ASMP NorCal Presents 'Photojournalism Today'

Please join me and four accomplished photojournalists on Tuesday, March 13 in San Francisco for a panel discussion about the challenges of working in the news media today.

Hosted by the Northern California chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers, the "Photojournalism Today" panel includes:

Noah Berger, a freelancer who has spent the past 17 years covering Bay Area news for editorial, corporate, and government clients. On the news side, Berger works principally for the Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, Bloomberg News and the New York Times. He also covers transportation/development issues for state agencies and health care for the Blue Shield Foundation and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Mike Kepka (pictured), a San Francisco Chronicle staff photographer since 1999. Five years ago, he started producing his own photo/multimedia column for the Chronicle called The City Exposed, which celebrates San Francisco’s quirky collection of characters. In the past year he has transformed his column into a venue for new forms of multimedia techniques that continue to follow a true “one-man-band” style of reporting and production. You can follow Kepka’s work at www.Sfgate.com/cityexposed and vimeo.com/sfchronicle and on Twitter at @thecityexposed.

Jane Tyska, a photo and videojournalist at the Oakland Tribune/Bay Area News Group. Tyska spent a month in Nepal and Bhutan in 2010, following a Bhutanese refugee family from a camp in eastern Nepal to their new home in Oakland, and continued to document them until the birth of their first baby. Tyska also documented the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti and a local contractor’s efforts to help rebuild. She has won a national award for the Bhutan project from the South Asian Journalists Association and a YIPPA international press photo award for her Haiti work. Tyska has also received recent awards from the California Newspapers Publishers Association and the East Bay and Peninsula Press Clubs.

Judy Walgren, the Director of Photography at the San Francisco Chronicle for just over one year. She faces daily challenges involving a depleted budget and fewer photojournalists to shoot the increasing number of Chronicle iPad app assignments, which require panoramas, galleries, and multimedia. Before coming to the Chronicle, Walgren was staff photographer at the Denver Post, the Rocky Mountain News and the Dallas Morning News, where she was part of a team that received the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting on violent human rights abuses against women worldwide. She has been awarded the Barbara Jordan Award for reporting on people with disabilities, the Sidney Hillman Award, and multiple Harry Chapin World Hunger Awards, in addition to other honors.


I'll be debuting segments of my new documentary feature, "Deadline Every Second: On Assignment with 12 AP Photojournalists."

Price:

ASMP NorCal members:     5.00

Affiliates, students            10.00

Non-members                  15.00

Pizza and drinks will be available with the purchase of a $5 food ticket.

Time:
6-7 pm Social hour with pizza and drink
7-9:30 pm Panel discussion

Location:
Left Space Studios
2055 Bryant Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

 http://www.leftspace.com/   

"Videojournalism: Multimedia Storytelling" Textbook Is Now Available

Great news! My new textbook, "Videojournalism: Multimedia Storytelling," has arrived! According to its editor, it has already received more requests for possible college adoptions than any previous book published in the film/broadcast division of Focal Press.

There are sixteen richly illustrated chapters that provide detailed practical lessons in shooting, editing, producing and distributing the kind of high-quality videojournalism that is showcased in KobreGuide.com :

1 Telling Stories 

2 Finding  and Evaluating  a Story 

3 Successful Story Topics 

4 Producing  a Story 

5 Camera Basics 

6 Camera Exposure  and Handling 

7 Light  and Color 

8 Recording Sound 

9 Combining Audio  and Stills 

10 Shooting  a Sequence 

11 Conducting an Interview 

12 Writing a Script 

13 Editing the Story 

14 Ethics 

15 The Law 

16 Marketing a Story

Students and professionals alike will learn how to find a riveting story; gain access to charismatic characters who can tell their own tales; shoot candid clips; expertly interview the players; record clear, clean sound; write a script with pizzazz; and, finally, edit the material into a piece worthy of five minutes of a viewer's attention... while never losing sight of the main point: telling a great story.

The book is based on extensive interviews with (and contributions from) top professionals in the field. It  is for anyone learning how to master the art and craft of telling real short-form stories with words, sound and pictures for the Web or television. The opening chapters cover the foundations of multimedia storytelling, and the book progresses to the techniques required to shoot professional video, and record high quality sound and market the resulting product.

Most importantly, the book does not lose sight of the fundamental and enduring principals of JOURNALISM -- reporting, interviewing, writing, editing, and storytelling -- that will serve students well not only in producing quality videojournalism, but also throughout their careers, despite the rapidly changing technology scene.

SPECIAL BONUS:

Every multimedia story mentioned in the book can be easily found online by going to one special Web page, where you will also find various "how-to" video tutorials and interviews with leading practitioners. 

Additionally, you can keep up with the latest changes in the rapidly evolving field (new cameras, books, editing software, etc.) by checking the KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism Website, and also "Liking" the KobreGuide Facebook Page. 

This book owes much of its depth and breadth to the eight contributors who each wrote chapters: 

* Stan Heist , executive producer, Maryland Newsline, and adjunct professor, University of Maryland

* Kathy Kieliszewski, Deputy Director of Photo and Video, Detroit Free Press

* Jerry Lazar , executive editor, KobreGuide.com

* Regina McCombs, faculty for Multimedia and Mobile, The Poynter Institute

* Josh Meltzer, photojournalist-in-residence at Western Kentucky University, formerly with the Roanoke Times

* Mary Thorsby, independent business writer, Thorsby and Associates

* David Weintraub, instructor, Visual Communications Sequence, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina

* Donald R. Winslow, editor, News Photographer magazine

I am confident their research and writing will stand the test of time.

