Learn Videojournalism Online from Top Pros

We're proud to announce that KobreGuide is officially an affiliate of the New York Video School (NYVS), an online education center created by pioneering videojournalist Michael Rosenblum.

NYVS provides anyone with a video camera an easy and affordable way to learn to make films and videos like a Hollywood professional.

As a NYVS member you'll have access to video courses, critiques, tutorials and a learning community that will help you quickly become a master at video editing, video production, videography, iMovie, Final Cut Pro and much more!

NYVS instructors have worked with PBS, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, ABC, CBS, the New York Times, and many other leading media institutions.

Among the benefits of registering for the NYVS online curriculum:

* Learn video with hundreds of online tutorials
* View the latest video news and events
* Find opportunities to use your videos
* Participate in online video contests
* Post and search for jobs and internships
* Find places to make money creating video

NYVS courses have been grouped into five categories: Storytelling, Shooting, Editing, Practical Use, Video Basics

Andre Malok, a videojournalist at the Newark Star-Ledger, took Rosenblum's popular VJ video training bootcamp two years ago. He recently produced this stellar 24-minute online documentary (below), "The Wreck of the Lady Mary." The in-depth video represents a rare high-quality blend of reporting and interviewing with shooting and editing. Remarkably Malok accomplished it all single-handedly, using techniques and skills that you can acquire at NYVS.

The Lady Mary left the Port of Cape May on the morning of March 18, 2009 on a routine scallop fishing trip. The vessel with its crew of seven traveled 66 miles to a restricted scallop fishing area. Early on March 24, the boat sank to the bottom of the ocean, and six of the seven crewman were killed. Was the boat swamped in rough seas? Or did a passing container ship strike the boat without ever knowing it? After months of investigation, the Star-Ledger explores the mystery of the wreck of the Lady Mary.

For more info on NYVS, or to enroll in courses, please go here.

Making Stuff with David Pogue

For your weekend viewing pleasure, we share with you the first episode of "Making Stuff," PBS's new four-part NOVA series exploring the materials that will shape our future.

It's hosted by popular New York Times technology columnist David Pogue, with an entertaining mixture of wonder and humor. The first installment, "Making Stuff Stronger," looks at what defines strength. Among the materials explored: steel, Kevlar, carbon nanotubes, bioengineered silk, mollusk shells, a toucan's beak.

Pogue travels from the deck of a U.S. naval aircraft carrier to a demolition derby to the country's top research labs to check in with experts who are re-engineering what nature has given us to create the next generation of strong stuff.

The one-hour show was written, directed and produced by Chris Schmidt.

Upcoming installments:

* Making Stuff: Smaller
Future technologies will depend on tiny stuff—from silicon chips to micro-robots that probe the human body. (Premiering January 26 on PBS)

* Making Stuff: Cleaner
Can innovative materials help solve the energy crisis and lead to a sustainable future? (Premiering February 2 on PBS)

* Making Stuff: Smarter
Explore a new generation of ingenious materials, from clothes that monitor your mood to real-life invisibility cloaks. (Premiering February 9 on PBS)

What will the future bring, and what will it be made of? From the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age to more recent periods dominated by plastics and silicon, materials have defined the progression of humankind. Now we are once again poised on the verge of a materials revolution, as researchers around the globe push the boundaries further than ever before, using biology and chemistry to imbue materials with new qualities that are expanding our technological frontiers.

You can watch the fascinating series here.

Meanwhile, here's the first episode, in seven "chapters":















"Making Stuff" is produced in cooperation with the Materials Research Society (MRS), an international organization of nearly 16,000 materials researchers from academia, industry, and government.

Videos Explore Rape in Haiti & South Africa

Two recent online video documentaries explore separate cultural perspectives on the issue of rape.

"Inside the Cycle of Rape" (PBS/Frontline) examines a warden's attempt to rehabilitate a group of perpetrators in a South African prison.

Reporter Elena Ghanotakis (pictured) went to Cape Town for the first time in 2004 on a post-graduate fellowship from Dartmouth College to do HIV awareness work with women and girls. "Through this experience, I met many women and children whose lives had been devastated by sexual violence and abuse."

Eventually, I received permission from Pollsmoor Prison, a maximum security facility on the outskirts of Cape Town, to interview dozens of men convicted of rape. The permission process to film at Pollsmoor took 2 years...

