Since being founded in 1911 as The Green and White, The Post has captivated generations of readers with stories ranging from breaking news reports to inspiring personality profiles.
From reaching thousands of students’ email boxes at 8 a.m. every school day to being viewed by much of the Athens community and surrounding areas, it’s no secret that The Post articles bring many together.
The Post is and has always been a newspaper. Across town, The Post is most known for its written articles. Multimedia content has never been what community members think of first.
Multimedia journalism has been transforming the way stories are told. Over the past decade, the emergence of multimedia storytelling has introduced news consumers to many new ways to consume journalism. From videos to podcasts, journalism certainly isn’t dying. It is expanding.
The Post has taken advantage of multimedia in past years. Last semester, The Post created a series of fest coverage videos, among many other video packages showcasing personalities and places around Athens. Additionally, The Post saw the rise of many new podcast series both last semester and now.
This year starts a new era of multimedia content production at The Post. In the weeks leading up to the start of the semester, the groundwork was laid to allow for a massive expansion in both the quality and quantity of multimedia content.
Our team has grown from just a few people at the end of last semester, to now over 25 multimedia journalists and counting who are looking to build their skills and portfolio by creating videos and podcasts.
For the first time in the history of The Post, an assistant director of multimedia role has been added, filled by journalism sophomore Donovan Hunt.
This role was vital to help meet the demand of requested work we receive and most importantly, to help ensure our staff always have someone available to assist them every step of the way when creating content.
Unlike in past years, the multimedia team is transforming into a true “team” environment. In many cases, journalists rely on others to accurately create and tell a story.
Having a team environment is crucial, and we achieve this by meeting multiple times throughout the week and utilizing each other to complete projects.
Our team kicks off each week at 4 p.m. Sunday, with our weekly brainstorming meeting. These meetings allow our section a chance to come together and pitch new story ideas, in addition to assigning requests we get from other sections.
Additionally, our section holds weekly in-service workshops, allowing our staff another opportunity to come together and build on video editing, filming and podcasting skills.
With so many new members, along with many new students continuing to join, the month of September is being spent getting our new staff familiar with our workflow and procedures.
As the director of multimedia, I want to take the time to make sure our staff feels comfortable with not only our procedures and standards, but also to know they are buying into a program that will help build their personal multimedia skills all while being in a fun team environment.
Although it won’t be until next month when we reach our desired content output, our team has already produced many multimedia stories.
One series we have been hard at work on this semester already is the “Ohio University Basics” series, a set of four videos released weekly highlighting hotspots and amenities around campus.
Moving forward, multimedia will emerge as a large component of The Post. With the addition of so many skilled new multimedia posties, The Post will soon become known for more than just written stories.
Be sure to check out all multimedia content The Post produces under the “multimedia” section of thepostathens.com
