Half-price student tickets at ‘Will We Have News for You?’ event

We’re informed a few tickets are still going for next Tuesday’s ‘Will We Have News for You?’ a Media Society night at the BBC; details below:

5:00pm, Tuesday 10 November 2009, BBC TV Centre Wood Lane, W12, Full price £10; students £5

• Nick Pollard (former head of Sky News)

• Mary Hockaday (head of multimedia newsroom, BBC)

• Jonathan Munro (ITN)

• Jonathan Levy (editor, General Election Sky News )

• Stephen Cole (presenter, Al Jazeera English[tbc])

Contact: Mutesa Sithole – mutesasithole [at] googlemail.com

Similar posts:

• Live coverage dominates media’s inauguration plans
• Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj released
• Independent: BBC’s head of multimedia on reporting across all platforms
• #FollowJourn: @stephen_emerson/deputy online editor
• #FollowJourn: @ajeys/head of web

Reuters runs safety training course for Gaza journalists

Reuters’ Gaza bureau ran a four-day training course this week in recognition of cameraman Fadel Shana, who was killed in the region on 16 April 2008.

Twenty Palestinian journalists received tuition in TV production, with extra training on aspects of safety and ethics in conflict zones, a release from Reuters said.

Sessions on filming and editing ran alongside first aid training, including the treatment of gunshot and blast wounds.

In April 2008, Shana was killed by a shell fired by Israeli soldiers. He was the first Reuters journalist to be killed in Gaza. The cameraman was on his way to cover an incident when his vehicle stopped. On getting out of the vehicle an explosion killed Shana and two bystanders.

A soundman travelling with Shana escaped serious injury.

In August last year the news agency said it was ‘disappointed and dissatisfied’ by an investigation by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) into Shana’s death, which said soldiers were justified in opening fire on Shana, as they believed his tripod-mounted camera might be a weapon.

Commenting on the training programme, Reuters bureau chief in Israel and Palestinian territories, Alastair Macdonald, said: “Fadel was killed doing a job to which he was dedicated and to which he brought immense talent and promise. To honour his memory and to improve opportunities for young Palestinian journalists who would wish to follow his example, we are delighted to be able to provide this training.”

Similar posts:

• Reuters cameraman killed in Gaza
• Reuters ‘dissatisfied’ by investigation into death of Fadel Shana
• Watch Al Jazeera’s Shooting the Messenger on YouTube
• A reminder of the ‘perils of reporting’ in Pakistan
• Death toll rises for journalists killed in Georgia

OJR: A checklist for starting your news website

Following on neatly from Hannah Waldram’s post on why UK journalism students need to be entrepreneurial too, the Online Journalism Review has created a checklist for setting up a news site if you’re a student or starting mid-career.

The detailed guide covers selecting a domain, advertising, blogging tools and using metrics.

Full list at this link…

Similar posts:

• FleetStreetBlues: Guide for finding journalism jobs
• Insite: Finding the people behind sites – an insite guide
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – keeping anonymous online
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – online tools for freelancers
• Entrepreneurial journalism – how Newcastle University is shaping up

Hannah Waldram: ‘What journalism students need to know’

Journalism students need to be taught entrepreneurship skills, says Waldram – a trend that is emerging in the US and slowly starting in the UK.

“Part of the problem, I think, is not only that journalism courses are slow to amend their teaching syllabus in accordance with the changing times (probably because they have worked so well untouched for years), but also many local newspapers have failed to adapt to digital migration at the same pace as their readers. So even if trained journalists fresh out of j-school are given the right tool-set to aptly do online news, there are at the moment little places from them to shine while regional newspapers themselves adjust. In that gap, however, students could use what skills they do have to start up hyperlocal sites to continue practise their unique combination of traditional and new media skills. It’s this entrepreneurship which is being taught at CUNY, and our British counterparts should also be encouraged to do,” she writes.

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• Entrepreneurial journalism – how Newcastle University is shaping up
• Sunderland survey results: What do journalism students want from their training?
• Advancing The Story: Why Missouri J-School is asking students to have iPhones
• New science journalism MA at City University aims to make students ‘critical consumers of scientific information’
• Guardian debuts six-monthly ABCe figures for regional websites

Camp VJ London – Day 2: Filming interviews

Yesterday I attended day two of the Visual Editors’ videojournalism training in London. The four-day course covers the fundamentals of videojournalism with proceeds going to not-for-profit news project Beamups.

