Mobile Reporting

Safdar MustafaHead of Mobile Media Unit

New Media

What is Mobile Reporting?

Al Jazeera Mobile Reporter (Breaking News)

Location based projects (Building a visual story of a Reporters journey)

Scope

Why Mobile Reporting?

The Sahara Journey [Trial]

What others are doing

Challenges

Possible Use Cases

The idea

• To provide enhanced Mobile tools to field Reporters to tell their ‘story’

• Presenting more interactively the stories of our Reporters on our Websites and TV

The Mobile Phone DOES NOT REPLACE

the usual Camera but rather compliments it

Why?

• Show the story, not just tell it (Maps with routes)

• More depth to stories possible

• High Quality images & GPS

• Works where there is no phone signal

• Standard inexpensive tools (Mobile Phones)

TV Quality Video

5 mega pixel camera

High Speed Data

Integrated GPS

Small & Always with you

Not just a phone...

The Sahara Journey[Warning: The images you are about

to see were taken on a Mobile Phone]

Meeting the Tuareg’s...

• A trial was conducted

• In the harshest of climates

• Blazing Heat, Blowing Sand

• No phone signal

Not this one...

more like this one.

Tools Used

Nokia N95

Location Tagger Application

NokiaSportstrackerApplication

The Mobile Phone DOES NOT REPLACE

the usual Camera but rather compliments it

Shooting on the move

Then we took the data and told the story ‘visually’

with some ‘interactivity’

www.aljazeera.net/english featured the reports and

linked to the map

What others have done

Detroit Crime Map

Reuters Labs

Nokia & Reuters Trial

Running some tests in Doha

Challenges

• Battery Life

• Phone Durability

• Training

Possible Use Cases

• Getting co-ordinates of Reporters in Danger Zones

• Reporting the Report (Behind the scenes view taken by the crew)

• Capturing & reporting from where camera equipment cannot be taken

• Undercover Reporting

But...

We want to hear from you.

email: new.media@aljazeera.net

Next Steps

• Conducting some more trials

• Phones are being ordered

• Training for Journalists

• Integrating Maps into AJE & AJA websites

• Possible use for TV Broadcast Reports

Questions?