retrofitted to an anti-plagiarism bot.

Think newsletters or publications would be interested, or is Hedges going to be held aghast as "the only guy who plagiarizes in the industry, ergo we must villify him for his amoral transgression"?

Yeah, that's not what Splunk is or how it works.

You feed Splunk log files and it aggregates and visualizes them. It's incredibly useful in IT communities, I use it daily:

https://www.splunk.com/

If this happens to be a problem with Android Pie, this app somehow seems to bypass the restrictions and lets you record anyway. Or do you have another problem?

Okay, I'm going to get this out of the way because it's going to be posted, regardless. Strunk & White's The Elements of Style. It's a must own for anyone with a writing gig. I recommend this because it will make you a better writer, and therefore a better journalist. But this was also the book that introduced me to crisp, clean prose and made me fall in love with writing again. In this way, it was also the book that motivated me to get back into writing.

Ironically, the English degree I obtained before j-school had some adverse effects on my writing. My prose was bloated and often indecisive because that's what much of the writing I'd studied had been. This book put my writing back into alignment and reminded me that the ultimate goal is to communicate clearly. Keep your ego out of it and to an effect, not to impress.

I also came across this video on game journalism. If you can get past the cringy animations, it's pretty comprehensive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VQGIuHesxo

If you mean print magazines...probably not.

The purchase of Newsweek was said to be a huge mistake. The New Yorker, my favorite magazine and one I've subscribed to for years, has never turned a profit, not even when print media was raking in gold piles. Magazines are increasingly relying on freelancers while pulling in smaller numbers of ad pages. So, no, it is not a refuge amid the industry crumble.

That said, I would love to work for Modern Farmer.

I thought this piece was really well done. It's on teenagers who have realized they are sexually attracted to children and have not acted on that. They have very few options for therapy. Very nuanced piece, and the reporting must have been pretty difficult. https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-hurt-anyone-what-do-you-do-now-e11ce4b88bdb?src=longreads

Not sure how your teacher was able to transcribe hour-long interviews in an hour and a half, but you can use oTranscribe. It's a free transcribing tool that lets you pause and play audio, and insert time stamps as you type. I typically just jot down the time of the recording for quotes I'll need later.

Anyone that is serious about protecting their sources and their own digital fingerprint should be looking into TAILS.

The system is installed onto a usb, CD, or SD card. The user can then boot up their computer through the device so that nothing is running off of your computer's hard drive.

TAILS includes Tor Browser Bundle, Pidgin, Iceweasel, and a bunch of other programs designed with security in mind. Since security is the main priority, you are able to encrypt the device, itself, to ensure that no information falls into the wrong hands in the event that you lose it. Being journalists, it's fair to assume that the entities attempting to compromise your sources have an inexhaustible budget and extensive intelligence.

Although I'm not an expert, it seems to me that running Pidgin off of your native operating system would entail a certain amount of risk via third party malware.

Local newspaper. If you can get a job working for a local newspaper, your foots in the door and you’ll definitely gain experience. Becoming a correspondent will for sure take some time, but it’s a worthwhile goal to work toward.

Read books! Personally, I’ve invested in journalism books since I jumped into the field with no degree. I recommend The Journalist's Craft to start out. An old managing editor of mine, who had her Masters in journalism/communications and was working toward a Doctorates, recommended it to me and it’s been a foundation block. Another one I recommend from personal experience reading, Letters to a Young Journalist.

Also, look into memoirs written by correspondents. There’s no better way to learn about a job than from someone who has been in the field.

Just remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Best of luck!

General tips: Stay in the know of what's going on in your town or city. You can't follow everything but keep track of such key characters like Mayor and council and what they're up to. Know your municipality's jurisdiction well enough to get around and check in with things like: hows the university/professional sports teams are doing, crime rates in particular areas, transit. Stuff like that.

Again, you don't need to know everything, just read up, follow along and stay engaged -- it'll all come.

From there branch out and follow state politics as well, but for the most part I'd focus on knowing your own corner and knowing it well.

Maybe check out Steven Pinker's "The Sense of Style," great book to help improve writing.

Try hard to be good on multiple fronts. Try audio and visual journalism, try out podcasting and documentary film making. Take a course in photography and know you're way around a DSLR and how to take good photos with your phone. Pick up a good pair of headphones and earbuds. Pick up a recorder, I like the Zoom, you can find it on Amazon for around 100 bucks.

In terms of writing, keep it super simple. Don't ever try to show off. Be clever, but don't be obnoxious.