You can read my report on day one of the course – an introduction to the basics of videojournalism in this post.

Below are some introductory tips to filming interviews learned from the course.

There are still places available on Thursday’s (October 29) programme, which will focus on selling your videos.

As day two was to focus on filming interviews, I spent most of it getting to grips with my tripod. I wanted to be confident with my kit so I could gain confidence of my interview subject; not look like a complete novice while struggling to get my camera to sit straight.

We learned about basic framing for a shot; where to stand to allow you to maintain eye contact and yet monitor your camera; and tips on getting your subject to relax and open up.

But my main lesson of the day went back to confidence: try to anticipate problems that might arise when you’re filming, before you’re doing it, advised our tutor Robb.

Good advice:

• Prepare your tripod and camera as far as possible (e.g. check your battery’s charge).
• Avoid one word or yes/no answers by giving your subject commands rather than asking questions e.g. “Tell me….”, “Describe to me….” – you need longer answers so you can get the worthwhile soundbites to edit.
• Take headphones with you so (if your camera allows it) you can monitor how the footage sounds on location.
• Take plenty of natural sound – you may need this if editing shots together.

Sent out on our lunch hour to find willing interview subjects, I convinced a local businessman to let me film in his shop. A hairdresser for 45 years, he was animated and engaging.

Some things I learned:

• Don’t be afraid to move your camera if you want to change the framing during an interview. I needed to step a little closer to improve the frame and give louder audio. Just make sure you let your subject know what you are doing.
• If your subject is sitting and you’re standing, this doesn’t matter, so long as the camera is at eye-level with the interviewee rather than the camera looking down on them.
• Asking some initial throwaway questions helps your interviewee relax and gives you time to adjust your camera if needs be.

Editing my footage (around 10 minutes including cutaway shots) was much quicker today – less than an hour for three minutes, including work on audio and splicing together different answers with cutaways.

Similar posts:

• Camp VJ London – Day 1: An intro to visual storytelling
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – tripod tips for videojournalism
• Adam Westbrook: 6×6 video for freelance journalists
• Journalism in Africa: New broadcast laws will let sleeping politicians lie
• Press Gazette: ‘Studio in a suitcase’ for Reuters journalists

Cody Brown: ‘A public can talk to itself’

Cody Brown, an undergraduate student at New York University, on the board of college publishing organisation CoPress and founder of the NYU Local blog, reveals his new project, Kommons.com, with a long essay on the public’s relationship with news. A very brief extract:

“When I say ‘a public can talk to itself’ I mean that a public can be counted on to share and disseminate its own news. Online, what a public needs, far more than reporters or endowed professional newsrooms, is a way for everyone to do this more effectively.”

“At the moment, we are bootstrapping. Whenever big news breaks on Twitter and thousands start commenting and adding details/screed/spam to a story we get a sense of both how exciting it is to collaborate directly in news online and how challenging it is to design a platform that handles it properly.”

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• Roy Greenslade: British journalism is in crisis and time is running out
• Mashable: CoverItLive to integrate Twitter
• MPs applaud Polly Toynbee for declaring £106,000 salary and urge journalists to follow her lead
• Twitter users play with Telegraph’s Twitterfall #Budget feature
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – don’t spam Twitter

Camp VJ London – Day 1: An intro to visual storytelling

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend day one of the Visual Editors’ videojournalism training in London. The four-day course covers the fundamentals of videojournalism with proceeds going to not-for-profit news project Beamups.

Below are some introductory tips to visual storytelling learned from the course.

There are still places available on Wednesday (October 28) and Thursday’s (29) programmes, which will focus on video editing and selling your videos respectively.

Day one was spent learning how to use our cameras, the basic shot types and – after a stint in the field (well, London’s Finchley Road) – some simple editing skills.

Here are my main lessons from the day:

Using your camera:

• Hold your camera from beneath e.g. using your hand beneath to make it more stable;
• If you don’t have a tripod and need to steady your camera, find a natural tripod (a ledge, a table) or use your own body to stabilise the shot.

What film can do:

• Film can handle multiple story forms e.g. images (both still and moving); graphics an animation; and audio;
• Use visual elements to solve problems in your story e.g. to help move between locations or compress time, such as the transition from day to night.

Some tips for audio whilst filming:

• “Microphones don’t have brains,” Robb told us, so you need to monitor how your film might sound while your in the field;
• Take a pair of headphones out with you – while you’re concentrating on the visuals there will be many sounds your camera and its mic pick up that don’t even register;
• Sometimes you need to think of your camera as an audio recorder to capture extra sounds in addition to all the shots you need.