My guide inside Pollsmoor was warden and therapist Chris Malgas, who runs a counseling program for convicted offenders using groupwork and individual therapy. My follow up story is a raw look at some of those interactions between Chris and his group, a testament to why it's so difficult to stop South Africa's cycle of sexual abuse...

The perpetrators testimonies provide a grim picture of growing up in the townships and the crimes these men committed. Many talked about being exposed to violent gang culture from a young age, where rape was a rite of passage.

During my time at Pollsmoor, I learned as much about Chris, a 33-year veteran of the prison system, and his motivation to keep his voluntary program going, as I did about the environment inside and outside prison that grooms these men to commit their crimes...

*****

"Children of Rape" (MSNBC.com) looks at sexual violence and its legacy in post-quake Haiti. Meredith Birkett tells us, "I produced this story with the raw materials reported by Nadav Neuhaus. It was a very difficult story to report, but Nadav did a wonderful job of working with the rape victims in a sensitive way and depicting their plight with respect." The video is accompanied by a slideshow.

A year after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, women in Haiti’s still-teeming tent cities face yet another threat: sexual violence. With little protection from community or law enforcement, many have been violently raped, only to become pregnant with their attackers’ children.

Photojournalist Nadav Neuhaus traveled through Haiti’s tent cities last summer, photographing and interviewing dozens of residents in the camps that still house more than 1 million people. During a visit to Camp La Piste, home to 50,000 displaced people, Neuhaus noticed an unusually high number of pregnant women. A community organizer and a local midwife confirmed his worries: Many of the women were pregnant as a result of rape.

They came to Camp La Piste after losing parents, brothers and husbands in the earthquake, leaving them to fend for themselves in the sprawling squalor, where roving gangs of armed men terrorize residents.

In a new report, Amnesty International documents the rise in sexual violence, including at least 250 rapes reported in the first few months after the earthquake. Fueled in part by these sexual attacks, the birth rate in Haiti has tripled since the quake, climbing from 4 percent to 12 percent, according to population experts.

Most women told Neuhaus they don’t report the rapes, either out of shame or fear of repercussions. Even if they wanted to report the crimes, there's little help in a country where police and justice systems are destroyed or distracted and where resources for the powerless are almost non-existent.

Newspaper Wins DuPont Broadcast Award

What's remarkable about the 13 recipients of this year's Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for national broadcast journalism is that, amidst the usual alphabet-soup suspects (ABC, CBS, PBS, BBC, NPR), we find the Las Vegas Sun.

Videojournalism stories on the Websites of print newspapers (such as the Detroit Free Press) have started winning Emmy Awards, which were previously bestowed only upon TV productions. But this is the first time that the prestigious DuPont award has gone to a print newspaper -- in this case, for "Bottoming Out," an online multimedia package about gambling addiction.

(Needless to say, the video was originally showcased on KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism at the time of publication.)

The cornerstone of the three-part package is a video self-portrait by Tony McDew, who documented his own Las Vegas casino slot machine addiction with the hope of helping others, and in the process ended up quitting gambling himself.

The series is strengthened by a powerful video diary following one man’s descent into gambling addiction with strong interactive engagement. The Las Vegas Sun explored problem gambling three ways — through the experiences of an addict; by examining what happens inside the brain of an addict; and by considering the role of slot machine designs in feeding gambling addictions. The web site also provides support and resources to help gambling addicts.

Part 1: Tony's Story
The pull of a drug, a push to the brink

Part 2: The Physiology
Illness theory gaining ground for gambling addiction

Part 3: The Machines
Could the game be partly to blame for addiction?



LINKS:

* Las Vegas Sun's award-winning multimedia package on gambling addiction.

* Las Vegas Sun story about DuPont Award

* "Bottoming Out" on KobreGuide

* 2011 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award Winners

President's Photographer: Tonight on PBS

Be sure to catch The President's Photographer: 50 Years in the Oval Office tonight on PBS. The National Geographic production features Pete Souza, an acclaimed photojournalist who previously served as President Reagan's official photographer, and now performs those same duties for President Obama.

Did we mention that Pete was one of our first photojournalism students, way back when? He's currently on leave of absence from his normal post as an assistant professor of photojournalism at Ohio University's School of Visual Communication.