"Videojournalism" is available online at Barnes & Noble and Amazon, and is also available in Nook and  Kindle editions. 

I look forward to your feedback and comments!

Bringing Photojournalism to Bhutan

You'll enjoy this missive from our former student Mary Calvert, an award-winning photojournalist based in Washington, D.C. , describing her recent teaching adventure in Bhutan. Proud to see that she used her old professor's textbook! (Click photo to enlarge.)

"Greetings from the Kingdom of Bhutan," the email read. It came from out of the blue and continued, "I'm very much impressed with your work and congratulations for all the awards you have won so far. I was wondering if you would be kind enough to design and teach photojournalism for a period of week or two in Bhutan for journalists in Bhutan. The details can be discussed if you are interested.
Thank you and hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Dawa Penjor

I had no idea who Dawa Penjor was or even whether Dawa was a man or woman. But I was intrigued and quickly wrote back for more information. I did not even know exactly where Bhutan was. A little bit of mining the almighty Interwebs revealed that Bhutan is a tiny country between India and Tibet in the thick of the Himalayan Mountains. There are only 683,407 people in the whole country and 72% of the land is covered in forest. Bhutan is one of the nine constitutional monarchies in the world where the king is the sole final authority.

In Bhutan, there is no gross domestic product, there is however a "Gross National Happiness" index based on the Buddhist values of the country and there are more monks supported by the Bhutanese government than the total of army troops, police and palace guards.

After a dozen or so emails I found myself on a plane to the Kingdom of Bhutan, "Land of the Thunder Dragon". My students included 15 local Bhutanese photographers and one Englishman at the Department of Information and Media in Thimphu, the capitol and Bhutan's largest city. I brought a case of Ken Kobre's book, "Photojournalism, the Professional's Approach" to share with the class.

My class was filled with bright students who soaked up every bit of advice and the lessons I had to share on photojournalism. One day we drove two hours to the town of Punakha, former capitol of Bhutan, to visit the Pungtang Dechen Photrang Dzong, that was built in 1637 and means "The Palace of Great Bliss". A "Dzong" is a large building that is a combination fort and monastery that house both monk's quarters and government offices. Our assignment for the day was to illustrate the theme "Devotion". All of us just wandered around and made pictures.

Bhutan is an amazing country and I loved my visit. Every single person that I met showed me kindness and I made many friends. I look forward to my next visit to the "Land of the Thunder Dragon".

Mary's blog: http://maryfcalvert.com/portfolio/blog

Mary's website: http://maryfcalvert.com/

Lots of Inspiration for Visual Journalists

Richard Koci Hernandez has posted his list of 25 books every visual journalist should have on their shelf, on his MultimediaShooter.com blog.

(To which we'd humbly add Photojournalism: The Professionals' Approach, 6th edition.)

He's also posted a glorious roundup of treats, Featured Work: Curated, Must See, Visual Stories. Many of these videos and multimedia stories have similarly been showcased here on KobreChannel.com -- a combination of great minds thinking alike, and the cream always rising to the top.

The selections are worthy of your attention, and will give you plenty to look at and enjoy this holiday weekend!

The Kobre Videojournalism Consortium

We've applied for a Knight News Challenge grant to help subsidize our plan to create the Kobre Videojournalism Consortium.

We're inviting your input -- please take a look at our proposal here -- and take a minute to rate it and comment on it.

(To her horror, one of our colleagues accidentally hit the "one star" rating, when she meant to click "five stars" -- so we need some positive ratings to offset that!)

No, it's not a popularity contest, but obviously enthusiastic endorsements can't hurt.

And of course we welcome your feedback.

The idea, in a nutshell, is to create a consortium of top media outlets that would share ideas and resources to produce topnotch videojournalism that could be distributed to all members (to pump up audience and advertising revenue) and also licensed/syndicated to non-members for additional revenue.

Here are some of the advantages.

Lots of newspapers are producing original video stories of universal appeal whose audience potentially lies outside its own distribution area. This would give a newspaper in Detroit, for example, an opportunity to have its best work seen in Seattle, San Diego, and St. Petersburg. Bigger distribution, bigger ad dollars. AND the reciprocal opportunity for Detroit citizens to see high-quality video stories produced by newspapers in other cities, that they would not ordinarily see.

Further, we would initiate and generate original video story ideas that we would then assign to, and invite input from, partners and affiliates. This would give local context to national stories, and national context to local stories. Think of how news wire services, or TV/radio news networks, operate -- with participation from member organizations. So far, nobody has attempted this with videojournalism.

It would create a network of top videojournalists throught the nation (and eventually the world) who are either affiliated with major media outlets or cream-of-the-crop freelancers (sorry, no "citizen journalists"!). Instead of having to rely on the traditional "one-man band" approach to videojournalism -- where newspaper staffers are expected to be able to excel at a disparate variety of skill sets (interviewing, shooting, editing, etc.), we could count on specialists.

