Harvard's 'Nieman Reports' Devotes Spring Issue to Visual Journalism Trends

Clipped from: http://clp.ly/Mx4 by clp.ly

Harvard's Nieman Reports has devoted its Spring 2010 issue to Visual Journalism, and what a treasure chest it is.

We had to ignore our email inbox and take the phone off the hook* to find the requisite time to delve into it.

Editor Melissa Ludtke's industrious staff and gold-standard contributors have tidily bridged the transition from still photojournalism to audio-slideshows and videojournalism, with essays and galleries that address in detail how and why that migration is taking place.

And we're getting the perspectives of the top practitioners: from Ed Kashi and MediaStorm's Brian Storm to two AP photogs who have successfully made the leap (as well as AP photo director Santiago Lyon's take on how his staff is getting equipped and trained to produce video).

Here are some highlights:

# Brian Storm Q&A, by Melissa Ludtke: "The best thing for photojournalists to do is to slow down, become a little more engaged, and spend a little more time on their projects in a much more intimate way." (With references to MediaStorm's Marlboro Marine, Driftless and Intended Consequences, which have been showcased on KobreGuide.)

# Journey to a New Beginning, by Ed Kashi: "As the doors of established media slam shut, a photojournalist knocks on new ones to find the promise of more authenticity in his storytelling and greater control over his work."

# Carving New Pathways With Photojournalism Students, by Josh Meltzer, who won Picture of the Year International's 'Documentary Project of the Year' for "Age of Uncertainty." He teaches photojournalism and multimedia at Western Kentucky University: "I ask myself what I should be teaching my students. How can I prepare them so they can find good jobs? Figuring this out is my daily challenge."

# Photojournalist Melissa Lyttle and writer Lane DeGregory each share their behind-the-scenes perspective of collaborating on the St. Petersburg Times' award-winning "The Girl in the Window"

# The Camera: It’s Only the Starting Point to Change, by AP director of photography Santiago Lyon (a 2004 Nieman fellow): "So how does a global news organization such as The Associated Press get this technology working for us? How do we train our photojournalists to use it?"

Lyon reveals how the AP has so far trained about 50 photographers in new skill sets, including how to conduct in-depth interviews, shoot and edit video sequences (including cutaway shots), and capture and use audio.

When they shoot video and create multimedia stories for the AP, generally we use what they produce in three ways:

As B-roll for inclusion in our broadcast television products where it will be mixed with other video from a variety of sources.

As broadcast-style pieces for the Internet, usually one minute to one-and-a-half minutes in length with an off-camera narrative voice. Still images are often included as visual punctuation in these stories.

As long-form, protagonist-narrated stories, relying on natural sound when there is not a narrator’s voice. Destined for the Web, these video essays sometimes work for broadcast use as well and they incorporate a lot of still images.

That treatment has paid off well for AP's Julie Jacobson and Evan Vucci, who are each represented here with meaty accounts of how they developed award-winning multimedia stories:

# Crossing the Line: From Still to Video -- to Both at the Same Time, by Julie Jacobson: "The still image was sacred to me. But in 2005 I realized the industry was changing, and if I was to remain viable as a visual journalist, I had to become familiar with this apparently favored format of the future."

She shares the ins-and-outs of the impossible task of simultaneously shooting stills and video. Tempting though it may seem with a state-of-the-art hybrid camera, Jacobson sorts out the competing needs and requirements of capturing single instants, as contrasted with video sequences. Visual journalists who are shooting both, she advises, need to condition themselves so that they don't miss out on key moments or scenes.

# Gift of Training + Shift in Newsroom Thinking = Multimedia Storytelling, by Evan Vucci:

“Killer Blue: Baptized by Fire,” a multimedia project I worked on at AP, blends video, audio and still photography in the service of telling in depth a poignant and powerful story. Those who come to this story hear the voices of soldiers from Blue Platoon who were among the last to serve a 15-month combat mission in Iraq when they returned home in 2009. Meshing photographs and video with these soldiers’ recollections and the raw expression of their feelings enabled us to dig deeply inside of this platoon’s life in Iraq and at home.

And there's plenty more, including online exclusives:

# Multimedia Presentations

# Slideshows

# Visual Journalism Resources

Now go explore for yourself.

*(Anachronism alert!)

Coming Soon: The Ethics of War Videojournalism

We salute editor Dirck Halstead and the staff of The Digital Journalist, the monthly online magazine for visual journalism, on the occasion of its 12th anniversary -- that's 143 issues of high-quality reporting and commentary on photojournalism, a remarkable accomplishment.

As with other recent installments, the Sept. '09 issue includes another elegy to the commercially beleagured industry, and yet another remedy for rescuing it: How to Start to Save Photojournalism. "Is there a way to turn this situation around?" it asks. "In our view, there is only one way: Philanthropists must come to the rescue."

While we're not sure we agree that's the only way, we're always glad that the publication adds more voices, and solutions, to the mix.

What especially caught our attention in this issue was the number of thoughtful pieces devoted to AP photojournalist Julie Jacobson's controversial photo of a dying soldier in Afghanistan. (See her narrated audio-slideshow, Death of a Marine, on KobreGuide):

As it happens, Jacobson is a 2006 alum of Halstead's pioneering Platypus Workshops, that train still photographers to embrace multimedia and videojournalism. This issue carries her journal entries while she was embedded with the Marines in Afghanistan, a must read.

Columnist Beverly Spicer contributes a comprehensive report on the brouhaha surrounding the decision to publish the disturbing photo, and ponders:

As Jacobson says in her notes, "It is necessary to be bothered from time to time. It is too easy to sit at Starbucks far away across the sea and read about the casualty and then move on without much of another thought about it. It is not as easy to see an image of that casualty and NOT think about it."

With the current crisis in journalism, most U.S. news organizations have greatly reduced their conflict coverage out of economic necessity, and many are consolidating with others for information gathering.

How will the same debate and struggles evolve in the future? As forms of media and access to information shift and change, as print media collapses and professional journalism is threatened, how will the equation change between the press's efforts to release information and countervailing efforts to control it?

In their ethics column, Karen Slattery and Mark Doremus conclude:

The Associated Press made the correct decision in not caving to the pressure. Critics will argue that the photo is tasteless and adds no value to the story. Not so. If everyone knew what the actual horror of war looked like, the image would not shock or appall.

For those who don't want to think about what the picture genuinely represents, the criticism affords a convenient excuse to look hard the other way. As a nation, this conflict belongs to all of us, not only to the military or the government. The image of the injured Marine forces us, as citizens, to ask ourselves what we are going to do about our war.

Those discussions are as urgent as they are necessary. They must be responsible, thoughtful and honest. We owe that much to Cpl. Bernard and his parents, and all of the soldiers who have been and will be sent to the Middle East.

It is common decency.

As we survey developments in the evolving sphere of ethics pertaining to moving images with audio, we have to ask:

What's going to happen when a videojournalist captures a soldier dying -- which will be even much more graphic and "real" than Jacobson's still image that shocked and upset so many?

What will happen when we are able to not just see a bloody soldier, but are able to watch one bleed? When we will be able to hear a soldier's agony, as he suffers and cries for help?

We've all seen and heard this in movie theaters -- how long before we see the real thing on newspaper Websites?

Will videojournalists shoot it? Will editors allow it? Will the public accept it?

Is it the right thing to do?

Who will have to make those hard decisions, and what criteria will they use? And what impact will those powerful video stories have on all of us?