Guest post: BU students cover Boston Marathon

Some 60 students from Boston University’s College of Communication covered the Boston Marathon today using a variety of new media techniques–twitter, soundslides, qik, utterli, blogs, friendfeed, flickr.

They are part of the Multimedia reporting classes offered at BU. Here is the format for the live feeds
http://beta.friendfeed.com/bostonmarathonbu

And below are links to some of the better reports from the students who reported on the Boston Marathon. Their coverage was carried by CNN, WBZ, NECN, WBZ and WCVB and the Boston Channel. It was a great opportunity to try different technologies for reporting as “citizen journalists” and “backpack” reporters The lessons learned I would say are that news is perishable, stories and quality count, and that internet access can be challenging. Students who produced good stories, or captured good pictures or interviews and were able to deliver them in a timely fashion were very successful in getting on major news outlets. Those who had good stories but delivered them too late or didnt have captivating coverage, even though, delivered in a timely fashion ,didn’t fare as well. These stories below show the variety of reporting techniques and great efforts by the students

http://2009beantownmarathon.blogspot.com/2009/04/family-gives-free-food-and-supplies-to.html

http://jo540.bu.edu/chind/Boston%20Marathon/

http://husnahaq.blogspot.com/2009/04/blog-post.html

http://cristinascommentary.blogspot.com/2009/04/marathon-monday-heartbreak-hillbc-area.html

http://connorgleason.blogspot.com/2009/04/boston-marathon-from-coolidge-corner.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67664667@N00/sets/72157617005646741/

http://measatree.blogspot.com/2009/04/marathon-monday-bbq-at-stmarys-and.html

http://beta.friendfeed.com/bostonmarathonbu

Any questions, let me know, thanks Sasha Norkin

sashanorkin@gmail.comcause
781 367 5654