There's lots more to the proposal -- including the development of a standardized videoplayer, with the most technologically advanced functionality, that would fit all content management systems and platforms. (This has been a stumbling block to enabling media organizations from showcasing each other's work -- and we believe we are in an ideal position to solve this problem.)

Others have successfully formed loose affiliations of freelance videojournalists, notably VJ Movement and DuckRabbit.

What we're proposing is an affiliation of major media organizations, who are in a position to partner and share in the creation and distribution of original nonfiction video stories, and profit from the additional revenue that would create.

The beauty of this scheme is that, for very little additional effort, major media institutions stand to gain in the quantity and quality of videojournalism -- and, by broadening their audience both within their distribution area and beyond their geographic borders, fatten their coffers in the process.

Having published KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism since 2008, and consulting with the leading videojournalists during that time -- both at the managerial level and in the field -- we are singularly in the best position to put this plan into action.

What do you think? Let us know! If you have trouble with this link, then go to http://www.NewsChallenge.org, click the READ & COMMENT tab, and enter KOBRE in the search field.

We eagerly await your feedback.

Lessons from Perpignan: What We Learned at Video Camp

For most of July we taught a videojournalism workshop in Perpignan, France, for eighteen American students. It was part of a study-abroad program co-sponsored by the Institute for Education in International Media (ieiMedia) and San Francisco State University.

Here are a few tips we can pass along, based on common student errors and problems we encountered.

A. Shooting Suggestions

1. Use the tripod whenever possible. Shaky camera work is hard to watch and screams "amateur."

2. Avoid zooms, pans and tilts. The top pros almost never use them, for good reason. They're distracting, tough to edit, and the sign of a novice.

3. Focus manually when shooting close-ups. On autofocus, the camera often locks in on something that is in the background.

4. Take lots of reverse shots of subjects’ faces as they carry out their activities. If you need to, hold the camera at arm’s length, in front of the subject, and record at least 10 seconds of video.

5. Also shoot across the subject’s shoulder, from their perspective, to see what he or she is seeing.

6. Shoot overalls. If the subject of the story is church bells, shoot not only inside and outside the church, but also position the camera on a hill near the town where you can still see the church, to let the viewer understand how the sound travels over the entire region.

7. If the subject talks about the past, ask if they have old photos from that time that you can use in b-roll or cutaway shots.

8. When using a simultaneous translator or interpreter, make sure they provide word-for-word English versions of whatever the subject says, and doesn't substitute the third-person or add "he said." If the subject says, "I went to the store..." then make sure the translator says, "I went to the store..." (and not, "He said he went to the store.") Make sure you aren't just capturing the translator’s interpretation and summary of the dialogue instead of what actually was said. If the translator’s voice is crystal clear, you can use it in the final story, over the actual subject's voice. Otherwise you will need to dub in a new voice or use subtitles.

9. When possible, avoid subtitles and on-screen narrative text. People don’t like to read movies.

10. Sometimes you can capture footage on a Flip or other small camera that is not super high quality but might be better than no footage at all.

Audio suggestions

1. What you hear on the audio track you need to see on the video track, and what you see you need to hear about. When someone says something in the story, viewers want to observe what is happening. If viewers are watching something, they want to hear about and understand what they are watching. Few video images are simple and obvious enough that they don’t need supporting dialogue or voiceover. This simple principle of correlating what you see and hear is very difficult to carry out. Often students had an interview section about an element of the story but no video to accompany it. Or they did not have enough video footage to go with extensive audio passages.

2. Here is where the wireless mic can come in handy. By wiring your subject, you can overhear what they say to everyone around them, as well as observe with the video camera what they doing at the same time. One student did a story about the problems of being an English speaker and playing on a French sports team. Viewers heard only the players talking about the difficulties. The audience never got to hear an actual dialogue demonstrating the problem. Wiring a coach during practice would have let the viewer hear the challenges of communicating across the two languages, and viewers could draw their own conclusions.

Editing  suggestions

1. You need to create a road map of what steps to take once you have collected your material -- i.e. what to do first, second and third.

2. We found that by having students transcribe all their interviews (a task they detest) and also all the spoken audio collected during candid moments (a task they overlooked), they could more easily and quickly create a paper script.

3. With a paper script, students could see if they needed to write voiceover to provide information missing from interviews or dialogue. With more time, they could have gone back and done more interviewing to fill in the missing pieces, but under their tight deadline restrictions, recording a VO with the missing information became the best alternative.

4. We also had them watch all the interviews as they listened to the spoken “natural sound.” How people say things can be as interesting as what they say. Voice inflection does not show up on the paper edit.

5. We had the students lay down the audio track (interview and spoken audio nat sound) before they started to add their visual sequences. They essentially produced a radio story before they turned it into a video story. This approach assured that the story flowed and made sense.

(Of course, this is not the only way to structure the process. We're interested in hearing about approaches others find effective and efficient.)

Storytelling suggestions

In the workshop, the greatest problem was the students’ inability to recognize the theme and/or nut graph of their video story – for instance, why this pastry chef was featured and not the one down the block.

Also, they had problems sticking to the central theme once they had identified it. They had a tendency to throw in all the cool shots and off-the-wall interview comments rather than stick to the heart and soul of their mini doc.