The presidential photographer's job is two-fold: one, taking photographs of the president greeting dignitaries, visitors and guests; and two, perhaps more challenging and gratifying: documenting for history every possible aspect of the presidency, both official events, backstage happenings and "off-duty" private moments. "Creating a good photographic archive for history is the most important part of my job, creating this archive that will live on," says Souza. "This is not so much photojournalism as photo-history." Souza and his staff produce up to 20,000 pictures a week.

"The job of presidential photographer is all about access and trust, and if you have both of those you're going to make interesting, historic pictures," Souza says. He earned the President's trust by following Obama on his rise to the Presidency covering then Senator Obama as a photographer for the Chicago Tribune.

Watch the full episode. See more The Presidents Photographer.

Read the Washington Post's excellent review here. Excerpt:

Perhaps only Bo the Dog and personal aide Reggie Love have better access to Obama than Souza, who is a constant presence with a couple of cameras slung over his droopy shoulders. Both Bo and Love figure prominently in some of the memorable shots Souza has taken so far; the president, we learn, is particularly enamored of a photograph of himself blocking Love's shot on the basketball court....

Without hammering the point, and with some of the more interesting behind-the-scenes footage yet of the Obama White House, "The President's Photographer" makes clear the lasting power of the still photograph, even in this tech-savvy era. It's possible that Souza's perfect picture of Obama already exists; probably it has yet to be taken. Time has a way of editing all images down to the one that says it all.

Read our previous blog items about Pete Souza, here and here. And check out his online portfolio, which also showcases his "non-presidential" assignments.

Check your local PBS listings for air times.

Immigration Raid Documentary on PBS Frontline Tonight

Tonight, PBS Frontline/World will broadcast a 15-minute version of the documentary "In the Shadow of the Raid," by directors Greg Brosnan and Jennifer Szymaszek.

The documentary details the devastating cross-border economic impact of the United States' largest ever immigration raid, in Postville, Iowa on May 12, 2008. The raid exactly two years ago on the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant wrought economic disaster on a Guatemalan village and wrecked the economy of a former Midwestern boom town.

Here is the trailer for the longer 30-minute version:



Frontline's "Guatemala: A Tale of Two Villages" (pictured), by Brosnan and  Szymaszek, was showcased last year on KobreGuide.

New VR Photography Book Teaches How to Create Interactive Panoramas

Scott Highton is a San Francisco-based photojournalist and documentary filmmaker whose credits include over 60 productions for PBS, Discovery Channel, Arts & Entertainment, Turner Broadcasting and the National Audubon Society.

He has also helped pioneer the field of virtual reality photography. You've seen VR photographs on the Web if you've ever encountered an interactive 360-degree panoramic image, where you can "navigate" the scene by dragging and clicking, so that you appear to move left and right, up and down, and closer and further away. VR photography is also used online for giving the appearance of spinning an object around, with your cursor or keyboard, to observe it from all angles and perspectives.

Highton's now published the definitive volume on "Virtual Reality Photography," so that multimedia journalists can learn the required techniques for creating state-of-the-art VR images for themselves. It's amply illustrated in full-color throughout, with tips, techniques, and detailed instruction.

In four sections it covers photography basics, panoramic VR imaging, object VR imaging, and "how to run an effective business offering professional VR photography services, based on the author's 30+ years of experience."

Watch Scott Highton lecture on VR photography here (74-minute video).

See examples of VR photography here and here.

For more info on the book (including sample chapters), or to order, go here.

MediaStorm Is First Web DuPont Winner

The Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for excellence in broadcast journalism are usually won by prominent TV and radio organizations. Yesterday, for the first time, a duPont Award went to a Web-based entry.

Among such recipients as CBS, HBO, PBS and NPR was Brian Storm's MediaStorm, the Brooklyn-based multimedia production studio that has partnered with news organizations and NGOs around the world to create pioneering videojournalism (as proudly showcased on KobreGuide).

MediaStorm's winning entry was Intended Consequences, "a moving multimedia presentation about Rwandan children born of rape," with photographs and interviews by Jonathan Torgovnik.

In painfully intimate interviews photojournalist Jonathan Torgovnik explores an unfathomable question: can a mother love a child born out of rape. The women profiled in this haunting multimedia presentation were caught in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when mass rapes resulted in the birth of an estimated 20,000 children. It spotlights an issue which had not been as widely covered as other war crimes in Rwanda, and is the first Web-based production to win a duPont Award. The women speak simply about their brutal experiences, their isolation and suffering, and the way forward. The producers made excellent creative choices that contributed to the impact of the reporting without resorting to sensationalism.

