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All-platform Journalism Consultant

With more and more layoffs in newsrooms across America, learning and perfecting multi-platform journalism is important if you want to survive.  But, how do you start in this new world of multimedia.

The ability to shoot video (that’s actually airable) write a script for television and web, and fronting the story can be done–if you manage your time wisely and know a few tips and tricks to pull it off.

I’m a veteran “one-man-band” with 11-years in the commercial television industry.  I can provide you or your company with advice to becoming an all-platform station.

What will you learn?

• What equipment is necessary,
• Using (FTP) or File Transfer Protocol
• Wireless-broadband internet
• HD cameras
• How to use audio
• Compression for the web
• Live streaming (using PNG-RT).

If you’re interested in bringing your company’s website or television station into the new age of online, streaming, and HD media, then contact me.

Portable News Gathering In A Bag

By now you have heard about tv stations and newspapers with websites–using streaming technology to bring events in real-time to their homepages.  I just completed a video showing how PNG-RT or (Portable News Gathering Real Time) is going to change the way it’s done.

In the video demonstration, I show a real-life approach to using the streaming software.  You just received a call from your assignment desk, and they have breaking news downtown.  Live pictures are requested by tv  and web producers.  In under 5-minutes, you can plug in a firewire capable camera into a PC (and soon to be released MAC) laptop, log onto the net, then launch PNG-RT and hit the Live Stream button.  You’re on the air!

Log onto their website now, for a 21-day free trial.  Believe me it’s worth it.

Take a look at www.png.me for a real-world example of how this amazing and easy-to-use streaming technology can benefit:

• Television Stations
• Online Newspapers
• Churches
• Schools/Colleges
• Organizations

Jim using PNG-RT

Coming To You Via Broadband Wireless

Get used to hearing that in local and National news coverage.  The days of traditional news coverage will be completely different in the next 5-10 years and the web is where it’s heading.

A company has emerged with a product called, “PNG-RT“.  The software allows a reporter in the field to easily hook up a camera, launch the software and then go live via broadband; in a matter of minutes.  On the web, or on television, this is the way tv-stations will cover general assignment news.

For far less than a satellite truck, time, and equipment, PNG-RT or (Portable News Gathering Real Time) will be used to bring live coverage to an event–even making it easy to record and transmit video back to an FTP-server.

You may have seen people and shows like “Oprah” using Skyp

Image via CrunchBase

e for interviews from viewers homes, but that sort of simple technology will be used by the folks who bring you the news from the field.

To read more about the product, and see it in action: log onto www.png.me and watch how this company will be a common newsroom name in a few years.

Source: png.me

Swine Flu Threat Making Hand-Sanitizer Stock Rise

But stores are just trying to keep the sanitzer stocked. I was browsing at a couple retail chains and noticed all the hand-sanitizer was gone. Shelves empty, none of the water-less cleaner to be found.

It got me thinking about the power of the news. When CNN says there’s a Swine-flu pandemic; people rush out to buy protection. But, has everyone gone a little a little crazy?

There have been countless studies that show persistant use of anti-bacterial can actually do more harm than good. The problem is while you think your killing germs, you’re actually making that virus stronger. So much in some cases, that you could be helping to create super bugs; resistant to your hand sanitizer. Then what?

For goodness sales, it’s flu season people and the swine flu is no different than the flu you’ve probably caught some point on your life.

So, relax! Flu season is over in June and this whole craziness will just be another crazy story to tell the future generations.

From Inside Looking Out

For months, I’ve reported on good, hard-working folks in South Florida, struggling to find meaning again after being laid off or fired.  Stories of people looking for  glimmers of hope, when everything seems to be crashing in on them.  Folks who loved their jobs, but for whatever reason–lost them.

Now, I’ve been given an opportunity for some perspective.  I had no idea it was coming to my life.  A special assignment by God, to walk in the shoes of someone unemployed.  Those size 9 1/2′s are mine.

Like thousands in South Florida, I wake up at 6am everyday, and start the search for my next paycheck.  I’ve been a journalist for 11-years and have never in those years, been out of work.  This truely is an experience.  From checking the latest postings on career websites, to sending off dozens of emails a day to perspective employers.  I then make phone calls to contacts, hoping they’ll give me the inside scoop on a position.

I spend a lot of time home, but this new life in between is anything like a vacation–it’s a full-time job looking for a full-time job.  The phone rings only a few times a day, and each time it does I think, “Could this be it”?  Usually, it’s a good friend calling to “check on me”.  I am blessed when it comes to true friends.

It’s been two weeks now since I received my blessing in disguise, but I know it’s going to be just that.  To be continued.

J

Amazing 40,000 Year Find

Florent Herry, Bernard Buigues, Daniel Fisher, Yuri Khudi, and Kirill Seretetto during microsurgery on Lyuba, a baby mammoth discovered on the bank of a remote Siberian river in May 2007.

