Travis Fox's Journey Along the Mexican Border

Washington Post videojournalist Travis Fox previously documented "Mexico at War: On the Front Lines," a series of five short videos that investigated the drug trade's spiraling violence and its numerous human implications.

Tomorrow Fox returns to the scene with a travelogue, "Journey Along the Border," visually chronicling the "militarized hot zone, where tens of thousands of Mexican soldiers are fighting a vicious drug war against well-armed, rich and powerful drug traffickers, who smuggle across these desert highways 90 percent of the cocaine so voraciously consumed in the United States. On the U.S. side, the federal government is pouring taxpayer money into the border, promising to stem the flow of cash and guns heading south, while the border patrol continues its ceaseless cat-and-mouse search for Mexican migrants sneaking north."

Fox's daily diary approach is similar to the methodology of his cross-country video trek last fall, "Hard Times," which explored how the economic downturn might influence Americans' votes in the upcoming presidential election. (See "Hard Times" and the previous installment of "Mexico at War" showcased on KobreGuide.com.)

"We're going to tell the stories of overwhelmed small town sheriffs, of drug smugglers and drug czars, of the Mexicans who struggle to survive in dusty villages and the Americans who fear that the drug war is getting way too close for comfort. We're going to talk to cops and mayors, some scientists and singers, and lots of regular folks, too. We've got a map, an ice chest, a video camera, and the laptops. "

We'll be watching. Look for the project on KobreGuide's Washington Post channel.

Hard Times: End of the Road

Washington Post videojournalist Travis Fox has completed his cross-country videoblog, Hard Times, which explores how Americans are coping with the economic downturn, and how it may influence their vote -- as showcased on KobreGuide. Here is his final entry, and be sure to watch his entire series of videos:

The circuitous route I took between Santa Barbara and Washington totaled nearly 5,000 miles, but in a nation riveted by perhaps the most historic election in American history, it was also so much more. A month ago, I went to Google Maps to define a route that would take me across America, through mountains and desert, big cities and small towns, and, inevitably, through parts of this country both red and blue. After three rental cars, 17 states and almost a month on the road, I returned with a snapshot of this nation wracked by economic crisis and fears of the future, where Americans of every stripe have one eye on the problems of the present even as the other looks nervously toward nation’s next chapter after Election Day.

The Sky is Falling: Who's Left to Cover It?

This week's media news:

• The Christian Science Monitor is ceasing publication of its weekday paper.


• Time Inc. is cutting 600 jobs.


• Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper publisher, is laying off 3,000 (ten percent of its work force).


• The Los Angeles Times newsroom is slashing yet another 75.


• The Newark Star-Ledger is reducing its editorial staff by 40 percent to prevent closing.


• TV Guide, which Rupert Murdoch unloaded in '99 for $9.2 billion, was sold for one dollar -- one-third the cost of a single issue.

Tragically, print media is in big trouble -- and the companies that own publications were too shortsighted to invest in multimedia production that could have bolstered and monetized their online presence. Consequently, their Websites simply do not have the value of their print equivalents, and as the print product shrinks and disappears, it's questionable as to what will happen with the Websites. There won't be anybody left to provide content for them -- and despite conventional wisdom, that content doesn't create itself. In short, they're doomed. Unless they start getting smart and investing immediately in high-quality multimedia and video journalism.

In Mourning Old Media's Decline , the New York Times' David Carr explains the economics of why, in terms of revenue, a Website can't replace a print product. As you read this, ask yourself if things might have been a lot different if publishers had sufficient vision to build their multimedia capabilities, and produce more online packages of the quality that you see regularly showcased on KobreGuide.com ?

For readers, the drastic diminishment of print raises an obvious question: if more people are reading newspapers and magazines, why should we care whether they are printed on paper? The answer is that paper is not just how news is delivered; it is how it is paid for. More than 90 percent of the newspaper industry’s revenue still derives from the print product, a legacy technology that attracts fewer consumers and advertisers every single day. A single newspaper ad might cost many thousands of dollars while an online ad might only bring in $20 for each 1,000 customers who see it.

The difference between print dollars and digital dimes — or sometimes pennies — is being taken out of the newsrooms that supply both. And while it is indeed tough all over in this economy, consider the consequences.

New Jersey, a petri dish of corruption, will have to make do with 40 percent fewer reporters at The Star-Ledger, one of the few remaining cops on the beat. The Los Angeles Times, which toils under Hollywood’s nose, has one movie reviewer left on staff. And dozens of communities served by Gannett will have fewer reporters and editors overseeing the deeds and misdeeds of local government and businesses.

At the recent American Magazine Conference, one of the speakers worried that if the great brands of journalism — the trusted news sources readers have relied on — were to vanish, then the Web itself would quickly become a “cesspool” of useless information. That kind of hand-wringing is a staple of industry gatherings.

But in this case, it wasn’t an old journalism hack lamenting his industry. It was Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google.

Hard Times: On the Road with Travis Fox

No sooner do we discourse on the improbability of finding a newspaper staffer who single-handedly possesses all the necessary skills for creating superb multimedia stories -- reporting, interviewing, writing, shooting, editing -- than we feature a noteworthy travel video blog, Hard Times, updated daily by the Washington Post's Travis Fox, the one-man-band of videojournalism. 

Sure, plenty of newspaper photographers have picked up a videocam,  fiddled with editing  software, and produced

competent pieces on their own. But Fox is that rara avis who excels in all arenas, and consistently produces sparkling award-winning packages.  He won the first national Emmy ever awarded for 'non-television' (i.e. Web) News & Documentary programming. As you can see from some of his stellar work showcased on KobreGuide, Fox has circled the globe in pursuit of great stories, from Coney Island to Darfur. 

As we speak, Fox is on the road again. He's driving from L.A. to D.C. to create a series of text and video grassroots snapshots of the U.S. economy and how it's impacting the imminent election. While many political journalists are rewriting press handouts and gathering quotes at staged events, Fox is wending his way through small towns and big cities, talking to real Americans of all stripes, for a ground-level appraisal of the state of our nation. 

He's augmenting his video reports with original contemporary still photographs that he juxtaposes with classic images by Depression-era masters, and the parallel stories they tell: 

Blythe is on the California and Arizona border, an oasis in the middle of the desert. In 1936 Dorothea Lange found a family stuck here during their travels from Oklahoma to more fertile lands in California (top photo). Today Blythe is a pit stop on I-10 halfway between Los Angeles and Phoenix. But people still get stuck here. Edward "Bubba" McCouskey has been stranded for eight days. Broke and sleeping on the streets, he's trying to get a lift back to his native Texas after a hitchhiking trip to California (bottom photo).

Plus ça change...