Though the students didn't always use it, we found the following approach is helpful in establishing a theme:

a. Write a title/theme before you shoot;
b. Rewrite the title/theme after you shoot;
c. Rewrite the title/theme after you draft a script;
d. Rewrite the title/theme after you edit.

In the end, see if all your images and sound conform to your title/theme and original agenda.

Here are some examples of students' work, below. (You can watch more here.)

Keeping up with Snails

A look at an escargot farm in Estoher, France, just outside of Perpignan.




Saving the Strays

Saint-Nazaire, France resident Helen Ferrieux takes care of stray cats in her village.

Journalists vs. Law Enforcement: Know Your Rights

Journalists have been complaining that BP officials and local law enforcement officials have been actively preventing them from shooting photos and video of the public beaches tarnished by the catastrophic oil spill.

Both credentialed journalists from major news organizations and independent journalists say they are being illegally bullied.

One example is Marguerite Cravatt (pictured), an L.A.-based indie producer who grew up on the Gulf Coast. She brought her producing partner and a cameraperson to the Gulf Coast to shoot documentary footage along the deserted coastline of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. She says she repeatedly witnessed the media being blocked and bullied. "In one incident, a local on-duty Police Officer tried to protect the interest of BP and prohibit us from filming a sick worker being taken way in an ambulance."

Outraged, she posted her experience on YouTube:



*****
We thoroughly address the subject of where photojournalists can legally take pictures in Chapter 16 of "Photojournalism: The Professionals' Approach." Nearly all the time, public property (such as a public beach) is fair game. Know your rights! More importantly, know what to do, and how to behave, when a law enforcement officer mistakenly tries to prevent you from recording what you are entitled to.

Photographers who disregard police directives -- even if the shooters have the right to be where they are -- can be arrested for disorderly conduct or for interfering with the performance of a police officer's duty. Continuing to take pictures or failing to move after a policeman gives you a direct order could constitute a possible felony.

The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and some of its chapters have for years worked to improve the situation, and reduce conflict, by educating police and fire personnel on the role of the news media in society. The NPPA is keeping a close eye on the BP situation as well.

The NPPA has asked President Obama to order the rescinding of a ban on members of the media speaking with clean-up workers, and to instruct the federal government to work with the press to create a more reasonable "safety zone" for journalists who are covering the Gulf oil spill and attempting to document the Deepwater Horizon booming efforts.

"NPPA is outraged at reports that the U.S. Coast Guard has created an extremely restrictive 'safety zone' surrounding all Deepwater Horizon booming operations, and at reports that the federal government has banned members of the news media from speaking with clean-up workers," NPPA president Bob Carey wrote to the president.

(Read more here.)

Carey appeared on KCRW's program "To The Point" to discuss with a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman and reporters from the Times-Picayune and Time magazine how the Coast Guard's 65-square foot "safety zone" has affected journalists' reporting on the impact of one of the biggest environmental disasters in U.S. history.

The 65 square-foot area effectively blocks reporters and photographers from getting close enough to do their jobs well. Off-duty police officers hired by BP to run security details have also been criticized for harassing journalists trying to cover the story. BP now says efforts to stop the spill may pay off in the next few weeks, but what’s happening to the flow of information about the disaster?

*****
On a similar note, NPR's "Talk of the Nation" program yesterday addressed the volatile issue of videotaping police in action.

The Los Angeles police beating of Rodney King resonated, in part, because it was caught on video. Now, most modern cell phones have video cameras. Many police departments struggle to draw the line between citizens' and journalists' rights to film arrests, and their officers' rights to privacy.

Incredibly, in some states you can get arrested for taking video of an arrest -- even if you're on public property and not interfering with the arrest.

In its half-hour segment, "The Rules and Your Rights for Recording Arrests," we hear from guests
Radley Balko, senior editor, Reason; Carlos Miller, arrested for photographing police making an arrest; and James Machado, executive director, Massachusetts Police Association.

Do Journalists Really Want to Be Poor?

We're delighted that videojournalism pioneer Michael Rosenblum has taken the time to compose a thoughtful response to our question about whether modern-day journalists need to add "entrepreneur" to their growing list of required skills.

(See: "Now You Have to Be an Entrepreneur, Too?")

We encourage you to read his comment below our original post, and also his expanded essay on his own Rosenblum TV blog.

His title says it all: "Entrepreneurial Journalism: Do We Even Have to Ask?" He sees it as a self-esteem issue.

"The biggest mistake that journalists for the last 50 years have made," he writes, "was to wrap themselves in this glorification of poverty."

His argument is that lots of businesspeople have amassed extraordinary wealth from their Web pursuits, leaving in the dust the very people who excel at gathering, organizing and disseminating the information the Web is built upon -- journalists!

The Internet happened on our watch. It happened to our business, and it happened under our noses.

The Internet is the single biggest technologically driven transition of an industry since Gutenberg put ink to movable type. And billions have been made in the Internet Revolution – billions, but not by us.

Which is both strange and tragic because we were here first!

We should own Google and Craigslist and Facebook and a thousand other very successful sites.

But we don’t.

We don’t because we missed the entrepreneurial boat.

And why did we miss the entrepreneurial boat that sailed away right under our noses?

Because we have a love and a passion for poverty. We love to see ourselves as poor and struggling.

