L.A. Times Launches Visual Journalism Blog

Kudos to the Los Angeles Times for its launch of the new Framework blog devoted to visual journalism.

At first glance, its style and format is clearly inspired by the New York Times' excellent Lens blog -- but we're not saying that's a bad thing (except for maybe the reverse white-on-black type, which ironically is hard on the eyes).

Its initial content is a mixed bag. They sent two staff videographers to tag along on a staff photographer's assignment -- a simple portrait of a DJ in his home studio. We were expecting that the video would provide an inside glimpse of the task of capturing a still image of this musician. We thought we'd see and hear about the aesthetic and journalistic choices involved in setting, lighting, posing, props and wardrobe. (The subject is seen with his turntable and pet cat.) But strangely the video is all about the DJ -- who we listen to as he's being photographed -- and very little about the act of photographing him.

The blog's self-described mission is to "celebrate the power and explore the craft of visual storytelling. The blog highlights the work of Times photojournalists who, frame by frame, document the drama, the emotion and sometimes the humor of life. Framework also aims to serve as a resource hub for photography, multimedia and video enthusiasts who share our passion. We will trade insights and discuss the tools and techniques of telling stories through images."

Curiously one of the meatier offerings about tools and techniques, however, is told not through images but with a humorous text article. In his essay, "Need Some Instructions on Those Instructions?", Robert Lachman bemoans the increasing intricacy of whiz-bang cameras, something all photojournalists and videojournalists can relate to.

It’s hard to believe how complicated cameras have become. My new Canon EOS 7D has so many bells and whistles that even I, a so-called pro, sometimes find myself befuddled. It’s part camera, part computer, not to mention that most of the functions can be controlled from various parts of the camera. Push this button down, hold that, turn this…

This got me wondering if there wasn’t a better way to understand my camera.

He started with the manual, but we all know where that leads... Eventually he corralled a shelf full of books and DVDs (pictured) to help him sort through all the confusion, and he offers his helpful recommendations.

Subsequent postings take us behind the scenes in first-person accounts by Jay L. Clendenin, who shot a celebrity portrait of Bono without his trademark sunglasses... and Boris Yaro, who captured the iconic image of Robert Kennedy on the floor of L.A.'s Ambassador Hotel just after he was gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan.

We look forward to watching Framework expand and improve as a valuable resource, and hope you'll join us in checking it out daily for fresh and inspiring material.

P.S. ... and of course, don't forget to check out KobreGuide's Los Angeles Times channel, for their best videojournalism. It was the Times' powerful Marlboro Marine video, by Luis Sinco, that launched KobreGuide two years ago!

L.A. Times: Your Videos Are an Embarassment

Forgive us if we sound grouchy, but the Los Angeles Times has put us in a real funk. Why? With each passing day, the quantity and quality of their once superlative videojournalism is rapidly declining. In fact, it pains us to say, it's become an embarassment.

Months ago, we wondered why they went so far as to remove their video player from their homepage altogether. A top exec there explained to us that they were revamping and redesigning their video player, and rethinking their multimedia strategies. He assured us that their video stories would be back, bigger and better than ever.

That hasn't happened. Mostly we're stuck with their (print-edition) film and TV critics looking into a camera and reading their latest review. So today we're handing out some tough love.

What on earth is going on over there? Sure, the paper is smarting from all the same economic woes that have befallen everyone in the journalism biz. But there are small-town papers, with a tiny fraction of their staff and budget, that are producing much better video stories.

Perhaps it's especially shocking and dismaying for us, because it was a powerful Los Angeles Times audio slideshow, Marlboro Marine, that helped inspire us to launch KobreGuide in the first place. The Times itself had done such an amazing job of hiding its own gems, that we decided to create a Website that would ferret out the best videojournalism stories on the Web and put them under one roof, so that even viewers outside a newspaper's territory could enjoy them.

But we've been scouring the L.A. Times lately for more great stories like that, and they're few and far between. Despite what they're telling us, they've clearly reversed course on making video a priority. Go to the site yourself, and see how long it takes you to find ANY video, much less any video worth watching.

So here's what happened today that really put us in a snarky mood.

First, we saw this tweet, from the L.A. Times' own Twitter feed:

Video: Reporter Alana Semuels on how the housing slump has hurt timber towns. Read more at http://bit.ly/3T3cuD

Well! We got excited! Sounds like a terrific concept for a video piece. If they sent a good videojournalist to one of those towns, just imagine what a terrific visual story you'd get!