And please.. please don't act like you're a god send because you can write. I've met so many journalism students with hyper-inflated egos, acting alpha because some think only they can do what they do.

Just be polite, be stern when you need to and be prepared to accept a lot of criticism. You'll only get better.

Best wishes.

I'm going to go ahead and take the easy answers: On Writing Well and Elements of Style. Both a must for any writer.

I second both Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott) and On Writing Well (William Zinsser). I would also suggest The New New Journalism

Read "The Elements of Style." Find your college newspaper ASAP. Oftentimes, you can also find freelance opportunity at small local newspapers.

I'd comment more, but I'm a bit busy. As someone said, you don't need a portfolio to start off in college; however, it's very good that you're so gung-ho about making on. A head start is always a good idea.

Simple tip this is not, but I found that William Zinsser's "On Writing Well" is a fantastic read. It goes through basics on conciseness and writing factually, but also has specific guidelines on writing nonfiction (travel, humor, business, sports, arts, etc.) Also helpful on how to rid yourself of cliches and clutter.

On Writing Well by William Zinsser.

I was not a Journalism major in college, but when I graduated, my first job was writing about sports for a small town newspaper. On Writing Well was recommended to me by a friend of mine who happened to be working as a journalist with a larger newspaper and the book honestly changed my entire outlook on writing. As an undergraduate, I was used to writing papers that I thought would please my professors by using complicated phrases and scientific jargon, but Zinsser's guide gave me the direction I needed in order to write articles for the common reader and helped me develop me own "flavor" as a writer. Since you are both a writer and an editor of other students' work, I would highly recommend this to you.

Edit: You can tell I am a Zinsser disciple because I've already come back and edited this damn thing twice already!

I don't know where on Reddit I found this, but I saw it somewhere else today: The Ultimate WikiGnome.

I liked it because not only is it about grammar, which I love, but it's about a grammatical error I make all the time and had no idea I was making. So in addition to being a weird piece of trivia couched in a long form story about a person, my writing will be improved by knowing this.

Edit: formatting, fixed link, etc.

I'm not a lawyer, but this sounds like it could be covered by Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist - 1969 which states that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

I believe there some exceptions pertaining to the ability to maintain a safe environment where learning can take place, but I don't think that they apply here. Either way it seems you may have a case.

If the audio itself is easy to work with, then I recommend a browser-based app called Transcribe. What I actually tend to use most for audio playback, though, is Audacity. I use its editing tools to amplify quiet bits, reduce sudden volume spikes, reduce background noise, etc.

You can be a shill without being a paid shill.

Shill

to act as a spokesperson or promoter

the eminent Shakespearean producer…is now shilling for a brokerage house — Andy Rooney

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shill

Found this in the Google Cloud subreddit (technically, you'd want to put it in the G Suite reddit...but that's fine :P).

Two ideas:

First, get EVERYTHING into G Suite. Documents, calendars, all of it. That will be your staging ground for making connections.

Solution one: G Suite Cloud Search - search across all G Suite services, and also have some form of predictive analysis with documents you recently worked on and meetings coming up. Caveat is that it requires a G Suite Business or greater subscription (not Basic), so it costs $10/mo vs. $5/mo, though it also comes with infinite storage space and a few other perks.

https://gsuite.google.com/products/cloud-search/

Option two - use a CRM that pulls from G Suite data and makes connections for you. Prosperworks is a good candidate for this, though it also costs money. It's more for taking email and contacts and making connections for business purposes. Just searching across all the services for terms is more for Cloud Search.

https://www.prosperworks.com/

Actually I happen to be working for some it-publication although I didn't provide any computer science background (those who do are way to expensive for my position, lol) so I got to know programming a little. It's actually quite easy to learn, since the open source world is full of "frameworks" that do most of the coding for you. Look it up (jQuery for starters). It's ridiculously easy compared to the degree of astonishment you can create when you use it properly.

You can use it for interactive charts or slideshows or whatever. give readers a chance to interact with the knowledge you gathered and are now able to spread. Especially with tablet pcs and all that crap, people got used to paw stuff. please them.

Google Drive is a good free alternative to Excel and Access. You won't be able to do as many things with your data, but you'll do most of what you need. You can also try OpenRefine for free. http://openrefine.org

I use otter.ai and this is what it says on its website:

Is my data safe?

Yes, we are committed to keeping your data private and secure. We don’t share your conversations with anybody. We may select segments of raw or partially processed audio and associated transcribed text from multiple recorded conversations from different users to be used as training data to automatically train our proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Only after receiving explicit permission from our users we may manually transcribe certain recorded conversations to further enrich our training data. We sync your data over an encrypted connection, and store it in our secure data center that has both physical and electronic security.