Jonathan Torgovnik; photography and interviews; Chad A. Stevens, producer; Jules Shell, on-location video; Bob Sacha, Chad A. Stevens, studio video; Pamela Chen, Sherman Jia, composers; Tim Klimowicz, graphics; Brian Storm, executive producer

Well deserved kudos to Brian and his MediaStormtroopers!

DuPont details and other winners here.

Descriptions of winning programs here.

Video WTF Answers: Zi8 Zoom? Cheap Wireless Mic? Best Mini-Docs?

A month ago, we told you about Video WTF, a free community-operated Website where you can ask any question pertaining to video -- cameras, accessories, editing, production, whatever.

We posed a couple questions and promised to share the answers, so here they are!

Question #1:

My new Kodak Zi8 pocket video camera is wonderful in many ways. BUT the zoom stops-and-starts, and produces a squeak that is picked up on the audio track. Has anybody else had this experience? (I haven't seen it referenced in reviews.) Is it just a glitch in my camera, or a flaw with the model? Other than return it, any recommended self-administered fixes? Thanks!

And the responses:

Aaron:

I have a Zi8. I never use the zoom but I just tested mine out and it does the stop starting jerky motion you mentioned. I wouldn't expect such a small camera and lens to have a smooth zoom so I reckon that's normal. I didn't pick up any problems with audio though.

If the squeal is high-pitched you could try running it through an audio filter in post depending on what you have for editing software. I use the Low Pass filter in Final Cut to eliminate high pitch buzz from VHS tapes.

Heath:

Make sure you have downloaded and installed the newest firmware for the zi8. If you go to the Kodak site under support you can find it. This will help with the audio and the zoom. I have used the zoom a few different times and it's fairly smooth with the new firmware.

(Caveat: We strongly caution against using digital zoom anyway, but at least it should work properly for those who want to.)

Question #2:

Has anybody had experience with Azden WMS-PRO Wireless Microphone System (pictured)? With the advent of inexpensive pocket video cameras, I envision that price of lavalier mic systems will decrease, but this $160 pricetag seems too good to be true. What's the catch? Static?...

B. Vaughan

Yes...someone who didn't know much at our office bought these for reporters to use for quick interviews. They are vhf, choice of 2 channels, which means you may pick up supurious interferance in the crowded vhf bands...they are not very: (1) sensitive (2) rejective of interference (3)quality mikes and, to be fair, not expensive if it's all you feel you can do. You will soon outgrow them.

OK, they work at short range, but this is the el cheapo end of the Azden line, and you gets what you pays for....have had excellent service from a number of Sennheiser G2 units, which have been replaced by the new G3 series. Of course, they are way more money, but imho the sweet spot in cost/effectiveness. (Hey, have you priced lectrosonic, you'll see what I mean). My two cents

Ryanne:

i used an azden boom mic for a couple years and it was terrible! i thought it was ok until i switched to a Rode boom ($250 but well worth every penny). i would seriously recommend making an investment in good mics. we use the Sennheiser wireless lavs and they have saved my career every time i've used them. worth every penny!

So there you have it. We continued to poke around the site, and found plenty of other intriguing questions and answers. Here's one that you might find personally useful:

I feel like solid short films, especially mini-docs, have a poor signal to noise ratio online. What are some of the best documentaries you've found that are under ten minutes long?

And some responses:

Like a Bird on a Wire - 3:18

Not technically a mini-doc, a segment from the helicopter documentary "Straight Up!", showing power line maintenance being performed on live wires by a man outside a helicopter, using a type of Faraday cage. I've never seen the whole film but this stands alone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3q9WdjD5wc

***

Parkour Documentary - 4:01

A film about a space and the art of motion. A very well assembled piece on a simple subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkHPQPozDRs

***

NDR Extra3 Bahnuebergang Groß Duengen - 3:16

Unfortunately not available in english, but the german words do not say anything that wouldn't be obvious by the image already:

It's about the man and the job on a hand-operated railroad-crossing on a road leading to one house, two families, three cars and four horses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZYvQNB5FXY

***

Anything by Les Blank

His films on video are a little harder to find. You might have luck at the library or local specialty video stores if you have any where you live. Run times vary from 5 min. to 2 hrs.

http://lesblank.com/main.html

***

Utopia 3 by Sam Green and Carrie Lozano

One of the best mini-docs I saw last year at the Ann Arbor Film Festival

http://www.pbs.org/pov/utopia/

Looks like POV has a collection of shorts that might interest you:

http://www.pbs.org/pov/shorts/

Int'l Documentary Ass'n Awards Announced

The 2009 International Documentary Association's Awards ceremony will take place on Friday, Dec. 4 in Los Angeles.