Personally we don't think it's quite that black and white. True, the image of the journalist as grizzled underdog had been overromanticized in books and movies (ranging from non-fiction "All the President's Men" to the fictitious "State of Play," pictured). But most journalists we know in real life aren't deliberately gravitating toward financial destitution. It's just that their passions tend in the direction of reporting and storytelling -- not spreadsheets and projections. Perhaps j-school grads aren't striving for their first billion with the same zeal as their MBA confreres, but at the same time they're not lusting after low-paying gigs for the sheer bohemian thrill of it.

More to the point, their motivation for pursuing journalism may not be the same as the motivation of a high-charging empire builder -- but, to our thinking, that doesn't necessarily translate to the presumption that journalists think "money is evil."

And, back to our original point, it can't be assumed that people who possess the skill sets required to become accomplished journalists should also be able to excel at entrepreneurial endeavours such as sales, marketing and promotion.

Ultimately, we believe the solution will lie in collaboration -- the formation of partnerships and collectives that consist of pros whose individual strengths and talents can be combined and leveraged for the benefit of the common good. Microcosms of lean, mean newsrooms -- but without the dead weight of middle-management layers... and rooms.

And while that may not make us all filthy rich, it will be a far cry from the "ink-stained wretch" image that understandably makes Rosenblum cringe.

Fourth of July Sale on KobreGuide Goodies!

Hey, every media organization is scrounging for revenue sources, so why should we be any exception? So the only surprise about our holiday weekend sale on official KobreGuide t-shirts, coffee mugs, keychains, baseball caps and, yes, even neckties, is that they're even available in the first place!

But look at KobreGuide publisher Ken Kobre and managing editor Betsy Brill sporting their snazzy KobreGuide garb, suitable for occasions all over the globe -- in this case, Sequoia Grove in Yosemite. (Guaranteed to fend off grizzlies.) Check 'em out and tell us you're not lusting for a KobreGuide t-shirt of your very own.

This weekend only, take advantage of our patriotic 17.76 percent discount on all orders! (Use the code ZAZZLEUSAUSA. Sale ends Monday. Note: the Zazzle photo watermark does NOT appear on the actual products.)

Proceeds help fuel KobreGuide's daily search for the Web's best videojournalism -- a monumental undertaking that we perform for the benefit of students, practitioners, and consumers of high-quality visual journalism.

Start your KobreGuide shopping spree right here.

http://www.zazzle.com/kobreguide

Have a safe and fun holiday weekend!

How to Shoot & Edit a Video Sequence

Here's a short video tutorial that demonstrates how to plan and shoot a series of shots and assemble them as a storytelling sequence.



You can find free helpful video tutorials behind the HOW TO tab on KobreGuide.com.

When to Zoom and When Not to Zoom (Part 2)

Here’s a short video tutorial on when to zoom the lens, and when not to zoom, when you are shooting and editing a short video sequence.



You can find free helpful video tutorials behind the HOW TO tab on KobreGuide.com.

Zoom Shots and How to Avoid Them

Here's a short video tutorial on why zoom shots are usually unnecessary and undesirable. It shows to produce and edit a video sequence with and without a zoom shot.



You can find free helpful video tutorials behind the HOW TO tab on KobreGuide.com.

Three Legs Are Better Than Two Hands

Here's a free short video tutorial about when and how to use a tripod for producing a video sequence... and when a hand-held camera will suffice.



Be sure to check out more video tutorials behind the HOW TO tab on KobreGuide.com.

My First Flak Jacket & Other Stories from Israel

I was in Israel for a month, shooting my documentary about AP photographers called “Deadline Every Second.”

The first morning I walked into the AP office in Jerusalem, the staff outfitted me with a bullet proof flax-jacket, weighing 16 pounds, a steel helmet, a portable telephone and sent me off to document Pulitzer prize-winning AP photographer Oded Balilty covering the "Day of Rage."

I later found out that protective gear comes in two sizes -- “heavy” for war wear and “light” for clash wear. Unfortunately, AP was out of the “light” at the moment.

The uprising, which was called by Hamas, involved "riots" or "clashes," depending on your politics, between young, rock-throwing, tire-burning Palestinians and Israeli police shooting tear gas, stun guns and rubber bullets. The police also used dogs to chase down rioters. The one place you don't want get caught is between the two groups. Especially when police unleashed the dogs who go after the protesters. The dogs, however, cannot distinguish protesters from journalists. The clashes alternated between the masked teenagers, using an overturned garbage container for protection, advancing on the police by throwing stones or using sling-shots to launch stones, and the police repeling the youth with canisters of tear gas and loud stun guns.

The sound of the stun guns made me think I was in the middle of a war. To add to the overall auditory illusion, the Palestinian youth were firing a series of firecrackers. As soon as the tear gas went off, all the kids ran up the hill with me huffing and puffing behind. AP was fresh out of extra gas masks for visiting photojournalists the day I arrived, so I was left to cough, cry, run away from the cloud of gas. Wearing his gas mask, Balility stayed in the thick of the action when the tear gas exploded, as I made a hasty retreat up the hill and shot the action with a long lens.

