Award-winning producer and new media expert Amani Channel shares tips, tricks and techniques that every journalist should know in this age of smartphones and digital media. You will learn how to livestream video from your phone to the Web, break news using Twitter, and how to syndicate your content across social networks.

I'm not an Atlanta city resident, but I'm following the city's race for Mayor. There are huge financial and resource issues that must be addressed, and as the state's capital city, what happens politically in Atlanta is important to other municipalities.

I've attended several debates this election cycle. I've met several of the candidates, and even participated

An interactive runoff debate was recently produced on BetterAtlanta.org. I was asked to help with the production by providing lighting for the live webcast that featured veteran Atlanta journalist Maria Saporta. She spent about fifteen minutes interviewing the runoff candidates, while area bloggers submitted questions online.

I used the opportunity to interview Mayoral candidates Kasim Reed and Mary Norwood with my iPhone 3Gs.

Mobile devices are the future of video communications, and as the quality increases, there will be more opportunities to include mobile video in mainstream productions. The biggest opportunity right now is in news.

The iPhone is a great device for capturing and sharing photos and video with applications like Kyte. As soon as the video is uploaded, Kyte sends out a tweet to Twitter which gives any video the possibility of going viral.

A reporter can file segments from the field, record b-roll, or interviews, and quickly upload it online. If the clips need to be edited, the iPhone and MacBook Pro allows seemless editing using Final Cut Pro.

There are already a few examples of news reporters who have used the iPhone to file live reports , and produce packages and this trend will continue.