With today’s technologies, nothing seems to be impossible on the web. People are becoming more and more involved with reporting the way they see the news and more involved in the news that they read.

Interactive news is what involves multimedia, which could include sound, text, video, etc. and it could be what keeps the reader hooked on your story or site that extra couple of sentences.

There are around 6 categories of media that are now becoming related to the Internet: “still images, sounds, moving images, animations and graphics, and interactives.”

Still images involve phones and cameras which are huge factor in the newsroom and in delivering events. With photo galleries becoming more evident online, viewers can now look through sets of photos a reporter or photographer may have taken. Anyone can snap a photo but there is a certain level of skill that has to come with being a good photo journalist.

Most images need to be edited before being posted online and that is why photographers will crop, size and save it as a .jpg or .jpeg, often using Photoshop or iPhoto.

With visual having such a large impact on how we read and report news, sounds is often left out as being important. “There are three general categories of aural material: music, speech, and sounds (sound effects).”

Sound in journalism is most often used when creating a sound bite. Sounds bites involve quotes and key parts of news stories. Sometimes soundbites will involve clips from significant events or more important parts of the news story.

Podcasting is something that has become very popular when compared to blogging or self-publishing. Before you begin podcasting though, as a writer remember these 6 general rules: “have something to say, decide how long it should be, record your interviews as needed, gather your other production elements, assemble the podcast using your editing software, and plan a regular schedule.”

In video, if your are posting compelling video people are going to want to tune in no many what. As a multimedia journalist, though, you need to remember that readers have a “limited attention span” and are viewing the content on a smaller computer screen so your shots are going to need to be filmed differently.

The same goes for graphics, readers need to be able to see what you are posting and since the screen is smaller you will need to modify your postings.

Interactives allow your reader to be involved in the news that is being posted, like links or polls. These should be used on your website to keep readers attached to your postings.

Media is ready to be used online in many different ways and combinations, now all we have to do as reporters is learn how to make this work best for our targeted group.