News You Can Use
Embed interactive technologies to go beyond traditional newsroom practices
Top five interactive digital tools that will give an edge to any news story
News stories are no longer ruled by text-heavy pages and twodimensional imagery. With mobile sources becoming a major source of traffic for news websites, tech honchos are redefining the way stories are told online as well as offline; think interactive news apps or tools to watch videos corresponding to newspaper stories at the click of a button. New age journalists can in fact use a number of tools to write quick, informative and compelling stories.
VIDEOLICIOUS
Some of the best digital tools simplify tasks that earlier required specialised or technical skills. Videolicious, a free mobile application, helps journalists edit and share videos quickly on the move through their mobile phones. One can record a small video byte, choose existing videos, add titles and credits and publish it within minutes. Platforms iOS, Android
Paid or free Free Difficulty Medium
Where to learn Follow tutorial on app
STORYMAP.JS
Built by Northwestern University’s Knight Lab, StoryMap.js is an open source storytelling tool that highlights stories as a series of events. It is most potent when used for stories that take place across locations. Journalists can simply fill in the location where the event took place, add a headline, body text and media files. The story flows as the subject moves from one location to another. The built-in gigapixel format allows exploration across large images. Platforms Web (storymap.knightlab.com)
Paid or free Free Difficulty Medium
Where to learn Follow tutorial on www.newsu.org/courses/digital-tool-timelinejs-soundcitejs-storymap
CANVA
Tweets that have graphics and images get a 35 per cent boost in engagement as compared to use of any other feature. But it can be tough to always have a photographer or designer near. Canva is a design tool that simplifies the process of creating graphics. With free layouts and in-built design tools, it can help journalists create anything from simple to complex graphics, change background images, text styles and colour. The publishing tool also allows users to export their media files in a number of formats. Platforms iPad, Web (www.canva.com)
Paid or free Free with in-app payment for certain images or features
Difficulty Easy
Where to learn Canva offers free tutorials on signing up that take less than 15 minutes to complete
STORIFY
Storify is a powerful tool for curating content from social media platforms. News websites have increasingly been using this tool to capture reactions and highlight interesting discussions taking place across social networks. Recently, it has found use in journalism schools where educators are using it to create multimedia course content, organise handouts and teach students how to curate information from social media. The tool is a one-stop web publishing shop for even the most technophobic educator. A user can directly publish his stories on numerous platforms or embed it on his website or blog. Platforms Web (storify.com)
Paid or free Free Difficulty Medium
Where to learn Follow the simple guide on tomsguide.com and you can figure out the entire platform in less than 30 minutes
DATAWRAPPER
Datawrapper is an open source tool for creating charts and other data visualisations without any prior knowledge of coding. Created by data journalists for data journalists, a user can upload his data as CSV (comma-separated values) file or paste it on the website’s dashboard and visualise it in different forms such as histogram, pie chart, line chart. Data Wrapper has recently introduced maps in its feature where one can easily make choropleth and system maps from the data with geographical locations. Platforms Web (www.datawrapper.de)
Paid or free Free with option for premium subscription Difficulty Advanced
Where to learn Follow the tutorial on their website