Otter.ai! I have always been wary of any auto-transcription service, but damn they actually work. 600 minutes free each month, or you can pay to get I think 6,000/month. You either record as you go and it automatically transcribes, or you can upload a recording. It's not always 100%, but the beauty I find is that it does it well enough for me to figure out what spot I'm in and then go and edit to what it actually says (you can edit on the page and it'll change it to that). Makes finding good quotes a lot easier.

It takes practice, but train yourself to pick out quotes as the person is talking. You don't have to write everything the person says, just the stuff that will make good quotes.

I typically only record if it's a touchy subject, the source has a reputation of disputing quotes or it's a long feature and I want to really engage with the source. I also often record speakers at events because I'm usually taking photos at the same time they're talking.

For run-of-the-mill stories, though, I've tried to wean myself off recording because of how much time it adds. As long as you get bullet points of what the person is saying plus a couple good quotes, you're usually fine.

I also highly recommend otter.ai for transcribing audio. It's not perfect, but with good quality audio, it's accurate enough to allow you to find the quotes you're looking for and listen to get it exact.

Speaking as a professional journalist who works with anonymous tips and whistleblowers, I would advise you as following.

Send the journalist an email with an anonymous email account on Protonmail, and hide your IP with a VPN (ProtonVPN is free, I think) to cover your traces from law enforcement. Another option is a cheap burner phone and sending a text. Tell her that you have valuable information about the topic she's writing about and give a hint on the specifics, so she knows you're for real. Tell her you are concerned about anonymity. Ask her what would be the best way to communicate and ask her if she promises to protect your anonymity. She will probably ask for your real name, that is standard procedure because the journalist/paper have to know the names of the sources to be able to check if you are a real person.

Journalists use anonymous sources all the time, contrary to what people in this thread say. They just don't always get quoted. If you're just giving documents or facts that can be checked, there's no need to quote you. Or maybe there is, I can't judge that from here. A good reporter will always protect the anonymity of their sources, but make sure she agrees to protecting your anonymity.

And OP, it's a good thing to be a whistleblower. The public deserves to know.

I like to use this ergonomic mouse and this keyboard. It’s helped my carpal tunnel a lot.

Also keeping your laptop at eye height is a good idea for long term stationary use. You could use a stack of books or laptop stand.

Some reading to help answer these questions: The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect

Grammarly is a good tool that will help you write clean copy, but it will also explain what you've done wrong. In addition to this, read The Elements of Style, which attempts to put the rules of writing on the head of a pin.

If you're insecure about the rules of grammar and syntax, watch this video series by one of the top copy editors at The New Yorker.

When editing, I print out the piece and place a ruler below each sentence. Doing this will slow you down and prevent you from skipping over anything important.

You may also want to read the piece out loud or run it through a text to speech software.

Don't do it. Good writing is a lot harder than you think. It's a long grind and unless you're willing to commit, I'd advise against going down that road.

Try this. Find someone without any experience in medicine and try to have a five minute conversation about ovarian cystadenomas. A good journalist can, given time, take any topic and make it worth reading about, no matter what the audience's interests are.

If you are still interested, to improve your writing I suggest you start by reading The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White, On Writing Well by William Zinsser and Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark.

Look up The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. That book teaches clear, concise wording. Fancy words can be acceptable, but if your writing is anything like this post then it needs to be simplified. Get to the point.

Steven King: On Writing.

It has a lot of great information. I had to read it for a Creative Writing class. Even though I'm not the biggest King fan, I enjoyed it.

Syd Field: Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting.

I read this over the summer. It's really easy to read. Very helpful for teaching structure and dialogue.

Strunk and White's Elements of Style is important no matter what field you want to go into. I second the other suggestion of Zinsser's On Writing Well.

http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp - Society of Professional Journalists' suggestion of ethics are a necessary read. While we're on links, I would check out cpj.org for what risks journalists face across the world.

You could read All the President's Men by Woodward and Bernstein if you like investigative journalism. Check out Nellie Bly, she was a hip lady.

Boys on the Bus by Tim Crouse and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson if politics is your fancy.

Thompson is always fun to read, but not the best example of hard reporting. However, if you like the New Journalism school I would read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

I think Ben Bradlee and Jimmy Breslin have autobiographies that would probably be enlightening.

I guess just read everything, that's my plan. Good luck.

