Puerto Montt to Coyhaique

First I traveled to Puerto Montt before making it to Coyhaique, the center of the defense of Patagonia.
Puerto Montt bus terminal.

My current bed in Coyhaique... right next to the wood stove... yes!

A day with scientists

I took a day to spend some time with scientists from New Mexico Tech studying the volcano in Chaiten, a huge volcano that erupted in early May. No one is allowed within 50 km close, but the group was using instruments set up on farms to gather information.
Based in the town of Castro.

Farmland where the instruments were set up.



Collecting pumice on the shoreline.

Checking the gear at another site.

Landowners are reimbursed for their time and power.

Rosa, one of the owners.

The volcano plume.

Another landowner.


Heading home.

So the project that I am starting on is regarding the energy crisis in Chile and the proposed building of 5 dams in Patagonia, which would change the ecological landscape as well as the lifestyle, creating a "highway" of wires.
I´m currently in Patagonia, meeting people and seeing the region. It is a project that I hope to get what I can now, as the region is in winter and is much more active some the spring months. Maybe I´ll have the chance to return. But it is a good time to work on it at the same time because it is a current and forefront issue at the moment.
I started off in Santiago, which was just a chance to get my feet underneath me as well as think about the use of energy. The energy supply the dams would produce would be shipped North to the Central region, including Santiago. I´ll be returning there to really focus on this portion.

Chile Travel

So I'm currently sitting in the airport at Puerto Montt, Chile. My flight to Coyhaique was canceled due to the Chaiten volcano. Hopefully it will go tomorrow, but maybe not even then. But it's given me the chance to catch up on some things.
Yesterday with the scientists studying the volcano was fun. Got to see the countryside that I normally wouldn't see. People are only allowed 50km close to the volcano, so there is not much to view there, but it was still interesting nonetheless.
Here is a photo from flying over the mountains and into Chile. For now I'm back to the hostel I stayed in, Case Perla, which is more of a home-stay than a hostel. Down the hall is the parent's and daughter's bedroom, and the bathroom is shared with the family. But it is cozy and warm with a good breakfast, so it's all good with me.
My plans coming up are to make it to Coyhaique and settle in there, then try to meet with different people fro NGOs that are involved with the proposed dam building projects. From there I head even more South to get a good look at the Baker River, one of the two potential homes to the dams, and possibly the Pascua, as well as the towns that will be affected by the project.

Chilean Whirlwind

As of right now I'm currently sitting in the airport in Santiago, Chile. I arrived Sunday afternoon (today is Tuesday), and it has been quite a whirlwind. Mostly because I keep losing things. Don't know why, it's out of my character, and I think it's my subconscious way to keep me on my toes and teach myself a lesson. I have not done a lot of photography just yet, but I have done a lot of research and travel plans. Made it to the hostel Sunday afternoon and walked around for awhile getting adjusted, found a little restaurant with soup and a beer, and crashed for the night early. Monday was spent mostly making contacts and travel plans, which have since changed as of today. And today has been a trip of a meeting with the publisher and reporter at the Santiago Times to have the chance to talk with them about the work they've done on the energy crisis in Chile and the proposed dams in Patagonia (the project I'm pursuing while I'm here). It's a step-by-step process, and in a way I'm glad I'm making contacts as I go though making the travel arrangements is stressful. My plans of taking the bus South to Coyhaique have now changed to flying to Puerto Montt and taking the bus to Castro tonight so I can spend the day with some scientists from New Mexico who are studying the volcano in Chaitel, which has evacuated many towns. Then Thursday I'm flying to Coyhaique. That's all the plans for now, and photos are coming soon!

Personal Webiste

www.rebeccasell.com

Intro to Video

A very basic introduction to video through the camera and Final Cut for beginning users.

Thesis II

When looking at how to build and present multimedia, it is important to understand what is happening in newsrooms now to adapt to the changing readership climate.

More and more emphasis is being placed not on the number of hits a page receives, but on the time spent on the pages by individual users, which can be seen in a study by Nielsen/Netratings. With technology such as AJAX being used to build pages, users can interact without having to reload. Therefore the time that they are spending on an individual page may be longer, but the count of page views lower.

So what does this mean for multimedia? It has the chance to increase the length of time on a page, which can in turn produce revenue by increasing the cost of ads on pages that will keep viewers on them for a greater length of time.

Readers are currently shifting to get their news from online newspapers, as did Michale Stephens. Stephens, a long-time subscriber to the South Bend Tribune, has dropped his subscription to become an online reader, using a NetVibe page to add RSS feeds from the South Bend Tribune and from other newspapers, as well as podcasts and blogs. He requests that the paper continues to provide access and also makes their Archives free.

Newspapers are struggling to maintain revenue in this changing market.

“…But I won't sugarcoat the news: by not filling jobs that go vacant, by offering buyouts, and if necessary by layoffs, we expect to reduce the newsroom staff by approximately 100 employees from what it was at the beginning of the year.”
(Excerpt from Valentines Day speech by Bill Keller, Executive Editor for the New York Times, announcing that 100 employees will be cut this upcoming year)

With this turn in getting news online, there have been many ideas in the past as to what the format for telling stories should be. More often than not, it's writing them for the printed newspaper and then putting the same information presented in the same way online in the form of an article with photos or graphics. There are characteristics of how readers view information online that can boost the presentation.

- Online readers are just as likely to be a methodical reader as a scanner, whereas a print reader is more likely to be methodical.
- Both print and online readers retain more information when alternative story forms are used (graphs, charts, etc.).
- Navigation is the first stop for the eyes online, whereas photos and headlines are for print.
- Lead packages and stories got more attention in both print and web.
- Large, documentary photos got more time from the eyes in both print and online, but graphics drew more eye time online.
- Web ads with motion got more eye-time, but print ads, whether half or quarter page, got equal eye-time.
- When it comes to the amount of text read, online users read more text that print users.

So what are some newsrooms doing? The South Bend Tribune has changed their newsroom structure by making it a Reverse Publishing environment. According to Victor Ortiz, the New Media Director for the South Bend Tribune, the web department is moving into the newsroom. The center of the newsroom will have a big-screen display of websites and the sites of competitors, and that area will be surrounded by the web department, Breaking News and 24/7 staffers, as well as Copy Editors.

"The priority lies in speed and availability, although multimedia and interaction will follow. As part of the reorganization we are implementing a new budgeting process that will help us focus on the multimedia elements of a story. We have also created a new position, Web Commentary Editor, to help focus on the interaction with readers. We have just started this process and have a ways to go before it's all fully implemented, so it's early to say what the consequences are."

Newsrooms are also using other forms of distribution, including Microjournalism, PDF Availability (though throwing the print-product online is important, it does not make for an online newsroom), SMS Alert, RSS feeds, etc.).

Some newsrooms are also changing the way reporting is done. Mojos are being used more and more frequently. A Mojo is a Mobile Journalist: reporters who have high-tech tools such as audio recorders, still and video cameras, and laptops and spend much of their time on the road hunting for stories and putting several up on the Web a day. Their job is to provide constantly fresh web content. The worries of this kind of reporting are the importance of the content and its quality and whether or not it is being sacrificed.

This adaptation of the newsroom may change the way reporters and photographers do their jobs, but not necessarily the foundation.