Winners were announced today in several major categories, including Limited Series (Sundance Channel’s Architecture School); Continuing Series (PBS' POV, in its 22nd season); and Music (Anvil! The Story Of Anvil).

Anvil! The Story Of Anvil also competes against Afghan Star, Diary Of A Times Square Thief, Food, Inc. and Mugabe And The White African for IDA's top feature prize, which will be revealed at the event.

More winners:

The IDA/Humanitas Award, a new prize established this year and recognizing a film that strives to unify the human family, goes to Mai Iskander’s Garbage Dreams, which follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world’s largest garbage village, on the outskirts of Cairo. Here, the Zaballeen, Arabic for ‘garbage people,’ are suddenly faced with the globalization of its trade.

The IDA/Pare Lorentz Award, in homage to the pioneering filmmaker’s legacy, goes to Irene Taylor Brodsky’s Oscar nominated short The Final Inch, about a vast army of health workers who go door-to-door in some of India’s poorest neighborhoods, ensuring every child is vaccinated for polio.

IDA continues to recognize the next generation of documentary filmmakers with its prestigious David L. Wolper Student Documentary Achievement Award. This year’s prize has been awarded to Stanford University’s Peter Jordan for his short documentary The First Kid To Learn English From Mexico, the story of 9-year-old Pedro's reluctant journey through elementary school in pursuit of the American Dream.

Errol Morris will receive a Career Achievement Award. This American Life host/producer Ira Glass (a former IDA Award recipient) returns as host.

More info at Documentary.org .

Newsday Explores Documentary Filmmaking

Excellent interview today on Knight Digital Media Center's Online Journalism Review.

Robert Niles (pictured) talks to Newsday's Thomas Maier about the paper's ambitious multimedia investigation into the aftermath of U.S. nuclear testing in the Pacific.

The topic: Can the Web forge a marriage between newspaper investigations and documentary filmmaking?

I asked Thomas if he'd answer some questions for OJR readers about the project. His responses got me thinking about the ways that newspaper investigations are naturally evolving into the same space as documentary filmmaking, thanks to multimedia convergence on the Web.

Having sat through so many PBS shows and pledge drives where hosts offer up copies of the network's documentaries on DVD for $20 a pop and up, Newsday's initial steps into documentary production suggest, to me at least, a possible alternate medium for newspapers to pursue their so-far elusive paid-content dreams. Forget about reading text on the Web for a moment. How about getting folks to pay for newspaper-produced investigative documentaries on Blu-Ray and DVD? Or pay-per-view or short-term rental via cable, satellite or movie distribution networks such as Netflix? What are the possibilities for long-form video news storytelling?

The in-depth interview explores Newsday's ambitious pioneering efforts, and is well worth your attention. It concludes:

Robert: How do you would justify future multimedia of this magnitude to a skeptical, cost-conscious management? (And if your management loves you now and is willing to fund future projects, how would you advise journalists in other newsrooms to elicit that kind of support?)

Thomas: The future for smart literate newspapers and magazines is clearly in multimedia presentations, showcased in ways that reflect who you're trying to attract as an audience. The old style of newspaper editors who prefer simply car accidents and cop arrests, turning the Web into a police blotter, are quickly fading. The challenge for newspapers will be in translating the "brain" of the newsroom – all those reporters working beats and developing sources and able to write print stories on deadline – into compelling and complementary video that can be quickly produced, scripted, narrated and edited with the quite efficient technology already available today like Final Cut Pro and Avid. Developing video and print stories together – under the same newsroom umbrella and not as separate units wary of one another – is the only way to go. That's especially so if your idea is to extend and capitalize on the affluent, well-educated audience of a suburban paper like Newsday and bring it profitably into the video age. This is no easy task, but it should be embraced by any journalist who wants to bring their stories to the widest audience possible. I do believe any print reporter – armed with a small HD camera and after some quick training on Final Cut Pro – can produce a five-minute video to accompany the next important print story you do. ... Documentary-making is the natural video expression of the newspaper investigation series. It's only a matter of time until newsrooms and their audience realize this.