1. Columbia Journalism Review is great, but I would definitely suggest sites like Poynter.org, NiemanLab.org and Romenesko.com. I'm so glad you asked this question. If you stay informed about the industry, professors will know you care about it and will be more inclined to help you.
2. Something that is seriously neglected among journalism undergrads is the ability to write clear, concise prose. As an editor, it doesn't bother me when reporters get confused on AP style. But it's a pain in the ass when they write something that doesn't even make sense. The more time I spend in the business the less I'm impressed with flowery, poetic words and the more I'm drawn to clean, action-packed sentences. To gain those skills, read "The Elements of Style" several times over and revisit it annually. Also, Roy Peter Clark's "Fifty Writing Tools" is IMPERATIVE!
3. Don't go into a lot of debt to get a journalism degree. If you don't have scholarship money or parents to help pay for it, ask yourself, "Is there any other field that I can be happy working in?" If the answer is yes, pursue that, and maybe blog or see if you can be a stringer for a small newspaper. I don't at all mean to discourage you, and I think people are too pessimistic about this industry. But the reality is, news writing jobs do not pay well, and high student loan payments will trap you in poverty for a decade.

Easy Voice Recorder Pro for Android. I especially enjoy the Google Drive integration, makes it easy for me to sync all my recordings to all my computers.

Interesting paper https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lauren_Feldman/publication/225734239_Partisan_Differences_in_Opinionated_News_Perceptions_A_Test_of_the_Hostile_Media_Effect/links/56be07e208aee5caccf2ec34.pdf This paper brings up a good point which is there is a whole class of journalism professionals who deal with identifying and cataloging bias, maybe they'd be better peers than inexperienced journalist? I guess I could see making the bar for journalist that do reviews in the network higher or more specific anyway

Have to imagine most of the Patch folks were thinking this after reading Armstrong's memo.

This is a good summary. Just a nit-picky thing but in your last paragraph you wrote

>... but no video evidence to collaborate them.

I think you meant corroborate.

I think the "when" is an interesting ethical question even with the best of intentions.

Stepping away from the Haberman situation, there are still tradeoffs between releasing information as you have it and crafting a longer-form piece that captures as much of the "full story" as can realistically be covered.

Alan Rusbridger (The Guardian) talks a little bit about this in his book, detailing the understandable demand for information surrounding 9/11, which was also around the time that many outlets were really starting to utilize digital media. However, I'd also fast-forward to what we see today re: real-time coverage, and while it can lead to professional and comprehensive beat reporting, it also kind of translates into the "Everything Is Breaking News" B.S., which only serves to drown out the important stuff.

In the other scenario, I can see holding onto information as the reasonable and professional thing to do—especially if it risks incomplete reporting, burning / creating undue risk for sources, or is reflective of that selfish instinct that often prioritizes the first story over the best story.

I don't think there's always a "right" answer, but I do think there are utilitarian answers unique to each story that at least mitigate some of the noise and quality issues mentioned above.

I’ll check out Alex’ book

Most recent global warming book I read was this one (Micgael Shellenberger “Apocalypse Never”)

https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmism-Hurts/dp/B07YCSVVGR/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=1TXZYVI26AL2T&keywords=michael+shellenberger&qid=1662422058&sprefix=michael+shellenberger%2Caps%2C89&sr=8-3

Buffered tissue paper between the pages. And stored in a close-fitting box made of buffered material.

Ideally though, you should ask someone on your copy desk or in prepress about how to access your paper's tearsheets. They're essentially pdf copies of your paper's pages as they're sent to print.

You’re a grumpy person, that must suck.

As for projecting, I’m well aware of my negative traits and I own them. I’m not the grumpy one in this situation, I’m not the one hung up on pedantic issues and thinking my writing skills are better than the editors and writers with the AP (no they’re not without fault), but your issue with this was - meh.

Also, projection is an art! Even found a book on it!

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Projection-Christopher-Eamon/dp/3775723706

You can find stories virtually anywhere there is a human being or interaction between people. Depends on what you want to write about, interest stories are often easiest to find in the most unsuspecting of places. If you're interested, my favorite book that sheds light on journalistic success is by a group of Nieman Foundation members at Harvard University. Still the best book I've ever read to date about the nuances of journalism.

You don't really need an in-built SD card slot...Just get one of those usb card readers at Best Buy (or whatever you have in your area).

I have a whole bunch of those 1TB portable hard drives. This is an example. I bought 1TB because that was what was available when I bought the first one. There are 2TB and 3TB. I am sure there is 5TB and more but I prefer 5 1TB PHDs over 1 5TB PHD. Imagine if you have that 1 5TB PHD and you loose it.

