Writing captions for slideshows

Understanding how to write slideshow stories is still evolving, however people new to slideshow writing usually make a few common mistakes. When a person new to slideshow storytelling gathers information for slideshow story, they usually concentrate on taking photographs and recording interviews. However, they forget to gather details that can connect their audience to the story on a deeper level.

Details can also be added in captions/cutlines. People with newspaper backgrounds usually understand the art of writing a cutline. A cutline is an explanation adjacent to a photograph. A cutline can tell you information such as who is in the photograph or why the photograph was taken. Most photographers likely understand that they must do more than take a photograph, they must gather information that explains that photograph to readers.

Writing for slideshows requires the balancing of textual, visual, and aural information without being redundant. This means you do not want to repeat what is already revealed in the photograph or narration. So let’s say you recorded an interview and captured great moments on a camera, however a common mistake occurs when you forget to gather information about the pictures that you took. When you snap a picture, look at what is in the picture and ask the subject details about an object in the picture. So if they are holding a vase, ask the person when they got that vase, why do they like that vase, or why do they have that vase in their kitchen. These may seem like minute details, but those descriptive elements make the story come to life by providing a clearer picture of the subject you interviewed.

For more information on how to create slideshows, visit my teaching page.

Online journalism jobs

My expertise is in content analysis, and as a researcher, I love to address assumptions and tackle questions plaguing the field. One current controversy is related to what skills we should be teaching our students. There is controversy related to whether we should teach them software such as Dreamweaver or Flash. To address such controversy, I collected six months (January-June) of data from JournalismJobs.com Online Media job postings. I plan to analyze the data this fall.

Based on my observations, a significant portion of the job postings were not from news organizations, but rather from other organizations such as About.com, Grandparents.com, and AARP. If you teach online media, I would encourage your students to peruse these job listings to inform themselves that the other opportunities out there besides working for a traditional news organization because it is not always news organizations that producing great journalism.

Ryan Thornburg, a blogger and academic, has conducted survey research on skills desired by North Carolina newspapers. He found that working under pressure and news judgment were considered the most important skills of young journalists.

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