(Ester) We will talk about audiovisual news journalism.
That is, news broadcast on TV or online.
Creating the contents is a job for journalists.
But you, Mikael, are an expert on accessibility
to audiovisual media in general.
Now, you have the opportunity to share your knowledge with journalists
and students of journalism.
One of the issues we would like to highlight
is how they should go about reaching people in need of news in easy language.
You ran a project in which you developed a video
that is accessible in a number of ways.
Can you tell me about the project?
(Mikael) Yes, of course.
We did this in the city of Malmö. A few years ago
when we had a lot of theoretical background on accessibility
we wanted to put into practice.
The best way was to hunker down and get started.
Delve into accessibility and how it affects everyday lives.
We started a project. Here's a screen shot of our website.
There’s the video project.
You can watch the video later.
I’m going to talk about the thoughts and ideas we had making the video.
(Ester) It’s important to plan for accessibility from the beginning.
No? That’s what you usually say.
(Mikael) Yeah, exactly. It's one of the best takeaways.
Generally, you make a video,
and then you think, “I’m going to add a bit of accessibility.”
But that's really hard.
You gain a lot from doing it in the planning stage.
You lay a good foundation for good results.
(Ester) What should you think about when planning?
(Mikael) The first thing that comes to mind is to have the contents and audience clear in your head.
It's hard to just say that your audience is “everyone”.
Because we all have different challenges.
But you need to remind yourself to be clear in your messaging.
And not to include too many topics
in one and the same video.
In that case, it’s better to break it into other videos or broadcasts.
Instead of tackling too many topics.
(Ester) But the news always deals with a bunch of different things.
It’s about various topics. How should journalists think?
(Mikael) In the news, it's natural to talk about
a bunch of different topics.
But there’s time in between.
(Ester) So it's clearly sectioned off in the program?
(Mikael) Yeah, exactly.
(Ester) So in your planning: “Script and ‘everything’ worked out in detail”...
Speaker, graphics... Why does it need to be so thoroughly planned?
(Mikael) That’s so everyone is on the same level.
From the producer to those filming and interviewing.
To the journalist.
If you already know before going out what you'll be talking about,
you can do your planning in advance.
You know what questions to ask, what clips you want to get, for example.
Or what interview clips you want.
You can start planning the graphics at that stage.
In our project, we knew what the speaker was going to say.
We thought “easy to read” and “plain language” for the speaker voice.
We even knew what the person being interviewed was going to say.
(Ester) Isn’t that difficult when interviewing politicians?
(Mikael) Yes, absolutely.
We have the benefit of control. For example when there are difficult words,
we can avoid difficult words and jargon.
That can be easy.
(Ester) What are your thoughts on time?
We know that many of the people who need news in easy language,
often need extra time to reflect.
And to internalize what’s being said and shown.
(Mikael) I often hear that slow is boring.
I don’t think that’s right.
At least not in the video we made for our project.
The people who watched it said, “Oh, how nice.
Here’s a nice, understandable video that talks about an exciting area.”
Slow is not the same as boring.
It’s just clearer and better for everyone.
(Ester) How do you deal with time?
(Ester) Do you go slower or do you take breaks?
It automatically goes slower.
The speaking rate is slower because the speaker intends to be clear.
We’re not meant to talk about subtitles but it has to do with them as well.
We can use subtitles that appear for longer.
But you can’t slow things down simply for that reason.
It has to go along with what's happening in the video.
It slows the video down but it's much clearer.
(Ester) Let’s talk a bit about simple visual language.
(Ester) What is it?
It can be simple things like what you see on the screen here.
This here is Patrik and this is taken from the project.
Placing the interview subject in front of a calm, neutral background.
Not putting the subject in a highly trafficked intersection.
You can definitely have ambient sounds.
But you should try to avoid disruptive sounds.
So the interview is clear.
(Ester) Your screen shot says
to ask people to speak calmly, clearly and in plain language.
(Ester) How does that work when you talk to a random person on the street?
(Mikael) It's a judgment you need to make. Some people speak clearly and calmly.