Links:

* Interview here.
* Robert Niles bio here.
* Robert Niles Website here.
* Newsday multimedia investigation here.

YouTube Reporters' Center Offers Free Journalism Training From Top Pros

YouTube has launched yet another initiative to encourage this bizarre phenomenon known as "citizen journalism." Apparently in response to criticism, such as ours, that journalism should be the purview of professionals, and average Joes who contribute cellphone video clips of airline disasters are properly called "eyewitnesses," YouTube has now taken it upon itself to provide free journalism training to the masses. Naturally, it takes the form of short instructional video segments, housed in its brand new Reporters' Center.

The upside to all this is that the teachers are not just any J-school profs, but CBS's Katie Couric ("How to Conduct a Good Interview"), Washington Post's Bob Woodward ("Investigative Journalism"), New York Times's Nicholas Kristof ("Covering a Global Crisis"), NPR's Scott Simon ("How to Tell a Story"), PBS's Tavis Smiley ("How to Get More From Your Subject"), Arianna Huffington ("Citizen Journalism"), and a few dozen more top pros.

Ever captured a natural disaster or a crime on your cell-phone camera? Filmed a political rally or protest, and then interviewed the participants afterward? Produced a story about a local issue in your community? If you've done any of these things or aspire to, then you're part of the enormous community of citizen reporters on YouTube, and this channel is for you.

The YouTube Reporters' Center is a new resource to help you learn more about how to report the news. It features some of the nation's top journalists and news organizations sharing instructional videos with tips and advice for better reporting.

In its true spirit of Web democracy, YouTube even enables everybody -- yes, even YOU -- to join the ranks of Couric, Woodward, et al in teaching journalism: "If you have experiences on reporting the news yourself and would like to share your tips, feel free to submit them for inclusion on this page."

There's no denying the entertainment value of hearing someone as brilliant and accomplished as Nick Kristof (a favorite contributor to KobreGuide's New York Times channel) discourse about covering global crises. He strikes a tone that's alternatively serious and tongue-in-cheek, addressing topics ranging from safety tips ("The first rule is to make sure you get back alive. Never argue with people with large guns. There's no point in getting a great interview with a warlord if afterwards he kills you and takes your video.") to basic storytelling pointers ("Personalize the story. Americans don't care about thousands of people starving, but they can be made to care about one individual, and, through that person, about the larger problem.")

Steve Myers at Poynter Online provides thoughtful coverage and commentary... and the most generous interpretation of YouTube's goals:

The project is part of a larger effort to make YouTube a destination for video news and to cement it as the meeting place for people who witness important events and the organizations that need their accounts.

Meanwhile, below is an overview -- and a few sample "lessons" -- to help you draw your own conclusions about the project's merits. If nothing else, there's definitely an abundance of journalism wisdom in these tutorials. News purveyors and consumers alike stand to be enlightened by the collective lessons contained therein.

But, as always, we can't help but wonder if folks would be as motivated to devour video tutorials from leading cardiologists in how to perform your own heart bypass surgery.

MediaStorm Nabs Another Webby Award

Hooray for MediaStorm's well deserved Webby Award for "Documentary: Individual Episode," announced this morning. It's their fourth Webby.

The New York-based videojournalism production company took the prize for "Intended Consequences," by Jonathan Torgovnik. It's a harrowing story about the plight of thousands of woman who contracted HIV and bore children as a result of being raped during the Rwandan massacre.

The People's Voice winner in that category is "Kenya: Sweet Home Obama," for which American reporter Edwin Okong'o traveled to his home in Kenya to find out how his countrymen are rejoicing about Barack Obama.

Documentary Nominees (featured on KobreGuide):

• Intended Consequences (MediaStorm)


• Searching for the Snow Leopard (National Geographic)


• Kenya: Sweet Home Obama (PBS/Frontline)


• Rape in a Lawless Land (Guardian)


• Sri Lanka: A Terrorist in the Family (PBS/Frontline)

Read the official Webby Award profile of MediaStorm. And don't miss this illuminating Webby Award interview with MediaStorm founder Brian Storm.

