The good news is, building slideshows is also surprisingly easy, and is an effective way to increase views for a story.
Traditional reporters who once relied on a print or TV photographer to take care of collecting images and video in the field for them now need to develop visual storytelling skills themselves.
Cost-cutting has reduced the number of photojournalists; 'one man bands' require story-tellers to collect the pictures as well as to write the words; and, camera-enabled cell phones give first-on-the-scene reporters the opportunity to collect and publish images from the field long before video or still images can be driven back to the newsroom.
Composing and capturing compelling images is a skill in itself. Legacy photojournalists can be an invaluable resource in learning the basics of shot composition and lighting. The National Press Photographers Association web site has multiple resources for developing shooting skills.
Once the shots are taken, manipulating those images doesn't have to require an advanced degree or a big software budget. Irfanview is a free downloadable image manipulation program that can be used to crop, resize, and adjust images quickly. Photoshop Elements from Adobe is the simplified, lower-cost version of the industry standard Photoshop imaging software.
Building slideshows and publishing them to the web doesn't have to be hard, either. While many media companies have proprietary tools within their own content management system, Soundslides is a popular, low cost ($39) and easy to use product that enables swift creation and publication of slideshows, with the option of adding narration or music audio track.
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