OKBLITZ.COM Where everyone’s in the game.
2010 MEDIA SUBMISSION GUIDE
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF SPORTS REPORTING
WELCOME! OKBlitz.com is proud to announce an exciting new program to help your students learn the fundamentals of sports reporting, writing, and photography! As OKBlitz.com Student Mojos (Student Mobile Journalists) they will not only get a feel of what it’s like to be a sports reporter by covering your school’s teams, but they can also see their work published on our website, right along with our anchors Dean Blevins and John Holcomb. This program is a fun and easy way of integrating technology in the classroom while providing real world exposure for students. The Student Mojo program is a great way to integrate curriculum in photo, video, journalism, yearbook, newspaper, sports management or English classes. Plus each participating student will receive an OKBlitz.com Student Mojo Press Badge and a Student Mojo T-shirt. In this packet your students will find: information about OKBlitz.com, the basics of how to upload their videos, stories, and photographs directly to us, contact information and some helpful tips from our OKBlitz. com Mojos.
ABOUT OKBLITZ.COM
OKBLITZ.COM HAS CHANGED THE WAY OKLAHOMANS VIEW SPORTS AND FOLLOW THEIR FAVORITE TEAMS. NEWS 9 sports with Dean Blevins in Oklahoma City and The News On 6 sports with John Holcomb in Tulsa merged in August of 2009 into one Oklahoma powerhouse of sports coverage on both television and online. OKBlitz.com provides sports enthusiasts an online platform where they can follow expanded coverage of their favorite Oklahoma teams and the big match-ups and player stories. OKBlitz.com also gives sports fans, players, coaches and parents a place to express their love of the game and their team with unmatched high school team pages, set up to encourage a forum for discussion, user generated videos, interviews, and stories. If it’s happening under the Friday night lights, you can see it on your team’s home page…and so will everyone else!
WHAT CONTENT OKBLITZ.COM IS LOOKING FOR
We are looking for journalism, and broadcasting students who have a passion for shooting video, taking photos, editing, writing, and sports reporting. The OKBlitz.com Student Mojo program gives students an outlet to share local sports stories from their schools
EACH STUDENT MOJO WILL RECEIVE A T-SHIRT AND PRESS PASS.
in a number of ways with Oklahomans across the state. Student Mojos can send OKBlitz.com photos, stories or video of local school athletic events. Football, basketball, softball, wrestling, the sky is the limit.
VIDEO SUBMISSION FOR OKBLITZ.COM
PREPARING VIDEO FOR SUBMISSION TO OKBLITZ.COM 1. All video submitted to OKBlitz.com should be edited and trimmed to include ONLY the portion that is to be loaded to OKBlitz.com. 2. The preferred video submission formats are: a. AVI b. QuickTime c. WMV d. MPEG-4 3. Use the following naming format for the file: a. [yyyy][mm][dd]-[schoolname].[filetype] i. Example: 20100114-OwassoHS.avi b. When submitting multiple files for a day, add a number to the filename. i. Examples: 1. 20100114-OwassoHS1.avi 2. 20100114-OwassoHS2.avi c. Use a shortened name if school name is over 12 characters. i. Example: Amber-Pocasset High School could be AmPocassHS d. DO NOT use spaces or special characters in the filename.
SENDING VIDEO TO OKBLITZ.COM
1. Open web browser 2. Go to the following address: http://ftp.griffincommunications.net/ 3. The following screen will display:
7. Progress of the file transfer is displayed on the status bar at the bottom of the OKBlitz box. Transfer time is dependent on the size of the file and the speed of the internet connection. 8. When the upload is complete the following screen will display:
4. If prompted allow the applet to run. 5. Drag the file and drop it on the OKBlitz logo. To browse for file click on ‘Browse’ located at the bottom of the block containing the OKBlitz logo to bring up a file browser window. 6. After the file is dropped or browsed in the following box will display:
Log on using the following settings: a. User name: okblitzugc b. Password: okblitzok c. Click ‘OK’
9. Close the browser. 10. Send an email to highschoolstories@okblitz.com with the following information: a. Your name and contact information b. The organization you represent c. Complete name of the uploaded file d. What time the file was uploaded e. Length of the video clip
CREATING STORIES ON OKBLITZ.COM CREATING STORIES 1. The following elements need to be included in your story to be considered for submission on OKBlitz.com a. Story Headline – this should be a 7-12 word summary title for the story i. Example – Tulsa Hands Oklahoma State First Road Loss of the Year b. Byline – This is your name, title and school i. Example: Joe Smith, student, Owasso High School ii. Example: Joe Smith, teacher, Owasso High School c. Story Summary– this should explain the story in one sentence, less than 25 words or 170 characters. i. Example - After narrowly beating Memorial in the second round, Putnam City had no problem winning the Tournament of Champions as the Pirates crushed Booker T. Washington. d. Story Body (written AP style) – all stories written for OKBlitz.com should be written following the AP style guide for punctuation and spelling. Books for AP style can be obtained from most major book stores, or online at http://www.apstylebook.com/. AP Style guides have a section for sports writing. Your school may also have an AP style guide. i. Notes on Story Body – the story body should include the following: 1. First Paragraph – summary of event, including score of main game covered. 2. Second or more paragraphs – in detail description of the highlights of the event, such as who scored the most, what was the pivotal turning point in the game, etc. 3. Final elements – any additional information the user might deem useful, such as future events, or additional news related to the event.