DO NOT DO TOUCH SCREEN LAPTOP.

​

There are those laptop/IPAD things, where you can detach the screen and it becomes a tablet/ipad thing then reattach it to the keyboard part. I never bought one but if that's your thing then go on.

When I bought my first laptop, I wanted to save on space and didn't get a cd/dvd drive. I regret it but now there is USB flash drives and the PHDs mentioned above. I prefer to have portable storage instead of the hard drive on the laptop. So whatever hard drive on the laptop plus a whole thing of PHDs.

Less weight = less features.

My first laptop I bought a softer bag, I regretted it. After that one, I bought a hard case bag.

​

This is me personally but I went to Best Buy and similar stores over doing Amazon. I need to see things in person and a photo is not enough for me.

People like that Sony! I’m sure you’ll be happy with it. I have a Zoom H4N that’s great, but I think it’s overpriced if you’re only using it for notes.

> My school doesn't teach short hand anymore, and I am struggling to keep up with quotes and my notes.

Learn Teeline Shorthand. Anne Dix's <em>Teeline Fast</em> is learning resource. After you get the basics from the book, then it's practice practice practice.

In the middle of Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.

It's got some great content on the history, business, and ethics of modern journalism and really puts some scrutiny on how news is collected, presented, gatekept, and what reporters owe to the communities they serve.

I've found the tone to be pretty even and a little tongue-in-cheek. There's a lot of discussion about how the industry has changed as a result of the Internet and attention from more international audiences. I also like that Rusbridger is often self-critical and sometimes self-effacing—less of a "this is a gold standard of journalism" and more "this is how we tried to adapt to a changing world while still trying to maintain some sense of mission and ethics."

Cool story. I never loved reporter's notebooks, which have a way of signaling I'M A REPORTER. Also hard to put in a pants pocket. For notes in the field I've always preferred something smaller and more discreet, like the mini composition book.

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...

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This is a human-readable summary of (and not a substitute for) the license. Disclaimer.

You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Under the following terms:

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You know what, I am honestly impressed by your answers. I liked them. I am going to read that wordpress.com subdomain sometime today. I'll read a couple or so posts.

Any time I was in charge of hiring...I always asked: WHY SHOULD I/WE HIRE YOU OVER THE OTHER PEOPLE IN THE LOBBY WAITING FOR THEIR INTERVIEW?

or over the other hundreds of applications.

LibreOffice Writer allows you to do everything Word does, so multiple text boxes (and columns within the mainbar), place photos, etc.

It will not look like it was created in InDesign for publication (unless you have a familiarity with typography, things like gutter widths and word-wrap settings, and a lot of time on your hands), but it can get you pretty close.

I''ve got a handheld recorder that I can plug into my laptop and export the recording into otter.ai. The transcription is about 90% accurate with US accents and with other accents is improving all the time.

Hi folks, it's a British guy posted in Moscow as Daily Express's bureau chief. Here's my story about him: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2019/10/23/bullshitting-russia

> Do you actually even know anything about Antifa?

He doesn't. There's like a grand total of 30 black-bloc in-the-streets Antifa in the U.S., they all live in northern California, and every single right-winger is petrified of them. The dude you're talking to seriously thinks they're going to overtake his town like bikers in a bad 1970s exploitation film.

It reminds me of a poll that came out recently showing that about half of all polled Trump voters say they worry that either they or their family members will be killed by MS-13, a gang that makes up less than 1% of all people involved in gang activity in the U.S.

Mechanical Turk is an Amazon-created service where people bid on doing the work for you. Here is a story about the service done by NPR's Planet Money podcast (who also used it for transcriptions).

With android you should be able to use Otter.ai, while on a phone call. It can record as long as you put speaker phone on. Their website says it works..

I usually just put speaker phone on and record the convo with the otter app on my Macbook, but I've never tried the speaker phone/android app at the same time. Its totally worth a download regardless, Otter is awesome. I'm in a region where people have real thick Caribbean accents and it still records, and transcribes interviews well enough to where I can easily search for certain sections I find useful.

This advice for photos is a little off. Just because something is online doesn't mean that you can use it, even if you credit them. A copyright holder doesn't give up their copyright by posting photos online.

It is worth looking into Creative Commons licensed photos instead, where photographers (and musicians and writers and the like) allow people to use their work, as long as they follow the terms of the specific license, without directly contacting them. Creative Commons Attribution licenses are awesome if you're looking to run a blog.