Two photojournalists were injured during the day at the clash I covered by Israeli police bullets and tear gas canisters. The Reuters bureau photographer wound up with shrapnel in his leg and the AFP (Agency France Press) photographer was shot in the wrist with a rubber bullet. I did not get hit with anything more than tear gas....

Read the whole story of my month in Israel shooting video of AP photographers in action for my documentary "Deadline Every Second" here.

Photos by Oded Balilty.

New Business Strategies for Photojournalists

Photojournalism, first pronounced dead in 1972 with the closure of the weekly edition of Life magazine, has been like a cat with nine lives. It is undoubtedly going through turbulent times, but has the cat reached the end of its natural life or is it just morphing into a new beast?

In an article published last year entitled, ‘Lament for a Dying Field: Photojournalism’, the New York Times reported on one of the most recent signs of the field’s weakening pulse, the bankruptcy of the venerable French picture agency, Gamma. In America there was the closure of the Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the bankruptcy of The Chicago Tribune Company. Even Associated Press (AP) laid off some staffers.

Against this bleak backdrop, I undertook an informal survey among participants and attendees at the 2009 Visa pour l’Image International Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan, France. I learned how photographers are adapting to the extraordinary changes talking place in the field. Yes, many professionals lamented the passing of the various ‘golden eras’ of photojournalism — from the Forties through to the Nineties – but at the same time many others are changing their business strategies...

Read more here.

(Versions of the essay originally appeared in Canon Professional Network (CPN) magazine, published in Europe, and in NPPA's News Photographer magazine.)

KobreGuide Awards: Best of 2009

It's awards season, and we're joining the party by announcing the first annual KobreGuide Awards, for the best videojournalism projects of 2009.

On February 15, we'll be announcing winners in each of our 20 KobreGuide topics (see list below). And we'll also be selecting winners for each of these 5 categories:

* Videojournalist of the Year
* Best videojournalism story
* Best videojournalism package or series
* Best audio slideshow
* Best student project

Each of these winners will receive a Lightscoop plus some other goodies to be announced shortly. (And if you don't already know what a Lightscoop is, get yourself over to Lightscoop.com and start salivating.)

We'll also be awarding a grand prize to the KobreGuide Videojournalist of the Year, and as you'll see next week when we officially reveal it, this one is going to be pretty sweet.

We're going through the 250+ stories we showcased on KobreGuide in 2009, and we're inviting your input. Please let us know what your favorite videojournalism and multimedia pieces were from last year. You can select them from KobreGuide or anywhere else online.

Be sure to first read the KobreGuide criteria -- what we look for in selecting stories.

Whoever submits for our consideration the most entries that become KobreGuide prizewinners will also receive a Lightscoop (retail value $35).

Here are the KobreGuide "Topic Channels". Again, we're looking for the best story in each category, which was originally published in 2009, so please let us know your personal favorites:

Adventure
Animals
Arts
Business
Education
Environment
Food
Global
Health
Law
Lifestyle
Media
Politics
Profile
Science
Sports
Technology
Transportation
Travel
War

Click here to submit entries.

KobreGuide Showcases 400th Video Story

This week, KobreGuide.com, which launched in Fall 2008, features its 400th video story.

Yeah, we're pretty amazed ourselves. (It seems like only yesterday that we posted our 300th story!) And every day provides more amazement as we watch and assess the merits of the highest quality online videojournalism being produced today.

We see signs everywhere that, despite the shabby economic state of the journalism industry, the medium of video is becoming more central to its mission. As the audience appetite grows for well-told, well-reported visual stories, the savviest producers and publishers are responding in kind.

But that river flows both ways. It's incumbent upon industry leaders to create and present compelling video stories that will entice viewers and whet their appetite for more.

To be honest, most videojournalism storytelling we see -- and we see a heck of a lot of it -- falls short in at least one of three key areas. It's either poorly shot and edited video, or it's substandard journalism, or it lacks narrative storytelling qualities that hook and engage viewers.

It's no wonder when newspapers distribute cheap Flip cams to print reporters and, expecting miracles, wind up instead with a mess. And even though still photographers have a visual sensibility, and may therefore seem more suited to the task of shooting video, there's still a world of difference between taking pictures and weaving a story with scenes and sequences. Plus, most photographers' experience with interviewing subjects begins and ends with grabbing caption info -- not asking hard-hitting questions, or even knowing who to track down for a balancing perspective.

In short, print reporters, writers, editors and photographers all bring valuable skill sets to the table, but they need to be trained and mentored by (and ideally partnered with) talented and experienced video professionals who excel in that medium.

Not to harangue, but imagine our perpetual disappointment at video stories that are promising in many ways, but ultimately missing key ingredients. They're not quite KobreGuide quality, but would have been a slam dunk had there been a real pro aboard to push them to the next level.

And that's what we recommend and foresee for 2010 -- print publications redoubling their efforts in the online video arena. More people are watching moving images than at any time in history, and, YouTube anomalies aside, professional quality will win the day. Follow the eyeballs, and the money will come.

As another year winds down, and we head into the holiday season, we want to thank the media outlets whose videos are showcased on KobreGuide for their generous cooperation and commitment to the cause, and wish them continued success in 2010.

And we want to thank you for your support, encouragement and feedback. It's your eyeballs, after all, that we aim to please! So it's especially gratifying to watch our month-to-month traffic grow steadily. Come along for the ride as we enter a new decade; we promise it won't be boring.