A lot of people are stressed by being interviewed.
But you can ask the person to speak more slowly.
That way, it's clearer.
(Ester) In the context of news,
if you interview a person who has trouble speaking understandably,
Can you as the journalist narrate what they’re saying?
What do you think?
(Mikael) That’s a good way of tackling it.
If you hear them use a difficult concept you can allow the journalist to explain it.
Or, you can ask the person to answer the question again.
But to remove the difficult word, could be jargon, for example.
But I know with time constraints, that can be hard to do.
When doing a news story, you can
add a voice-over or speaker who explains
its meaning.
(Ester) Speaking clearly and clear images go hand in hand, don’t they?
(Mikael) Yeah, definitely. They go together.
It’s often the visual aspects
that can be adapted to make things clearer.
Here, I've listed six different parts.
Both about audio components and visual components.
In part, I think you should have contrasts in the audio.
A simple measure is to avoid background music.
Background music is often added for effect.
But for a lot of the hearing impaired, it becomes garbled.
But there’s a difference between music and ambient sounds.
Ambient sounds can themselves be good to make a situation clearer.
“Where are we?”
It can help a hearing- impaired person
or a blind person understand where the journalist is.
(Ester) Could it also support those with cognitive challenges?
Most definitely.
It’s easier to interpret impressions when various parts interact.
We can both see and hear. It makes things much clearer.
(Ester) What happens when what you see and what’s being said don’t go together?
How does that affect understanding?
(Mikael) It can be very unclear and difficult to follow
when you say one thing and show another.
For example, the last bullet point says, “Avoid using clips when someone is talking.”
It could be that you show...
That you hear someone talking but show images of different...
Maybe you show a flower in a meadow near the highway.
That doesn’t actually have anything to do with the highway.
It could get someone thinking, “Oh no! Will it impact the environment?”
And similar.
Make sure that what you talk about
is what’s being shown.
(Ester) But that doesn’t mean...
(Ester) If you are interviewing someone who speaks unclearly,
and you, the journalist, want to relay what the person is saying.
Can you nonetheless show the person who is talking
while using a voice-over?
Or what should you do?
(Mikael) No, I don’t think so.
You don’t want to see one person talking and hear someone else’s voice.
It’s just all wrong.
In that case, you should cut out
the parts with unclear language.
The journalist can relay what the person said.
And you add images that go together with what’s being said.
(Ester) Okay.
Another issue I’ve thought about is switching between clips.
It can be disturbing to have too many clips.
(Mikael) Now we’re back to the aspect of time.
Letting the images stay on the screen so you can take in
what's happening in the image before switching it out.
So you understand what’s happening.
Often, when clips are quick, maybe just a second or two,
it just flashes by.
Let the clips remain on the screen for longer.
It's a matter of balancing when editing the video.
Maybe you should let the clip remain for eight to ten seconds.
So you can take in what’s being shown.
It also depends on the image.
If it's an image of a square where people are milling around,
maybe you want to keep it shorter
than if it’s an image meant to tell a story.
(Ester) One of your bullets deals with keeping to chronological order, as much as possible.
Journalism generally gets right to the point: “There was a fire...”
(Mikael) Yeah.
(Ester) But when simplifying things maybe you should
put it into context first?
(Mikael) That can be difficult when you go out
and need to do live reporting on site.
In those cases, maybe the fire is still raging.
You need to have reached a certain age to understand
that you can jump forward and backward in a video.
It’s common to start with how the video ends.
And then rewind to the beginning. To spark our interest in knowing,
“How did we come to that conclusion when it started like this?”
But then you have to have reached a certain age.
If you have cognitive challenges it can be unclear
if you jump around too much.
Of course you can talk in an order that is not
purely chronological.
But you can’t jump around too much in a news story.
The difference between what is clear and understandable
and what is extremely exciting...
It can be very exciting
to see a messy demonstration with lots of police.
But that can be too much for someone with cognitive difficulties.
It's a matter of balancing between the two.
Highly understandable or unclear for certain people?
Thank you so much Mikael for sharing your knowledge with us.