Coming up on 10 years of #iphonereporting — using iPhones, iPad, and other mobile devices to report the news @WTOP — the all news radio station in Washington, DC. Having heard dozens of proclamations about “game changer” (and making a few myself), I’ve compiled 10 ACTUAL...
Apps, pieces of equipment, functions, etc. that have actually changed my job and workflow, as a multi-platform reporter, using an iPhone. Starting with 10: Camera+ app. There are other far-more advanced and nuanced photo editing apps, the presets on Camera + are good/easy to use.
9: Facebook Live and Periscope — Ten years ago there WERE other ways to stream live video, but these have made it easy to do, relatively easy to do it WELL, and to integrate into web pages, blogs, etc. My tip: Buy a microphone if you’re going to do it!
8: AirDrop — It’s now easy to put an iPhone in a newsmaker’s face, record audio or video, and quickly get it off your trusty/tiny phone onto an iPad, to make editing much easier. 10 years ago, considering how to ‘move’ content off phones required Plans A, B, and C. Yay, AirDrop!
7: Social video apps like MoJo, Quik make it easy to plug a few photos in, some text, and have app creatively turn it into a shareable video. iMovie remains a mystery to a video novice like me. Include game changing design/text apps like Canva, Spark Post, too.
6: Otter. For a reporter who has had to transcribe audio interviews by hand or text forever, with Otter you just import the audio into the app, and within a minute or so, the transcription is done — I estimate it gets 95-percent of the words right. Heaven!
5. Rode Wireless Go: Tiny clip on microphone goes onto podium for a news conference, or person, like lavalier mic. Tiny receive automatically pairs w mic, and plugs into phone. Less than a minute to clip on, start rolling in any audio app, without stringing mic. Under $200.
4. Ferrite: Multi-track audio editing app. Lets me do minuscule edits, tweak audio levels, fade natural sound under wraps, strip audio from video in Camera Roll. Developers are responsive — in a world where apps are made for public (and journalists use them) Ferrite is #mojo.
3. Voice to text, iOS 13: Experimented w voice to text many years ago — Blech. Now using iOS 13’s V2T to compose tweets, write leads for radio reports, write stories for web. Obviously, requires a critical eye before tweeting, but even with keyboard/iPad, it’s a huge timesaver.
2: Open In: Being able to record audio in one app, have it transcribed in another, share it with teammates, integrate it into a live report, share it privately in WhatsApp or FB Messenger — THAT is made possible with the Open In function. Transformative!
And that brings us to Number 1: Ironically, it was one of the first features that made an iPhone valuable for mobile reporting, and it’s barely changed in the 10 years I’ve used — <drumroll> Number 1 is the built-in microphone. After years of carrying gear, anyone w a phone...
Can speak into the bottom of the phone, and record in near-studio quality. 10 years ago I said the quality was 92-percent as good as a mic w digital recorder. It’s the same now. And it STILL requires a $3 windscreen to be able to use it dependably. But with that mic...
A newsmaker on the other end of a phone line can record their side of the conversation in near studio quality
Or answer in studio-quality when convenient, in a WhatsApp chat.
And, of course with all the speedy and creative tools a mobile reporter has, they have to be tempered with old-school journalistic goals, like accuracy, fairness, context, and taste. And, no, there are still no apps for that! Cheers.