In the afternoon we were sent out to practice the morning’s lessons, in particular the idea of 3:6:9 – three angles; six seconds; nine locations for the camera.

And here’s what I ended up with after an introduction to my editing software (Final Cut Express) and 45 minutes working on it. It’s not finished, but it’s a start!

In particular, I need to look for links (colours/characters/objects) between the scenes which will strengthen the transition from one to the next.

Similar posts:

• Camp VJ London – Day 2: Filming interviews
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – tripod tips for videojournalism
• Adam Westbrook: 6×6 video for freelance journalists
• Press Gazette: ‘Studio in a suitcase’ for Reuters journalists
• Videojournalist David Dunkley Gyimah named Southbank artist in residence

University journalism course acceptances up by 15.7 per cent

Journalism is among the British university undergraduate subjects with the highest increase of acceptances in 2009, UCAS reported today.

The UK higher education service today released its provisional final figures for this year’s student entry, following ‘a record-breaking processing year for applications’ it said.

Overall, UCAS has seen an increase in acceptances by 5.6 per cent from the same point last year, and journalism (undergraduate) has shown a 15.7 per cent rise to 2,675 places – faring better than courses ‘linked with linguistic skills’.

Science, technology, engineering, business and maths related subjects have shown improvements too, UCAS reported, with nursing acceptances up by 20 per cent.

The Guardian reports that universities ‘could face multimillion pound fines after breaking a government-imposed cap on student numbers’.

Update: This article was update to reflect UCAS confirmation that all the courses included in this figure are undergraduate courses.

Similar posts:

• Graduate jobs now get 48 applications each on average – what does this mean for journalism students?
• Ninety-seven per cent of ‘business decision makers’ use B2Bs online
• Record traffic as hellomagazine.com tops 1.5 million users
• MediaGuardian: GMG ’set to report operating loss’
• MediaGuardian: London students dominate the Guardian Student Media Awards

Time.com: ‘Aspiring journalists should stop going to journalism programs’ says Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, award-winning New Yorker staff writer and author, suggested, in a Q&A with Time.com, that journalists should re-consider how they train:

“If you had a single piece of advice to offer young journalists, what would it be?”

“The issue is not writing. It’s what you write about. One of my favorite columnists is Jonathan Weil, who writes for Bloomberg. He broke the Enron story, and he broke it because he’s one of the very few mainstream journalists in America who really knows how to read a balance sheet. That means Jonathan Weil will always have a job, and will always be read, and will always have something interesting to say. He’s unique. Most accountants don’t write articles, and most journalists don’t know anything about accounting. Aspiring journalists should stop going to journalism programs and go to some other kind of grad school. If I was studying today, I would go get a master’s in statistics, and maybe do a bunch of accounting courses and then write from that perspective. I think that’s the way to survive. The role of the generalist is diminishing. Journalism has to get smarter.”

Full post at this link…

(Hat-tip: Adrian Monck via Delicious)

Similar posts:

• Online Journalism Review finds new home at Knight Center
• Are you on the Journa-list? Probably not if you’re a blogger
• NewWest.Net: Reporter stopped from tweeting trial
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk

#Citywot: Journalists to debate the influence of political reporting – 6pm BST

“The general election is fast approaching and the Sun’s decision to publish its support for the Tories has brought the subject of political reporting to the forefront of debate once again,” is how City University introduces tonight’s political journalism debate.

The panel debating the general election race will include: Sam Coates (chief political correspondent, the Times), Pippa Crerar (political correspondent, Evening Standard) and Steve Richards (chief political commentator, the Independent). They’ll be answering:

“Does it matter nowadays if the Sun switches party? Will TV debates make any difference to the result? What effect will the scandal of MPs expenses have? Has blogging changed politics? And what do Gordon Brown’s aides mean when they talk about ‘the news sandwich’?”

We’re hoping there will be some tweets live from the event. We’re told the hashtag is #citywot, so look out for them here…

Similar posts:

• Party strategists terrified YouTube could derail election campaigns, says Independent’s Steve Richards
• BBC release: BBC, ITV and Sky submit joint letter calling for three live televised election debates
• Sky News ‘Leaders’ Debate’ campaign gathers pace – and criticism
• Greg Dyke claims BBC is part of ‘Westminster conspiracy’ preventing democratic change
• Nieman Reports: Twitter should add to and not replace reporting