It's Animal Video Week on KobreGuide.com

In case you haven't already noticed, it's Animal Week here at KobreGuide.com .

We've showcased videos on sea turtles, hunting beagles, orphaned marsupials and, um, bull penises.

Normally on KobreGuide, we present a diversity of topics from a variety of sources each week.

We found ourselves with a few critter-related stories, and rather than space them out over a period of several weeks, we asked ourselves, "Why not just create a theme week?"

Now you know how those big important editorial decisions are made.

Serendipitously (or, by design, if you'll fall for that), what each story has in common is the relationship between animals and humans.

We see a divorced woman bonding with her hunting beagle; boys who once poached sea turtle eggs now rescuing them to protect the endangered species; a couple cheerfully raising hopping kangaroos and wallabys in their own living room; and a revered chef who faces the challenge of turning a seemingly unpallatable animal body part into a gourmet delicacy.

The locales range from Costa Rica to Taiwan to Australia.

Among other things, it's taught us that, as much as we look down our nose on all those amateurish piano-playing kitten YouTube videos, professionally produced animal-themed stories can indeed make for excellent videojournalism.

Indeed, KobreGuide.com has an entire Animal channel devoted to them, and video stories such as The Amazing Skidboot and Turtle Man consistently rank among our most popular offerings. Ditto for even serious-minded fare such as Gorilla Massacre and Pit Bulls: Companions or Killers.

What distinguishes them, of course, is that they are not "citizen journalism" (i.e. home movies), but rather good storytelling... and good journalism.

And, yes, we do realize it's Thanksgiving week, but you'll notice that, among our animal-themed video stories this week, there's not a turkey among them!

Oh, OK, if you insist. Here's a lively video snapshot of life on a free range turkey farm in Michigan, courtesy of Eric Seals at the Detroit Free Press (freep.com):



Enjoy! And save room for dessert.

LINKS:

* Bull Penis (National Geographic)
* For the Love of Dogs (Eddie Adams Workshop)
* Saving Sea Turtles, One Nest at at Time(N.Y. Times)
* Kangaroo Foster Parents (Time)
* KobreGuide Animal channel

Happy Thanksgiving!

KobreGuide's Top 25 for Oct. '09

Here are the top 25 most popular video stories on KobreGuide.com for the month of October 2009.

For the past couple months, we listed only recently published stories, since it seemed that these "best-seller lists" become self-prophetic -- by clicking on popular stories, it makes them seem even more popular. But then we found that the top of the list remained pretty much the same anyway, owing in part to the fact that many of these stories are linked from high-traffic Websites.

In any case, their mere presence on KobreGuide in the first place attests to their high quality, and that they merit your attention.

As always, they span an array of topics and themes, and originate from a broad spectrum of media outlets. Their tone ranges from comic to tragic.

To varying degrees, they all inform and entertain, and represent the cutting edge of visual aesthetics, high journalism standards, and good storytelling.

KobreGuide strives to showcase topical stories, but gravitates towards evergreen features, not news.

So if you missed any of these the first time around, they should all still feel fresh and not outdated. Now's your chance to catch them, and we hope you do.

1. Pit Bulls: Companions or Killers?

2. Bolivia's Women Wrestlers

3. Acid Attacks

4. Being a Black Man

5. Conjoined Twins (pictured)

6. The Sand Dancer

7. Dangerous Encounters with Brady Barr

8. Being Aron Ralston

9. Ana's Story

10. Turtle Man

11.Ian Fisher: American Soldier

12. Burned in the War

13. Living Galapagos

14. A Hendrix Experience in Hollywood

15. Hungry: Living with Prader-Willi Syndrome

16. Mending Broken Hearts

17. Talking to the Taliban

18. Zora Neale Hurston's Hometown Legacy

19. Train Jumping: A Desperate Journey

20. 85 and Still Kicking

21. Trapped: Mental Illness in America's Prisons

22. Weegee

23. A Place for Jani

24. The Girl in the Window

25. Prison Overcrowding

P.S. Here's a statistic we're happy to share. In the year since KobreGuide launched (in October 2008), our audience and page views have steadily increased 10 to 20% per month.

We've still got a ways to go to achieve the kind of traffic enjoyed by the major media institutions we showcase and champion, but we're enthused to know that the receptive audience for videojournalism that we originally targeted does in fact exist.

In fact, all signs point to nonfiction video stories becoming a bigger and more potent force in the near future, and we're proud to say that KobreGuide has been ahead of the curve in recognizing this. We'll hope you'll stay with us for the fascinating journey ahead.

KobreGuide's Top Stories for July '09

Here are the most viewed stories on KobreGuide during the month of July 2009, representing not just the Web's best videojournalism, but also the most popular:

• Pit Bulls: Companions or Killers?
  
• Conjoined Twins
  
• Waiting Topless
  
• Acid Attacks
  
• Bolivia's Women Wrestlers
  
• Eating Placenta
  
• Hungry: Living with Prader-Willi Syndrome
  
• Looking Back
  
• 85 and Still Kicking
  
• Trapped: Mental Illness in America's Prisons
  
• Dangerous Encounters with Brady Barr
  
• A Place for Jani
  
• Class Dismissed
  
• Turtle Man
  
• Being Aron Ralston
  

Note that these video stories collectively come from a variety of sources, and cover a wide array of topics.

Seen a great example of videojournalism that we missed? Please share it with us!

Happy viewing!

The Power of VO Narrative

KobreGuide is blessed this week with not one but two terrific video stories from Kentucky's Lexington Herald-Leader, both produced by the team of David Stephenson and Amy Wilson:
Turtle Man and Despite Rocky Start, He's a Fighter .

What these stories share is a potent combination of clever shooting and writing. Often the pursuit of quality writing is overlooked in video stories. In these two cases, it's a pleasure to hear the writer's Southern-twanged folksy voiceover, and in fact a big part of the stories' entertainment factor is that you feel like you're listening to an engaging campfire tale.

That said, if you only heard the narration, you'd be missing out on the compelling visuals, and especially how they deftly augment the spoken words without being redundant.

The lesson here is that, in this age of "one-man-band" videojournalism, writers should not be expected to shoot great video, and videographers should not be expected to deliver pro-quality VO narrative. True, some videographers have that extra gift, but when we look at the credits on KobreGuide, we usually find that even the best shot stories benefit from having a dedicated writer aboard the project.

Now, writing for the page and writing for the ear (and correlating words to visuals) involve separate sets of skills -- but that's another story for another time...