Each month, you can expect a showcase of exciting stories and projects, practical guides, industry insights and inspiration from journalism and adjacent fields.
Plus, we want to hear from you and feature your work. If you’ve created resources that would help other individuals or newsrooms expand their use of immersive technology, reply to this email with your input to future newsletters. Past issues have highlighted innovative climate reporting, tips for improving spatial audio and lessons from experiments with 360 videos, rural reporting and more.
Noteworthy
Democratizing 360 Video. AJ Contrast has been working to reduce the barriers to entry for both creators and audiences of immersive journalism through accessible kits, training manuals and production support. Their efforts to expand 360 video storytelling in particular have reached journalists from South Sudan to Jordan to Brazil.
VR at the BBC. This new guide from BBC’s VR Hub shares valuable insight into their success engaging audiences with VR films across news, comedy, drama and history. Dive into it for the eight elements that make a great VR story and practical advice for both production and exhibition.
Zuckerberg’s bet. “On VR and AR, you’re right. This is taking a bit longer than we thought. And I’m still optimistic,” said Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook’s $2 billion investment into virtual reality. “I think that the long-term vision and the reasons why I thought this — we’re going to be important and big — are unchanged.”
On campus and beyond. Even before arriving at USC Annenberg, Ruby Yuan knew he wanted to focus his studies on the intersection of journalism and technology. As a journalism major, he has explored virtual and augmented realities, as well as 3D modeling and animation classes. He recently represented the university at the 2019 Online News Association Conference (ONA19) in New Orleans, as part of a team showcasing work at the Immersive Storytelling Festival.
For your calendar. If you’re in Los Angeles, journalism and mixed reality professionals for A Journey Through EMERGING TECH for Journalists on Nov. 13. The free event will explore how technologies like VR and AR benefit the traditional ways of creating and consuming news. Featured experts include Journalism 360 ambassador Robert Hernandez.
ICYMI. Explore this roundup of projects featured at the third annual Journalism 360 Immersive Storytelling Festival at ONA19.
Look for the next issue of this newsletter on Dec. 6. We welcome your comments, links and other inputs — send tips to karolle@journalists.org.
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