But we clicked the link, and were taken here. Actually, we're going to spell out the entire URL for you, to re-emphasize how un-"user-friendly" newspaper content-management software has become:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-logging28-2009oct28,0,3380214.story

Once we arrived, we found a well reported, well written text story, on a worthy topic, by reporter Alana Semuels:

Housing slump hits California timber industry like a buzz saw

Weak demand for lumber is forcing some mills to close and leaving many loggers and truckers unemployed.

We also found a link to an uninspired "photo gallery" -- PHOTOS: Housing downturn hits logging town -- made especially more disconcerting by the fact that the seven images are on a separate Web page, making them feel utterly useless and detached from the article itself (which is an uninviting ocean of gray text). Why couldn't the pix be scattered throughout the text, for more visual appeal, as the print version no doubt would design it?

Next we see a link to a "Graphic" :

Graphic: Lumbering along

Again, on a separate Web page, we are shown bar graphs depicting slumps in the price of wood and lumber production, and a California map highlighting towns where sawmills closed. It looks as boring and uninspired as a science textbook. We're guessing that an editor or art director was ordered to attend a Webinar on how to tart up Web stories, and now routinely assigns unimaginative charts and graphs that are exercises in civic duty, not audience engagement.

So where's the video???? Nowhere to be seen!

Adventurous souls that we are, we do what no mortal should be expected to do -- search high and low for it. Among lists of text links at the very BOTTOM of the L.A. Times Web pages, under the heading "Multimedia," you will find a tiny link for "video." We clicked it.

That takes you to a page of one of the saddest collections of newspaper video we've ever encountered. Among a batch of badly arranged and unenticing thumbnail images (with similarly blah text descriptions), we find this: "Housing slump hits California timber industry..."

Going where probably no human has gone before, we click it.

It takes us to this page:

http://www.latimes.com/videobeta/watch/?watch=c68c643b-c75a-4866-8a4a-82f38bd434f1&src=front

(Again, look at that unwieldy URL!)

...with this title:

"Housing slump hits California timber industry like a buzz saw"

And there, at last, is our video. We rub our hands in anticipation. Hard-hitting investigative videojournalism, that takes us behind the scenes of the text story? Introduces us to the major players? Lets us hear the tale in their own words? Shows us the problem up close with impactful and memorable visuals?

Not a prayer.

Here's what we get for our scavenging efforts:

A 44-second video of reporter Alana Semuels, seated against a black background, doing nothing more than introducing herself to the camera, and reading a text description of her print story.

Thanks to their proprietary and problematic video player (that the paper spent months and mucho dineros developing), a huge "PAUSE" icon obscures her face throughout the entire presentation.

See for yourself:



Now, as though this isn't horrid enough, imagine if you somehow stumbled across this video, and now wanted to actually read the story it's touting? Obviously all you need to do is click the link right next to the video to take you there, right? The link that says... well... hmmmm...

Actually, there is no link whatsoever to the print story. So if you start with the video, good luck finding the story it wants you to read. Which makes you wonder: What was the point of the video in the first place? It invites you to read a story that you'll have to work hard to find. (Remember, we got to the text story via a Twitter posting that advertised "video." ) Did the multimedia department need to fill its daily quota of "Videos on $5 a Day"? Or did they just figure, screw it -- who cares about the boring old California lumber industry? It's opening weekend for Michael Jackson's movie.

*****

Despite promises to the contrary, the L.A. Times joins the ranks of newspapers that are missing a golden opportunity to apply resources to the future of journalism. The media institution should be a shining beacon; instead it's a disgrace.

It's a chicken-and-egg situation that we know well -- the L.A. Times won't spend money on video because they say nobody's viewing it... But nobody's viewing it, because it's so lousy!... Plenty of people are watching engaging, informative, high quality nonfiction video -- and their numbers are increasing. The New York Times has wisely positioned itself in the vanguard of superlative videojournalism, having committed to a staff, budget, and Website navigation scheme that ensure an appreciative and devoted following. It's way past time for the L.A. Times to get with the program.

C'mon, L.A. Times! Here's your opportunity. Half-hearted steps lead nowhere. You've still got more resources and talent than most media institutions these days. Apply them to video. You won't be sorry.

KobreGuide Showcases 300th Video Story

We just re-counted to make sure, and, yep, we just posted our 300th video story on KobreGuide !

Go team!

We've been showcasing the Web's best videojournalism for nearly a year now, finding and selecting a compelling new one every weekday from the world's top media outlets.

It's a good time to take stock.

As you can see by clicking our Channels tab on the navigation bar, we've featured videos from 55 different media outlets, ranging from big newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times to equally meritorious ones that don't often get widespread attention, such as the St. Petersburg Times or the Detroit Free Press.

Click our "Topics" tab, and you'll see our 20 categories are far-ranging, from Adventure to War, with lots in between.