ii. Examples of stories: 1. Game Coverage - http://www.okblitz.com/ Article.aspx?id=14218 2. Overall Event Coverage - http://www.okblitz. com/Article.aspx?id=14113 3. News Event - http://www.okblitz.com/ Article.aspx?id=14201 e. Keywords – a list of words that one would most likely use when conducting a site or topic search. Select 10 to 15 words that you feel are most important and relevant to your story and that would result in site search optimization. i. Example: School names, player names and the class and/or division of your school
CREATING PICTURES ON OKBLITZ.COM
CREATING PICTURES 1. We like for each story to have at least one picture, but this is not necessary. And remember that OKBlitz. com can support up to 10 photos per story. All images MUST be submitted with the following dimensions to be considered. a. Image Dimensions: 576 pixels wide, 324 pixels tall b. Image Resolution: 72 pixels/inch c. Image Size: less than 30kb per picture. i. Many photo editing programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, have export settings for website images that automatically convert your images to the proper size and resolution for web use. 2. Photos cannot be obtained from the internet; all photos must be taken by you. 3. Photos considered vulgar will not be accepted 4. All photos submitted to OKBlitz.com become the property of OKBlitz.com, Griffin Communications and its subsidiaries.
MOJO VIDEO TIPS uncomfortable in front of the camera or unsure of their answers. If you sit an interview subject down and interview them that way, they are much more likely to sit still and not mess up your camera shot. Nothing is worse than standing up conducting an interview only to find out afterwards that part of the player you were interview’s ear is cut off on the perfect sound bite because he leaned to the right during his answer. Sit them down. You will be happier with the look of the interview. (Use a wireless mic if you have one)
TIP #3
TIP #1 Utilize natural sound as much as possible. Natural sound is ambient noise that you hear throughout a game that helps paint the picture of the outcome. If a basketball player dunks and then screams....use that noise. The emotion of that sound really grabs the viewer’s attention. Use whistles, crowd noise and the PA announcer screaming “THREEEEEEEEE!” after a great shot. Those things certainly don’t need to dominate your story, but when used correctly, they really add to your reporting.
Speak slowly. Sometimes when you are reporting, it’s natural to feel like you have to get all of the great information you have stored up in your head out of your mouth as quickly as possible before you forget it. Don’t do that. Speaking quickly won’t help you avoid making any mistakes. Take a deep breath. Write down what you want to say. Rehearse it a few times and then deliver your report to the camera. Just because you can spit out a bunch of facts quickly, doesn’t mean that the final product will look presentable. Take your time and it will pay off.
TIP #4 Remember the Rule of Thirds. Break up your camera shot into thirds. Look through the viewfinder and divide the shot into a left third, middle third, and right third in your head. Always place an interview subject in either the left or right third of the screen. An interview subject is never centered in the camera. The proper way to frame a shot is to have the subject of your interview in the left or right third of the screen.
TIP #2 Whenever possible, have your interview subject sit down. People tend to fidget whenever they are in front of a camera. A lot of high school aged athletes (especially) move around a lot because they are either
TIP #5 Have fun. Sports reporting is about fun. If you aren’t having fun, nobody watching you will enjoy your report.
MODERATION GUIDELINES FOR OKBLITZ.COM
MODERATION GUIDELINES FOR USER GENERATED CONTENT (UGC) FOR OKBLITZ.COM All content intended for OKBlitz.com will be fully reviewed by the OKBlitz.com staff before posting live to the website. When reviewing content from users, keep the following in mind BEFORE sending any content to OKBlitz.com. 1. Users are asked to use ‘appropriate journalistic standards’ when creating their content. This includes reviewing the following: a. Do not use content that is from somewhere else: i. Stories obtained that are not your original stories ii. Stories from local or national sources (newspaper or websites) iii. Quotes from local or national sources you did not get yourself iv. Images that are not your original images (from the internet, television, paper, etc.) All of the above are types of standard copyright infringement b. Do not use Videos/Stories that contain the following unusable content: i. Music - no music can be used in any video – with the exception of background music from a marching band ii. TV Footage – OKBlitz.com does not have rights to re-publish video from on-air iii. Profanity/vulgar content iv. External Links to objectionable third party content
2. OKBlitz.com will not edit content sent from users (stories, pictures or videos). a. All content must remain true to the original source (the user) before publishing. Any required changes should be made only by the user and documented in an email. b. OKBlitz.com is not to be held responsible for spelling errors or grammatical errors. Please proofread all content before sending to OKBlitz.com. c. All videos should be edited and ready to go from the user. If video needs to be changed, please resubmit the video. 3. Content on OKBlitz will not be deleted once it has been published. Just like with current stories written by OKBlitz.com or any staff member, changes need to be made in the form of retractions on the website.
OKBLITZ.COM Where everyone’s in the game.
CONTACT INFO
Sara Treadwell C: 405.221.3326 sara.treadwell@griffincommunications.net