Meanwhile, you can review the best of KobreGuide's first 400 stories by checking out our Top 10 selections. And be sure to visit our Hall of Fame, where all the best KobreGuide stories are archived. Let us know what you think.

Happy holidays!

Study Video with Me in Perpignan, France

I'm going to be teaching videojournalism next summer for the Institute for Education in International Media's study-abroad program in Perpignan, France.

It’s a four-week multimedia program co-sponsored by San Francisco State University and ieiMedia. Students will study French language and culture, as well as reporting and multimedia storytelling, for the first week and then focus intensively on video shooting and editing in Final Cut Express for the last three weeks.

Students will each produce at least one short, documentary-style video as well as text stories about the community; together they will create an online video gallery about the city.

We've got room for about 20 beginning and advanced students, from all schools and disciplines (and from all over the world). The program is open to undergrads, recent grads, and grad students. Here's some basic info for those who might be interested.

When: June 24 - July 23, 2010.

Where: Perpignan is near the Spanish border, eight miles from the Mediterranean. (See map.)


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Tuition: $4,900 + airfare ($200 early-bird discount for those who apply by Jan. 15, 2010). Scholarships are available to SFSU journalism majors only, although financial aid is generally not available for summer study-abroad programs.

Credits: 3 transferable, upper-division journalism units from the SFSU College of Extended Learning. The course is called JOUR 677 Multimedia Study Abroad.

Faculty: I'll be teaching the video module. Jennifer Ward, assistant managing editor-interactive media for the Fresno Bee, will teach Multimedia Storytelling and serve as technology director. Laird Harrison, a former correspondent for TIME and People magazines who lived in France for a year, will teach Reporting. Rachele Kanigel, an associate professor of journalism at SFSU and a former news reporter, will direct the program.

Equipment: The program will provide digital video cameras and computers with video editing software for teams of students to share. Students are encouraged to bring their own equipment as well.

Language: Most classes (except 30 hours of French instruction) will be taught in English. In your reporting you will work with interpreters.

Apply: Students must fill out an application (PDF)and submit one letter of recommendation, along with a $500 deposit. Deposits will be refunded only if a student is not accepted into the program.

More info: PerpignanProject@gmail.com or ieiMedia's Website.

A New Golden Age of Visual Journalism: KobreGuide's First Anniversary (Part 2)

I conceived of KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism when I could not easily locate quality multimedia and video online. I knew it was out there because I had looked hard to find it. Today, with the KobreGuide assembling all the best multimedia and videojournalism stories in one place, I have for the past year been wowed by the range and quality of the material being produced around the world using this story-telling format.

Since the KobreGuide launched last year, I also have witnessed a vast improvement in the overall quality of multimedia/videojournalism, often produced by former newspaper and magazine still photojournalists. Many of these talented shooters working for local papers or national magazines were handed an audio recorder and/or video camera and told to start making multimedia stories -- while, of course, they were still shooting their daily print assignments.

The first attempts of these newbie multimedia makers were not always polished. Photographers had to learn the skills of interviewing, voiceover, and collecting natural sound. Even their shooting approach had to change. No longer was it enough to watch and wait for the one telling shot that would make the front page or magazine cover, or win a Pulitzer. No longer did the photographer need only seven dynamite pictures for a picture page. The multimedia photojournalist had to bring back 40 good shots -- enough images to cover a 3- to 5- minute multimedia piece. The multimedia photojournalist had to capture images that would serve as transitions, images that would carry a story line, images that would reveal the past or anticipate the future.

Still photographers, who were at home with their Nikons or Canons, were handed a Sony or Panasonic video camera and expected to quickly master this new hardware, which featured strange buttons, XLR plugs and shotgun mics. Not only does a videocamera take pictures at 29 frames per second, it also simultaneously records sound. Photojournalists were expected to interview subjects and gather far more information than traditionally necessary for photo captions.

Still photographers, whose former sole job was to capture meaningful still images to accompany a writer’s story, were now expected to become the writer, the producer and the editor of their story in the new online world. They were tossed into the role of soloist in a one-man-band, with an unfamiliar instrument.

While some photographers balked at the assignment, others leapt into the fray. They had, in fact, chosen photojournalism in order to tell stories with pictures. Now they had their chance. No longer stymied by a lack of space to run photos in the newspaper or magazine, no longer second fiddle to reporters, the new multimedia/videojournalists could find, report, shoot, interview and produce a complete, comprehensive, original package without depending on anyone else.

Today, former newspaper and magazine photojournalists have morphed into complete visual storytellers. Newspapers from the St. Petersburg Times to the Spokane Spokesman-Review are producing memorable multimedia stories. The Associated Press, Reuters, the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times showcase strong short documentaries daily. For many photojournalists, online multimedia and videojournalism have inaugurated a new “Golden Age” of compelling visual journalism.

KobreGuide Celebrates Its First Anniversary (Part 1)

KobreGuide officially celebrates its first anniversary this month.

It all started several years ago when we were researching two new chapters for the sixth edition of "Photojournalism: The Professionals' Approach" -- Video and Multimedia.

Both endeavours were in their infancy, and searching for online examples proved frustrating -- not only because they were scarce, but the noteworthy ones were also well hidden. Major media outlets did not yet know quite what to do with this new hybrid form of visual journalism, and how to integrate it with their text stories and still photographs.