Winners will be honored at a star-studded ceremony hosted by Saturday Night Live's Seth Meyers in New York City on June 8th. Starting on June 9th on the new, custom Webby Awards YouTube Channel, fans will be able to view dozens of short video highlights from the ceremony, including the winner's five-word speeches and celebrity red-carpet interviews. Past headline-grabbing speechmakers include Al Gore ("Please don't recount this vote") and Stephen Colbert ("Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.")

Hailed as the "Internet's highest honor" by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 650-person judging academy whose members include David Bowie, Harvey Weinstein, Arianna Huffington, Matt Groening, Vinton Cerf, and Richard Branson.

Established in 1996, the 13th Annual Webby Awards received over 10,000 entries from all 50 states and over 60 countries worldwide.

Complete winner list / Online Film & Video winners / Gala Awards Event info

PBS Launches Web Video Channel

PBS has launched an online video channel featuring thousands of full-length episodes of its top TV series, complete seasons of current shows, and archives of its classic series. Among the offerings: American Masters, Antiques Road Show, Masterpiece Theater, Nature and Nova.

While some PBS series (e.g. Frontline) had been previously available online, they were scattered throughout the site; now they're all conveniently under one enormous roof.

According to MediaWeek, "PBS plans to create programming packages for the site featuring compilations of episodes from various shows that touch upon a common theme, starting with this week’s environment-centric package, which is being launched to coincide with Earth Day. That collection includes snippets from Frontline, Nova and Nature, along with the classic Jean Michel Cousteau Ocean Adventures."

Here's the most exciting news:

PBS is also planning to roll out original Web series at some point down the road, according to Jason Seiken, PBS senior vp of Interactive.

Currently, PBS is offering a full-length "Web exclusive preview" of "Time Team America," a new science/reality series (debuting July 8) that sends archaeologists on a race against time to excavate historic sites around the nation.

Looks like we were prescient in creating our "Got an Hour?" channel on KobreGuide, which already includes excellent PBS programs.

Cast Your Webby Ballot

The 13th annual Webby Awards nominees have been announced. In the "Documentary: Individual Episode" category, two of the five have previously appeared on KobreGuide.com:

• Intended Consequences (MediaStorm)
• Searching for the Snow Leopard (National Geographic)
• Kenya: Sweet Home Obama (PBS/Frontline)
• Rape in a Lawless Land (Guardian)
• Sri Lanka: A Terrorist in the Family (PBS/Frontline)

In addition to the official awards determined by industry judges, separate "People's Voice" awards will go to nominees who receive the most online votes from their fellow Web denizens: "Last year, nearly half a million votes were cast and even more comments were posted to mark the biggest turnout in Webby history. And this year we expect even more spirited participation." You have until April 30 to cast your ballot.

The three-day awards extravaganza will be held in New York, June 8-10.

SPECIAL BONUS: Must-read interview with MediaStorm's formidable founder Brian Storm, a three-time Webby winner and current nominee.

NYTimes.com Videojournalism Nabs Peabody Award

The Peabody Awards annually celebrate excellence in traditional TV broadcasting. Its recipients generally include the likes of HBO, PBS, CNN -- and it has lauded groundbreaking classics from The Ed Sullivan Show and Edward R. Murrow's See It Now series to The Wire and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Guess who just received one this year? The New York Times. Not the paper, the NYTimes.com Website. Specifically, its online videojournalism.

According to its citation: "Aggressively and imaginatively adding sound and moving images to the news that's fit to print, the 'Gray Lady' became a leader in the emergence of new journalistic forms."

Well deserved, we say! And this clearly represents a recognition of the tidal change in the content, tone, genre, and delivery platform of video storytelling. (Other online recipients: YouTube and TheOnion.com!)

Peabody director Horace Newcomb: "The list of winners this year clearly indicates a changing media environment."

See what the fuss is about, on the New York Times channel on KobreGuide.

Hulu Expands Documentary Fare

KobreGuide gladly showcased Hulu's first hour-long documentary, Crawford, an illuminating look at the townsfolk in Pres. George W. Bush's adopted hometown, and how they were affected by his arrival.

We wondered whether viewers would have the time, patience and inclination to commit to spending an hour or more gazing at a movie on a computer monitor. But we also realized that this fare will soon appear on your TV set, among other screens. So, despite the fact that most of what's on KobreGuide is in the 2- to 7-minute range, we subsequently devoted an entire section of KobreGuide to longer video stories, in our "Got an Hour?" section.