As you can see from our "Award Winners" section, we've been prescient when it comes to selecting prestigious honorees.

When we launched last fall, we offered a "Got a Minute?" section where time-strapped viewers could find short shorts for a quick hit. Curiously, we're finding that producers and audiences instead are building an appetite for longer online videos... and so we accordingly created our "Got an Hour?" section, where you can find high-quality long-form videojournalism.

To see any of our 300 posted video stories, visit the "Hall of Fame" archives -- or use our handy Search function.

We didn't want the creme de la creme to get lost in the fray, so we created a special room for our "Top Ten." Yeah, we know, there's actually 13 there at the moment -- sometimes it's hard to decide what's the best of the best. Don't sue us!

What else?

Obviously you found your way to our KobreChannel blog, but have you joined our Facebook group yet? Now's a good time, before the venture capitalists seize upon us -- you can say you knew us when.

Meanwhile, KobreGuide is still a labor of love, so please show your support by shopping at our Amazon store for all your videojournalism needs!

On a non-commercial note, the best way to help us in our mission to champion videojournalism excellence is simply to keep us posted when you spot it. We're small but mighty, and appreciate the extra eyeballs. Just click the "Recommend a Story" link on our navigation bar -- and please be sure to read our guidelines first.

So that's our tour. Looking back on our earliest stories, we are fascinated by how this hybrid media form has evolved over the past couple years.

For us, it all started with the Los Angeles Times' powerful multimedia account of the "Marlboro Marine" (above), whose iconic photograph became an emblem of the Iraq war. The soldier and the photojournalist who snapped his portrait relate how it changed their lives and connected them in ways neither could have imagined. That potent combination of audio and images constituted an exciting new form of communications; as well crafted as the text story was, it couldn't carry the emotional impact of the haunting voices and sights that augmented and fortified it.

Coincidentally, our 300th story is also about war. It's an Associated Press video series that takes a closeup look at "Wardak Soldiers: On Foot Patrol" (right), the personal stories of American troops in Afghanistan, coping with the dangerous daily task of loosening the grip of the Taliban.

Numbers 2 through 299 cover a lot of ground -- and a lot of issues that impact all of us. We are perpetually astonished at the variety of storytelling approaches explored in this fledgling field -- visually and journalistically.

Video is proliferating like crazy all over the Web, just as we had anticipated. It's getting harder to find the good stuff, the stories worthy of your limited time. We're here to find those needles in the haystack for you.

So start catching up on any of the 300 you've missed... and we'll be busy hunting for the next 300 gems.

Happy viewing!

What Happened to LATimes.com Video?

What happened to LATimes.com video stories? They've disappeared! There used to be a video player right there on their homepage -- but it's vanished!

For a while, the newspaper was on a roll with five fulltime videojournalists generating noteworthy original feature video stories, which we proudly showcased on KobreGuide's Los Angeles Times channel. But they all seem to have evaporated. A victim of budget slashing and cutbacks?

Video director Scott Anger is on an extended leave of absence, reportedly working on his own projects, so we talked to deputy managing editor for visuals, Colin Crawford, who graciously filled us in on the situation.

We were relieved to hear that LA Times videos are on a short hiatus while the paper's tech team is building a new whiz-bang proprietary video player from scratch -- a task that's turned out to be more difficult and time-consuming than originally imagined.

We here at KobreGuide have been researching all the various video players out there, and are putting together our own in-depth report on recommended attributes. Some players are far superior to others, but no single player seems to have all the bells and whistles you would hope for, so we know first-hand what a complicated business that can be. (If you'd like a free copy of our report, email us and we'll reserve one for you.)

Crawford predicts that LATimes.com video will be up and running again in about a month. Meanwhile, he pointed us to a series of wonderful audio slideshows his staff has been producing. By his own admission, they are well hidden on the Website. If you click on their "Photography" text link, buried on the left-side navigation bar on the homepage, you'll eventually get there. But these gems deserve more attention than that -- and that's what KobreGuide is here for!

Ironically, it was the LATimes.com audio slideshow "Marlboro Marine" that served as the impetus for KobreGuide in the first place. We couldn't believe that Luis Sinco's terrific project was so impossible to find. The running joke was that the staff's own photographers had to Google their own names to find their own work! How could the average person be expected to stumble upon it? KobreGuide to the rescue!

So this week, while we're waiting for LATimes.com video to return, we're featuring more of their terrific audio slideshows, hidden treasures buried on their own Website, including:

A Hendrix Experience in Hollywood

Diamond in the Rough

Getting Paid to Not Teach

More coming in the days ahead, so stay tuned!