That became the impetus for KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism -- a one-stop showcase for the creme de la creme.

Though we started searching in earnest for first-rate examples of videojournalism nearly two years ago, it wasn't until October 2008 that we had put the finishing touches on the Website and uploaded nearly 100 video stories from the nation's major media outlets.

Jim McNay, an old friend and colleague who had run the photojournalism programs at Brook Institute and San Jose State University, did the bulk of that initial pre-launch search, plowing through scores of Websites to find the proverbial needles in the haystacks. Subsequently, two accomplished former students -- Kathy Strauss and Beth Renneisen -- have served as our primary scouts.

Since this KobreGuide trio has individually and collectively looked at more online videojournalism than just about any humans on the planet, we thought this would be an appropriate juncture to ask them to share with us their perceptions of the current state of the art...

DISCOVERING DELIGHTFUL HIDDEN GEMS...

By JIM McNAY

The most fun looking for stories to post on KobreGuide has been the chance to find previously unknown little multimedia story gems and shining a light on them for a wider audience.

Sometimes that has been discovering work by someone beginning a career. This happened when we received a tip about Jenn Ackerman’s story called “Trapped: Mental Illness in America’s Prisons.” Since producing this story Ackerman attended the selective Eddie Adams Workshop, has done work for the New York Times, and this year, won an Emmy for this story. And many of you saw it here first. Cool.

Another little pocket of storytelling gold has been the work of our neighbors to the north. We don’t often think much about Canadian soldiers fighting in the Middle East, but a Toronto Star story, “Without Warning” of a returned fighter has its own sudden turn in the presentation that goes off like a visual IED. It’s an unexpected surprise. On a more upbeat note, Toronto Globe and Mail journalists bring us “A Farm Family” in which a farmer goes abroad, finds a wife and saves his family farm. The story runs counter to what we so often hear about farms forced to close. That makes the story a delightful surprise.

So here’s to many more years of the opportunity to surprise and delight audiences. Happy viewing!


FINDING WINNERS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES...

By KATHY STRAUSS

It’s been exciting combing the Web for videos over this past year. Papers like the New York Times, Detroit Free Press and the San Jose Mercury News are dedicating great resources for multimedia while other papers are cutting way back.

It’s surprising how difficult it is some weeks to find anything to post on our site and then, bingo, a real winner surfaces once again. Clearly many publications are frantically trying to predict the future and to decide where to put their energies. Maybe it’s a leap of faith to put their resources into visual storytelling but clearly the stories that make us laugh, cry and think are the most powerful ones.

It’s not just the fulltime staffers producing these stories. AARP hires freelancers for moving stories such as “A Day with Francisco,” by Michelle Cassel and “Silverton Saves its Paper,” by Sonya Doctorian. Small film fests like “Media That Matters” uncover heartwarming independent productions such as “Looking Back,” by Emile Bokaer. These are the stories which in the past would have been published as photo stories in the paper. Now they are the stories that keep our attention and stay with us long after the video ends.


WISHING WORTHY ONES WEREN'T HIDDEN SO WELL...

By BETH RENNEISEN

In spite of the lip service the industry has given video, actually finding it on news sites can be a frustrating treasure hunt. Sites may include a video tab in their top navigation bar, only list video in small type at the very bottom of the home page, lump it in with multimedia, or not flag video content at all. If a video player (or icon for same) is not displayed with a current story on a home or section page, a user would not know to look for it elsewhere, even though — as evidenced by YouTube — a good evergreen video has a far better shelf life online than a typical text story.

Conversely, the stand-alone video player of a site may not indicate that there is a text story to accompany it. Since some editors prefer non-redundant text/video combinations, the video may lack context without the print story. A good example of this was “David Byrne Bike Ride" found on USAToday.com. Byrne, of the rock band Talking Heads, was ironically just that in this seemingly pointless video. A camera was apparently mounted on his handlebars, and shot skyward toward his head while he pedaled and talked about traffic — never actually showing any of his surroundings. On further investigation, it was determined that this video was related to the release of Byrne’s new book on bicycling the world, which was not indicated anywhere in the video component. The “talking head” point of view of the video could have been intended as 1:29 minutes of intentional irony — but the concept only made sense if the viewer was familiar with the back story. (Subsequently, the New York Times did a much better job with the same material.)

Technical issues may also confound the user on some sites. Video libraries are not being maintained as carefully as print archives, rendering searches futile, and links that previously worked may disappear on second visit, or not work when shared with others. Video players load too slowly, and connections to a story or other parts of a series may not work. Worst of all, the player itself may not stream the video well, emitting sketchy audio, sticking on a frame, or pixelating. Even Newsday, while investing copious time and money in high-quality video production, has an attractive, but unreliable video player.

This is not just an issue for locating and playing video. How well a site actually functions when items are clicked, its quickness of response, and relevance of its design elements to their topics is crucial in determining a site’s overall success or failure — regardless of the site’s content or appearance. Poor performance is known to be just as important as weak aesthetics in sending a visitor immediately elsewhere.

Bottom line: You can’t see the light if there’s a basket over it. Put video where users can easily find it, and make it easy for them to play it.