Hulu is an NBC Universal-News Corp. joint venture that mostly streams primetime sitcoms online after they air on TV. When we recently checked in, we were amazed to find that, in the past few months, Hulu's feature-length documentary offerings have increased exponentially. They've even been given their own section.

Andy Forssell, Hulu's SVP of content acquisition and distribution, recently told Broadcasting & Cable magazine that its documentary section will feature films as well as short-form content. “It is really an exciting part of the industry. These filmmakers and their distributors are really looking at streaming carefully,” Forssell said, adding that the site is working with its major content partners to seed the section as well:

One of the opportunities in the movies [section] was to focus more on documentaries because the online availability provided them with a great chance to find and reach an audience. We focus on making a great platform but we love making connections between audience and content.

It is a great outlet for the content creators, because a very small percentage of their films may be in theaters; they are looking to be online.

According to B&C:

The section puts all of the documentary movies, TV shows and shorts in one place, making it easier for users to find. Plus it will help Hulu form relationships with independent filmmakers and studios, which could become a valuable source of content down the line.

Hulu's documentary channel features television programming from PBS, as well as the recently canceled FX show 30 Days. Newly added films include Super Size Me, which was the inspiration for the FX show, as well as Kicking It, which aired on ESPN last year, and Confessions of a Super Hero.

We'll be looking through their selections to find programming worthy of KobreGuide. Our feeling is that, if the material is meritorious and engaging, people will commit to it. We hope you agree.

Animated Documentaries?

It seems like a contradiction in terms -- one connotes fantasy, the other reality -- but expect to see more animated documentaries as animation becomes more affordable and accessible, and nonfiction video becomes more experimental. Ethical and aesthetic issues abound, but videojournalists need to be attuned to animation's capabilities and limitations, so they can know if, when and how they should use it.

Animation has been a viable component of documentaries for nearly a century, starting with Windsor McCay's 1918 animated re-creation of the sinking of the Lusitania three years earlier (no film footage available!), through all those high-school sex-ed films you had to endure, up through segments of Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine." Recent PBS documentaries have featured animation, including a re-creation of the Sixties' "Chicago 10" trial.

For a real treat, see Annie Leonard's "The Story of Stuff" -- "a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns." It's the most engaging environmental film you'll ever see, and it's just a woman talking in front of black-and-white cartoon drawings.

Next month brings us the much heralded Israeli film, "Waltz With Bashir," about the 1982 Lebanon war and massacre. A hit on the festival circuit, it purports to be the first feature-length animated documentary. Despite its gritty subject matter, it is a strong Oscar contender for Best Animated Film, along with the likes of "Wall-E" and "Kung Fu Panda."

Here's the synopsis:

One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari Folman about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early Eighties. Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images …

Folman has explained that he eschewed the traditional documentary approach -- of having now middle-aged men talk into a camera, telling stories from 20 years ago, mixed with archival footage -- because it couldn't accurately capture the imagery of his nightmares. Filmgoers seem to agree.

However, the film is not entirely animated. In the final minute, we see real footage of the massacre's aftermath in all its horror. As the director explained: " I don't want you to go out of the theater and think, 'Yes, this is a cool animated film: nice drawings, good music.' In order to put the whole film in proportion, those 50 seconds were essential to me," he said.

Sometimes reality simply cannot be trumped.

PBS Frontline's "News War" -- The Future of Journalism?

See part three of PBS Frontline's "News War," entitled "What's Happening to the News," segments 16-25. The series examines the mounting pressure for profits faced by America's network news divisions and daily newspapers, as well as growing challenges from cable television and the Internet.

Network executives, newspaper editors and publishers, bloggers, Wall Street analysts and key players at Google and Yahoo! discuss the battle for market dominance in a rapidly changing world.

The primary challenge to both newspapers and broadcast networks is the growing power of the Internet as a news distribution platform, pulling consumers and advertisers away from more traditional media.

But Internet news providers like Yahoo! and Google say that they are not in the business of creating content, relying instead on traditional news-gathering organizations.

If not newspapers, who will create content for the Internet news aggregators? Bloggers? Self-appointed pundits? Anyone with Internet access and an opinion, informed or otherwise?

This is clearly no longer traditional "reporting." But is this journalism?

Read about it here. View it online here. And start praying for the soul of the Fourth Estate.