Multimedia showcase closes out NBTB 2014 — thanks for a great camp!

Interviews with people at Glide Memorial Church and in downtown San Francisco gave students on Team Flame a better understanding of what it means to be homeless.

A multimedia package explaining journalism in the Ukraine, a video about all the different ways we say home (and homeless), and an exclusive interview with the San Francisco Giants’ chief information officer — not to mention a run-in with a life-sized Elmo, of Sesame Street fame — were some of the highlights of our multimedia showcase on Sunday, June 29, closing out our 2014 summer session at Stanford.

A number of awards for Year 1 student work, from Best Use of Social Media to Best Cultural Coverage, also were announced at the showcase.

“It’s astonishing to see the depth and range of content that our students produced in just one week,” said Beatrice Motamedi, NBTB co-director.

“More than ever, we can see that students who collaborate closely in teams guided by experienced team leaders, with access to great reporting opportunities and the right technology, can become remarkable storytellers.”

Like the Year 1 students, the Year 2 group produced a website called The Globe, including an in-depth look at the YanukovychLeaks National Project in the Ukraine, in which journalists and citizens worked to rescue 25,000 documents, many with evidence of government corruption and bribery, that were tossed into a lake by President Viktor Yanukovych in February after he was thrown out of power.

Year 2 students also worked on their own individual websites, ranging from “The Decisive Moment” (a look at the surprising epiphanies that mark our lives, by Shawna Chen) to a collection of multimedia stories by Elijah Akhtarzad about “liv(ing) vicariously through the experiences of those with extraordinary access to private worlds.”

Please click below to see our students’ work:

• Team Advance — Best Thematic Package (tie)
• Team Breeze — Best Layout
• Team Sentinel — Most Collaborative, Best Breadth of Coverage
• Team Courier  — Best Use of Social Media, Best Design
• Team Flame — Best Photo, Best Thematic Package (tie)
• Team Bee — Best Video
• Team Post — Best Cultural Coverage
• Team Globe

Team Post interviews Elmo, aka Dan Sandler, on the “international fame” of taking a Sesame Street character to the streets of San Francisco.

After an intense week of finding, creating, and telling stories, our students deserve a well-earned rest and a long and happy summer. NBTB’ers, we hope you get that, and more. Please stay in touch!

—Beatrice and Paul