Attendees headed to the App Store Saturday afternoon to pick up apps highlighted for their usefulness to journalists by Kevin Smith and Doug Haddix.
Smith and Haddix, both from the Kiplinger Program, ran down the top tools they chose to represent different tasks in the reporting process.
Here’s what they chose:
Research: Internet Public Library
Internet Public Library offers journos a number of different ways to search information vetted by librarians. There’s also an “ask a librarian” function to help with more complicated questions, where the site will even ask you to input the research you’ve already done to help guide results.
Notes: Dragon Dictation
Anyone who wishes that interviews could just transcribe themselves may have their hopes fulfilled. Dragon 
Dictation serves as a recorder and then sends the transcribed clip right to your phone. You can then email or text the notes. We tried it out in our newsroom and it seemed to work well – although you can only record 20-second clips with the free version.
Social Media: Banjo
Social media curator Banjo took the spot for top social media app in the presentation. The Web based app has event-focused collections of social media, and you can use your location to figure out what people are posting in your area. Haddix and Smith suggested it as a place to get story ideas.
News Gathering: StoryCheck
The only app in the presentation to be Android-only, StoryCheck, markets itself as an “editor in your pocket.” Journalists can pick a story type, and then check the elements on a list to see what information they still need in their article. You can also add notes to each of the elements to stay organized.
Monitoring: Hootsuite
If you need to keep an eye on multiple social media feeds, head to Hootsuite. The application, which you can use on both desktop and mobile, allows you to load up to five platforms onto one screen. Hootsuite also serves as a scheduler, which allows journalists to spread their content out across the day.
Audio: Soundcloud/TwistedWave
Smith couldn’t pick just one for the audio category, so the presentation included both a basic and more advanced option for controlling sound. SoundCloud was the more elementary choice, but it allows for everything a journalist might need to do – recording, editing and uploading. TwistedWave costs $10 and has extensive mastering options.
Crowd-sourcing: Google Forms
Your Google account can be used for more than email – it can be used to get valuable input. Google Forms makes this easy by allowing journalists to skip the complicated stuff and create forms that they can use simply by copying an embed code. The forms can then be filled out and the data are compiled into a spreadsheet.
Photo and Video: ProCamera 7
It may not be one of the tools that is free on the list, but ProCamera is so good, Smith and Haddix selected it as the top choice for capturing both photo and video. The app has a variety of nifty features, such as optional composition grids, a self-timer and rapid-fire function.
Data mining: Data.gov
Want access to 113,000 data sets? Look no further than data.gov, an effort for more transparency in the US government. There are search tools to help sort through all the data, which are sorted into categories like health, agriculture and climate.
Video editing: Videolicious
When Haddix and Smith played a demo of how to use video editing app Videolicious, an approving murmur spread throughout the room. The app minimizes the difficulty of editing a video, allowing users to set the sequence simply by tapping the screen. See how it works here.
Mapping: Mapalist
Mapalist is a simple way to create interactive Google maps out of a list of addresses. On top of that function, the site also allows journalists to enter data to create heat maps, without having to play around with code. For example, the number of homicides in a specific region can be illustrated by importing a spreadsheet into Mapalist and populating a map with the data.
Sharing: Twitter
Smith and Haddix asserted the virtues of Twitter for journalists, including sourcing, research and sharing benefits. In addition, Tweet Archivist, for $14.99 a month, allows people to track up to three searches or tags and run analytics on them.
Have an app you’d like to add to the list? Tweet us @EIJ_News!
September 6, 2014 • 2014: Nashville