Search for pictures that are under Creative Commons then legally you’ll be alright. CC is a great tool to get quality photos legally. Usually you can just use them but if you do have to attribute the photographer the page should say.

I know News Guard does something like that, they’re a Google Chrome plug-in that rates news sources. They might not have rated South Korea though. If they haven’t you can take a look at their guidelines/ criteria and you might try and verify the South Korean news sources on your own using it.

https://www.newsguardtech.com/

I'm not working in journalism but any time I have to write documents for my production company I'm generally jamming out to some ambient frequencies from mynoise.net. They have soundscapes, nature sounds, and binural beats. You can also combine sounds to create really cool and chill vibes.

I like to use these two:

https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/northernLightsDroneGenerator.php https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/singingBowlsDroneGenerator.php

All of my friends are computer nerds, so it's a little tough for me to judge what a simple enough guide would be. If the stuff below is Greek to you, or you just need more detailed instructions, let me know.

The easiest and safest way to run TOR is via tails. If you can download and burn a DVD and then boot your computer from it, you have enough technical knowledge already.

If your computer doesn't have a DVD drive (they're getting more rare), you can do the same thing with a USB stick. This isn't quite as safe because the USB stick isn't read-only like a DVD-R is, but it's pretty close to as good.

The tails project has a pretty good how-to guide. You should read through the whole thing (especially the warnings page) before you start: https://tails.boum.org/getting_started/index.en.html

It's important to understand what types of threats TOR and Tails are designed to protect you against. I'm not sure Tails covers your exact threat model enough on its own. The link above also has a section about that, but I'll try to post again later with more info. Additionally, the comments you've made in this thread could by themselves have already garnered you extra attention. All of the technology in the world won't save you from poor opsec.

I'll have to save your dark web question for another time.

I read on my phone most times so then it’s easy to share it on social media. I mostly read digital only publications anyway. I use the app Pocket to save articles and usually when I’m at work I’ll pull up the desktop version and read articles there.

Some have in-house data journalists, other news organizations – or for more amibitious projects – contract people to do it. D3.JS (Javascript) is a common framework to use.

I worked in IT a bit, and I studied web development during that time. The company I worked for hired a 19 year old who knew his shit really well. He dropped out of university to be able to work. Another guy left the company after studying on his own, and a few months later grabbed a dev job somewhere else. It's definitely possible to learn on your own. The Odin Project (https://www.theodinproject.com/), and FreeCodeCamp (https://www.freecodecamp.org/) are excellent sources to learn with.

Definitely! It's pretty easy to pick up. I just graduated with a degree in Journalism and one of my professors took it upon herself to incorporate the basics within our curriculum quite recently, so I'm not even sure if it's common for whole classes to be dedicated to it just yet. I do see the skill desired in a lot of entry level jobs though.

Google offers a starter guide as a free PDF. Familiarizing yourself with Google Trends is also a good place to start. Creating a Wordpress blog for writing samples and a corresponding Twitter to use the analytics information within those sites would be helpful too.

I use Skype Autorecorder for Skype interviews (http://skypeautorecorder.codeplex.com/). It works really well, I've been using it for a year. It takes a few minutes for the recording to process after, but the program doesn't tell you this. So don't freak out if after the call ends and it's an hour long call, you check the file and find that it only says 30 minutes. I didn't know this at first so I panicked. I've used it for podcasts too, the audio quality is good.

For editing I've been using Hindenburg (their cheapest option), because you're right about Audacity being terrible for editing - it probably works fine for songs, but for things like interviews that need content editing it can be a real pain.

For 9 out of 10 people who want to focus more on content and less on presentation, WordPress is probably the best option. But if you want to go ultra-cheap, ultra-customizeable and learn skills that will be more broadly useful, a Jekyll blog is the way to go.

Re from OP: I gave Otter.ai a try and ended up buying the full subscription, it was worth every cent. I had an interview that ran over an hour and it helped so much with my ability to get shit done.

It's from Otter.ai she says, "I understand, but I given you this and I'm going to tell you right now if you, if you write anything that is not the truth of what I've given you, then there's going to be a problem. Yeah, and also you didn't tell you that you are recording."

I put my phone on speaker and use my laptop to record, primarily using otter.ai. I also plug in my headphones and use its mic because it picks up audio a lot better than my laptop's built in mic.

When you have a quiet place to do interviews (i.e., working from home), I prefer to put my phone on speaker and record either using the standard recording app on my phone or otter.ai, a recording software that also transcribes. The transcriptions aren't perfect, but if you click on a word it also plays the audio so it's really easy to fix.

