Val Hoeppner

Background

About Val Hoeppner

I train journalists (and others) to use mobile and multimedia. I am a frequent speaker on mobile and social technology, media literacy and multimedia. Most recently I addressed regulators at the Federal Reserve, a conference for federal judges, the Unity Journalists of Color conference and the American Society of News Editors. I travel to newsrooms for one-day mobile media training sessions that teach journalists to use their smart phone to report faster and add multimedia on the go. The goal is to help newsrooms develop a workflow that matches the urgency of publication with accuracy and quality standards. My media career can be summed up in two words, evolution and innovation. In my first newspaper job most mornings began in the darkroom, followed by a dash down the stairs waving wet black and white prints. I would slap prints, often still dripping fixer, onto the big camera just in time to make deadline. A few months into that job came Adobe Photoshop, an AP Leaf scanner and color film. And so it went: four-color separations, desktop computers, pagination, digital cameras, the Internet, audio, Adobe Flash, video and multimedia storytelling. The evolution of the news business coincided with my own evolution as a storyteller and newsroom leader. As newsrooms began to take the Internet seriously I was already finding new ways to tell stories. My curiosity and passion for digital media helped me establish myself as multimedia director at The Indianapolis Star, a major metro newsroom. It was in that role that I began to innovate multimedia production, standards, project teams and training. One of the most rewarding parts of my work is teaching student journalists in the Chips Quinn Scholars, Multimedia Scholars, American Indian Journalism Institute and the Crazy Horse Journalism Workshop programs.