Tag Archives: video-journalist

E&P: AP videojournalist in the thick of it in the Gulf of Mexico

Rich Matthews, a videojournalist with Associated Press, decided to report from the Gulf of Mexico’s oil-slicked waters. Not content with looking overboard, he went diving, intending first to go 60 feet but having to cut this back to 20 feet due to the lack of visibility.

I jump off the boat into the thickest, reddest patch of oil I’ve ever seen (…) I open my eyes and realise my mask is already smeared. I can’t see anything and we’re just five seconds into the dive.

Full story at this link…

Jimmy Carr mocks VJ’s camera: ‘That’s from home!’

A great video from the East Anglian Daily Times at this link. Its video journalist’s equipment just wasn’t big enough for Jimmy Carr’s approval last week. Photographers tried to grab shots of the comedian outside the court hearing in Suffolk on May 13 that saw Jimmy Carr’s speeding trial adjourned.

Carr told the VJ: “It’s not a proper camera. You’re not a proper journalist: look at that! That’s from home.”

Transcript:

Jimmy Carr:

“Do you want to grab a shot and then leave it?”

Photographer, off-camera:

“Can I get you both together?”

Carr, walking off:

“No, you definitely can’t now!”

Lawyer, to camera:

“No, we can’t make any comment at all at the moment. The case has been adjourned so it would be inappropriate to make any comment, ok.”

(…)

Carr, walking past cameras:

“(…)Thanks for coming, I feel very important. Very nice of you.

“If you’ve got shots… ‘cos I’m going to drive away – I don’t want people taking shots when I’m driving. It’s very dangerous.

“It’s not a proper camera. You’re not a proper journalist: look at that! That’s from home.”

Muffled muttering off-camera, not clear who says it:

“… Mickey Mouse camera”

Full story at this link…

(via the Guardian’s Media Monkey)

[Release] PHR: Forensic conflicts over death of video-journalist Brad Will

The Physician for Human Rights (PHR) restates its case that American video-journalist Brad Will, who died of gunshot wounds while covering protests in Oaxaca in October 2006, was hit by a ricochet bullet in the chest, supporting the theory of longer-range gunshots.

Mexico’s Attorney General (PGR) claims Will was killed by gunshots from within his immediate vicinity. Full release…

CUNY: Innovative web video journalism panel

City University of New York (CUNY) is hosting a panel on innovative web journalism, which we are going to attempt to stream below. It kicks off at 6pm (EST). It can now be viewed by following this link here.

Participating in the discussion of video storytelling online are:

Travis Fox, Emmy-award winning video journalist from The Washington Post

Rachel Sterne, founder and CEO of GroundReport, a citizen journalism platform at GroundReport.com

Benjamin Wagner, vice president of MTV News

Daniel Greenberg, director of production at WNET

Thanks to CUNY professor Sandeep Junnarkar for the link to the live coverage.

How news flows though the partially integrated newsroom of Liverpool Post and Echo papers

The Hub and Spoke laying out may be in vogue for the majority of those adapting to an integrated newsroom but you’d be hard pressed to call Trinity Mirror’s Liverpool nerve centre anything other than an archipelago.

Alison Gow, deputy editor of Liverpool Daily Post, gave Journalism.co.uk a quick tour and explained how a partially rather than fully integrated newsroom for Liverpool’s Daily Post and Echo newspapers and a portfolio of weeklies served them best.

Similar to other large cities in the UK, Liverpool’s morning paper, the Liverpool Daily Post (typically 15,000 copies circulated per day) and the evening Echo (109,000) serve vastly different markets. To account for this the newsroom has integrated but also demarked areas where each paper’s interest is best served by not mixing processes.

The newsdesks of the Post & Echo had previously been fully integrated but the unsuccessful experiment lasted only 18 months and end in 2001, as it didn’t fully serve the needs each paper had and met with opposition from staff who were resistant to working on the other title.

“I suspect the industry is a lot more broad-minded now as we work across print, internet, TV and radio,” Gow told Journalism.co.uk.

COPY

The dailies and weekly newspapers have adapted and refined a partially integrated newsroom where the two main papers share news copy, but keep diary and features separate.

“A government minister in town would tend to be interviewed by a Post reporter,” Gow told Journalism.co.uk. “That copy would be sent by the Post newsdesk to the Echo newsdesk to be rewritten and subbed down. Echo page leads are around 350, Post 600 plus.

“The Post & Echo share a court reporter but the very distinct target audiences of both papers means what makes a splash in the Echo, gangster trials for example, may struggle to make a page lead in the Post.

“Inquests would be covered by one reporter whose copy would be shared between both papers.

“An exception would be Liverpool council meetings – mostly covered by the council reporters from both papers as it’s a contact-building exercise as much as anything.”

The Echo can also publish stories from the weeklies the day the papers are published, Gow added, as the assistant news editor has access to their content queues.

“It’s a co-operative system and involves the newsdesks, picturedesk and multimedia desks talking to each other. That’s why the command desk is so important,” added Gow.

STAFF

At the centre of the archipelago – the big island – is the command desk where Post and Echo news editors and their deputies sit along with a picture editor who works across both publications and the Echo design editor.

Reporters are title specific, as are the features and sports teams, and both papers have separate features and sports editors and deputy editors, Arts editors and motoring editors.

A multimedia head, working across both titles, also sits on the command desk. As on the web, Gow says, the two publications have ‘more fluid identities’.

Each department desks now has embedded digital journalist. Under the old system ‘they just used to sit in the corner away from everyone else’ said Gow. Now they espouse the need for web content and ensure the website remains an area of focus for each department on each title now that they break 99 per cent of their stories online.

Video is a separate entity altogether – one video journalist is responsible for managing libraries, cutting pieces and training newsroom staff and reporters in video-journalism.

She has trained eight other staff so far, giving them a week’s hands-on training so that they can manage handicams and cut footage. They aim for a new web video each day.

SUBBING

A pool of eight subs work across the Echo, the England and Welsh Daily Posts, Huddersfield Examiner, the Chester Chronicle, the Merseyside and North Wales weekly papers on a rota basis.

There are also title-specific staff who work primarily for each paper – ‘champions’ of each brand, adds Gow.

This approach has shifted subs from thinking they work for a single publication, she said, to a ‘hive-mind’ where they work across several titles.

Video: So you want to be a video journalist?

Video supremo David Dunkley Gyima has put together a ‘Mi6 Videojournalist Manifesto’ from an project he worked on with Visual Editor’s CEO Robb Montgomery. Wonderful visuals, but I have to admit to being a bit baffled by it…

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyT__Z8sCAs]

Video blogging hits Shropshire

Local rag The Shropshire Star has an entertaining blog from video journalist James Shaw.

Shaw, who started the blog in January, posts on the trials and tribulations of being a video journalist in the making.

Top tips include:

  1. Try not to laugh when operating a hand-held device;
  2. Always check your kit before starting a job;
  3. Don’t get jealous of other people’s cameras.

Might sound obvious, but these are the sort of things you only find out when it’s already too late.

Good luck James, and thanks to Martin Stabe for pointing this out.