You'll see TapeACall a ton in these types of posts, and it can be great if you're calling out, but you can't use it for incoming calls. (The way the app works, you call the app, then call your source and merge the two calls to record. It's too cumbersome for incoming calls IMO)

I used to use TapeACall, which seems to be universally recommended by journalists. I don't know if its origins are safe or not, but I ended up discontinuing that method after I found a better way because TapeACall could be annoying. You have to wait for the connection to go through and I personally found that the quality was greatly diminished so it was hard to hear.

Now I use a regular ole recorder and one of these nifty earpiece microphones that picks up the call. Works absolutely perfect. Crystal clear. Then I pop my recorder into my laptop and upload it to otter.ai.

I used to use oTranscribe, but for the past few months I've used otter.ai. It's amazing. 600 minutes free each month (which I know might be too few for some, but it works for me, and you can pay for more).

I upload my recording when I'm ready and it transcribes the whole thing with time stamps. It's pretty damn accurate if the recording quality is good.Even lackluster quality is still okay, and it saves way more time fixing a few grafs rather than having to transcribe the whole thing by hand.

I use a combination actually. Otter.ai because it’s AI is pretty good and they give you 600 Minutes a month for free https://otter.ai. So they are great in the field and crashing a deadline. Otherwise Trint is super fast and really reasonable. I tried Descript too but Trint worked better for me.

I like QOwnNotes a lot. It's free software, very customizable, you can organise your notes in tree-style directories by subjects, interviews, projects, add tags, links...it has many options. It uses Markdown just as Reddit.

After too many decades in the field, I cannot tell you how many times prior reporting suddenly became relevant again or I wanted to track down a source I had spoken to years before. And for longer features or investigative work, you need to keep things organized and searchable, in my view. So now I am using Evernote, backed up regularly via the export function.

I take typed notes from phone calls and interviews there, scan in paper interview notes, and stash research, web articles etc there. I also create notes dedicated to long running projects or topics which include lists of phone numbers and email addresses. I also forward emails I want to save to Evernote. It's all searchable and sortable by tags. I do not upload to Evernote large PDFs or other big files, which I save typically on a laptop and an external hard drive, but if I take notes on those files, I keep the notes in Evernote.

FWIW, Evernote does not read your notes in general ("Would someone at Evernote ever view my Content? You have control over who sees your Content. We limit the use of your Content to make sure that no one at Evernote can view it unless you expressly give us permission or it’s necessary to comply with our legal obligations." https://evernote.com/privacy/policy )

It depends on the journalist who you hire who may have many different backgrounds in their writing and the research they do. In High School, I started as an editorialist coving issues I cared about and one about how Audry poorly ran the Dr.Seuss estate and work won a MIPPA award way before Illuminations The Lorax came out and did it in Seussian verse. Then began writing essays for Teen Ink and later other publications like Medium.

What is very important in hiring is chemistry which means how well people work together, support each other, and resolve conflicts. Some people are good writers on one subject than another, eagle-eyed people and activists are good editors, writers, and researchers and help guide writers and publishers onto an aspect of a story that no one has heard about that need to be told something platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, and others lack.

Your best bet is to pay people in editorial publications and blogs who deeply care and have good ethics $15-$30 per work because they need it. Never do anything per word because then they feel like you are ripping them off because it's the work as a whole that matters. Imagine if artists and musicians got paid per stroke or note instead of listening to the work as a whole. The trope of the poor writer has some truth to it depending on circumstance; one day I wish to get money for my writing and my podcast about toxic competition in the performing arts and the groups who allow it to happen.

Some Medium writers who are on the Autism spectrum and cover issues and struggles in the community have now become bestselling authors. Sarah Kurchak's book has now surpassed the sales of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and is about how people like her and myself struggle with people who want to hide who we are and how it ends up badly for women whose diagnosis gets unnoticed because of stereotypes and micro-aggressions.

Working journalist here. This book helped me improve my writing more than any other. It teaches you how to spot redundant words and bloated phrases.

You'll be shocked at how much better your prose reads once you've tightened your writing.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1402210515/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_FS417YSWB4MNH83MYB27

https://www.amazon.com/Bloggers-Boot-Camp-Learning-Successful/dp/0415737141/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&amp;keywords=bloggers+boot+camp&amp;qid=1613166628&amp;sr=8-1 I wrote this book to help explain a lot of this. Press releases are the germ of a news story and require context and quotes. You can write a story based on just a press release but there’s rarely any meat.

