Illume Blazes New Frontiers in Digital Journalism

Posted in: Features

Maryam Khan Ansari
May 7, 2010
9:15 AM







Tell people what you want them to believe. That's easy. What's difficult is to change the way people think.



"See a cow, say a cow."







If you have no clue what those words mean, then chances are that you weren't at Illume 's first in a series of events on multimedia journalism.





These were words of wisdom, conveyed by Illume's resident broadcast journalist, Anser Hassan, to participants at Illume's event on the weekend of April 16 -- Digital Journalism in the Age of Multimedia Story Telling. Mr. Hassan was explaining the simplistic, yet impactful style of writing in broadcast journalism: the necessity to write what you see in front of you, as you see it. And while Mr. Hassan's statement had nothing to do with farm animals, another speaker, Farzad Wafapoor, made several statements which echoed the wisdom quoted by the spider in E.B. White's farm tale, "Charlotte's Web":







Humans will believe anything, so long as its in print.







Or in Mr. Wafapoor's case, so long as its on screen.







But that's the premise behind the force that is the mass media-- and the associated bias that emanates from what is presented before America. Tell people what you want them to believe. That's easy. What's difficult is to change the way people think.



And change is what Illume is trying to do, by being a pioneer of its kind in educating Americans about eliminating media bias, while combating extremism.



Now, perhaps the spider's wisdom was somewhat cynical. But both Mr. Wafapoor and Mr. Hassan are skilled in the art of multimedia story telling. Farzad Wafapoor is an Emmy Award winning documentarian, renown for his work on documenting the plight of Bosnian refugees. Anser Hassan is an award-winning assignment editor at a local CBS affiliate and brings wisdom from being on camera as well as behind the scenes.



This event, held in northern California, was a novelty for Illume, a new fish making a huge splash in a large pond. And given the success of the Bay Area event, other similar events are planned in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Boston.



Since its inception over four years ago, Illume has won awards and acclaim, including the Excellence in Journalism award from the California State Senate. Illume has also grown its roster to add Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalists and producers from major news networks and media companies, including NBC, CBS, CNN, Associated Press and Thomson-Reuters.



The purpose of the event was largely to teach the participants how to tell journalistic stories using digital media. But it also had the purpose of showing people what Illume was really about-- high quality, effective and unbiased journalism.



One of the goals of Illume is the elimination of bias in the media, while another is to foster dialogue to fight extremism. The theme that resonated throughout the event was the importance of presenting a fair and balanced piece of journalism.



I spoke to two of the keynote speakers during the course of the event about the bias in the media.



Mr. Hassan spoke of the necessity for minority groups to understand the importance of the media and even more crucial, the importance of media outreach. An area of concern, Mr. Hassan articulated, was that some minority groups end up inadvertently perpetuating negative stereotypes.



Farzad Wafapoor stated that television and cinema were the two most effective media to eliminate bias.



"Research has proven, time and again, the effect of television on the public's perception," he told me, "and cinema, since it first came out, has been the most powerful work of art."



While eliminating media bias is an uphill battle, teaching effective journalism techniques will help minority groups climb that hill, step by step.



As Mr. Hassan said in his speech: "Remember, you're not trying to save the world, you're telling a minute long story." But according to Mr. Wafapoor, these very acts of micro story-telling are what have some of the strongest impact on social perception.



So perhaps you can "save the world" with a minute long story? Maybe not save it, but change it -- quite possibly.



Last Updated: May 7, 2010
9:15 AM