SIBERIA – There was an amazing find in the frozen tundra known as Siberia.  National Geographic will air a segment about the find of a baby mammoth, believed to have died at just a month old.  It was preserved in the snow and ice for 40-millenia.  What will scientists discover about our history through this find?  Here’s a quick clip from www.nationalgeographic.com

Only a handful have ever been found before. But none like her. Her name is Lyuba. A one-month-old baby mammoth, she walked the tundra about 40,000 years ago and then died mysteriously. Discovered by a reindeer herder, she miraculously re-appeared on a riverbank in northwestern Siberia in 2007. She is the most perfectly preserved woolly mammoth ever discovered. And she has mesmerized the scientific world with her arrival – creating headlines across the globe. Everyone wants to know… how did she die? What can she tell us about life during the ice age and the Earth’s changing climate? Will scientists be able to extract her DNA, and what secrets will it uncover?

On NBC’s Today Show, there was talk about cloning this giant animal.  The scientist on the show said, yes they have more than they need to accomplish that.  However, there are more important things now that can and are being done with this animal.

It’s a window into our past, way into our past, to learn more about the climate of that time and perhaps what we could expect in the future.

Read more, and see video clips at www.nationalgeographic.com

Vet Visits Down

JimRobinson/CBS

As an animal lover, it is really sad to hear that many South Floridians cannot afford to take their pets for annual exams with a Veterinarian.

I spoke with a good friend of mine who says appointments are way down at their Animal Hospital.  Many folks have either rescheduled or canceled appointments until they have the money.

Veterinarians say putting off annual check-ups can be quite dangerous.  Many diseases like heartworm, and cancer, can be caught early.

There are resources out there for petowners.  Here are a few.

• Healthy Pet
• Broward Humane Society – Dog health
• Broward Humane Society – Cat health
• Find a Vet

Laughter Is The Best Medicine!

“Lotsy Dotsy, C.J. and Dawn George.

C.J. Playing A News Reporter

After spending some time with a nine year old by the name of C.J. George at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood I find myself wondering how someone so young can be so brave and positive.  At such a young age he’s already a writer, a poet, and a cancer patient. C.J. has acute lymphoblastic lymphoma, a very rare and aggressive cancer that originates in the lymph nodes

C.J.’s Mom, Dawn, tells me he had severe pain in his back that wouldn’t go away.  She took C.J. in for a series of blood tests, and X-Rays, but everything was coming up negative.  A scheduled MRI found tumors that had taken over his body.  She says, “It had spread through his abdomen, kidneys, diaphragm area, and wrapped around his spine and pelvis

Scared and unsure about the future, they began chemotherapy.  C.J. spends three days a week at therapy and the treatment will last two years. It’s not easy for this fourth grader.  Mom says, “Day in and day out, constantly having procedures done and being poked and prodded and and examined”.  There is, however, one thing that brings happiness to this little boy and his mother.

That happiness comes from a wonderful person who gets up every morning, and puts red makeup on her nose and cheeks.  Her name is Lotsy Dotsy, and she’s the on-staff clown at Memorial Regional.  Her job is to help kids at Joe DiMaggio’sChilrenHospital laugh, and forget about their pain, treatments and fears. Lotsy is ready to work, especially during the upcoming holidays when children are sad that they’re not home.   She says, “a lot of people ask how could you work on Christmas?  I say how can you not work on Christmas when you have these kids and their families.  Believe it or not they make your Christmas”.

There is an amazing connection between C.J. and Linda “Lotsy Dotsy” Herbert.  While the camera rolled on this passionate woman, she made me really think about life and the troubles we all deal with in a day, week or year.  Here is a person dedicated to making a child giggle, and it was apparent that she truly brightened up C.J.’s day.  For me, it was a powerful feeling as she spoke from her heart.  Seeing her and CJ made me realize that the troubles I face, ones that can ‘ruin’ my day, are simply challenges that must be overcome.  I see what happiness can come from putting my own issues aside and just being positive, not only for myself, but for everyone around me.  Happiness is truly contagious.

C.J. and his Mom are great people with a touching story.  If you would like to read more about C.J.’s journey from the diagnosis to now, just follow the link below to visit the family’s blog.  You can also make a donation, and receive a blue bracelet with the inscription ‘Pray for C.J.’ on it.

Visit the George Family Blog
See web exclusive video of C.J. and Lotsy Dotsy

Update:

12/11/2008

I recently emailed Dawn George, C.J.’s Mom who sent me a note.

“He is doing well.  Here he is hard at work (with camera).  I am so glad that you inspired him in this way because even if he is just playing around with the camera I know that anything he records will be treasured forever.”

C.J. loves to play reporter and his Mom tells me that he will often say on camera, “This is Jim Robinson signing off”.  How cute is that?

I wanted to say thank you to all who have commented on the C.J.’s story.  There are a lot of good people in South Florida and I feel as though together, we are making a difference in our community.

Please continue to pray for C.J.