Adding to the chorus of using Otter. It is a massive timesaver.

The Google Recorder Android app transcribes, which can be handy for in-person interviews but would be difficult to set up for phone interviews.

I'd get a master's in journalism or at least take some courses. At this stage you need contacts and a critical eye. You might have a small gig sewn up but barring that it will be tough to break into the business, especially as many people have been laid off this year and in 2019. I'd also create your own blog with your own reporting as sort of a clips file. https://www.amazon.com/Bloggers-Boot-Camp-Learning-Successful/dp/0240819179 This is the book I wrote on how to do that. If you need a copy let me know but I don't have any hard copies left.

I'm truly sorry to hear it. He was an incredibly courageous and indomitable journalist, offering a view of Middle East politics/foreign policy that was not often favourable among western media news outlets.

My favourite RF quote (from the book 'The Great War For Civilisation') :

>"War is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit."

https://www.amazon.ca/Great-War-Civilisation-Conquest-Middle/dp/1400075173/

I only do this on desktop/laptop. Plug a splitter into your earphone jack, one plug microphone and the other headphone (but I don't use that) since the headphones are connected to the cellphone. Then use a microphone earpiece. Otter will produce a real-time transcript during the interview.

But I also back this up with a voice recorder and a separate microphone earpiece. Recommend doing that. Or just record directly into a voice recorder and then upload the file to otter for transcription.

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This is the carrier I ordered, no plates included

https://www.amazon.com/WarTechGears-Discreet-MED-2XL-Adjustable-Enforcement/dp/B07X75C7W9

I’m looking into stab proof or low level plates that would probably work against rubber bullets. Chain mail maybe? I also got velcro press passes.

Insanely perverse view of Iran. I suggest you read something like this before you comment on this topic further. You clearly know nothing about Iran or the IRGC.

>genuine ideological principles

Yeah but do you know what those principles are? Seems like you don’t. At all. For ex, in the Iran-Iraq war, Iran used its own children to clear mine fields by walking into them in huge groups. They told the kids there they’d reach their virgins in paradise and distributed little plastic keys that they wore in chains around their neck.

Read as much music journalism as you can. Read it in NYT, the LAT, Guardian, WaPo, the Tribune, watch it on ABC, CBS, wherever. Figure out who you like. Read biographies and memoirs and history of music books. Then, write. Write a review of an album. You don't even have to publish it. Just try to write something kind of like your favorite music writers. Find your voice.

And also read about journalism in general. Read some books on newswriting. This is my go-to advice for all aspiring writers.

James Kershner's Elements of News Writing is a great practical guide that touches on basic practices and gives advice on how to write a variety of pieces, which you'll no doubt find useful.

Also, pick up a style guide and stick to it. AP style is pretty much the industry standard. You can get an older version that is much cheaper and still get ahead of the game.

Then read Zinsser's "On Writing Well" and "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White. They'll help you find ways to streamline your writing and cut the fat.

TL;DR write a lot. Read more.

I made some researches, you could ask your source to use a vpn to bypass the Iran sanctions and then to download Signal. I recommand ProtonVPN. You could also use Wire, it has some disadvantages compared to Signal but it's the n°2 concerning privacy and ease of use. It's backdoor-free and open-source. So you have three options : - Open an IRC chat or use Riot that can communicate through IRC (not the safest unless you encrypt messages) - Ask to use a VPN such as ProtonVPN to bypass sanctions and download Signal (the safest) - Use Wire (the simplest for a non tech-savvy)

Remember that the main risk is your source phone, since all the communication is decrypted on both sides. Ask him to set a strong password for acessing the app (Wire and Signal can encrypt contacts and messages directly on the phone). Also, remember that you absolutely need an internet connection to make it work, if you try to send a message like a simple sms it will not be encrypted and will be stored on your service provider's servers, which is the most dangerous situation that can happen.

Keep me informed !

$90 Sony W800 point and shoot.

$450 Sony A6000 DSLR.

National Geographic uses these. Buy one or both for yourself and use them. And then bill the tabloid for a work-related purchase. This reliance on cell phones for everything is only justifiable if it's 1) protecting a source or material and 2) using Apple's tech to instantly transfer gigabytes of info between Apple computers. Otherwise your workplace is being cheap.

This device for years saved my ass. It records killer audio. It holds hours of footage in folders. The USB lets you save to a hard drive. For reporting live, I'll hold my notepad in my left hand, pinning the recorder on top with my left thumb, all while writing and annotating quotes. Someone else said it well - write the timestamp down when you hear something good.