SPJ Report on Staying Relevant Shortchanges Videojournalism

The Society of Professional Journalists has issued a report on how to stay relevant in a digital age when both "professional" and "journalist" have taken on significantly new meanings. The report pays lip service to "digital media," "multimedia," and "emerging technologies" -- and the struggle to stay abreast of these trends while staying rooted in traditional values and principles. But despite its commonsense conclusions, the report seems to be missing an opportunity to meaningfully incorporate video into the mix.

Or perhaps the findings of the panel participants merely reflect the wobbly state of online videojournalism.

Mark Luckie, national innovations editor for The Washington Post, blogger at 10000words.net:

“I think that there is sort of a ‘wow’ factor for multimedia. The attitude is, ‘Now, we’re going to be doing this because everyone else is doing this,’ but people are not identifying how ‘this’ works for a particular newsroom. Are you doing photo slideshows and video that your readers want to watch? You can just do them, but are they good? People understand they should be using multimedia, but a lot of people are reluctant to do it themselves, and they don’t know where to start."

Wendy Ruderman, investigative reporter at the Philadelphia Daily News, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting:

"You can’t just go out and shoot video and audio and come back and put that on the Internet and consider that deep investigative journalism. There isn’t any replacement for getting out of your newsroom and pounding the pavement, whether you do that with your camera or a notepad....

I don’t know how the hell you go out and shoot video, edit audio and write a story... I think journalists have to strike that balance, where maybe you team up with reporters who specialize in multimedia, to give them help in the things they already know how to do...

"A lot of the interns and a lot of reporters come in and they know a lot of multimedia, but they don’t really know how to put a story together or have the writing skills and interviewing skills....

"SPJ needs to do something for tech-savvy journalists who want to learn storytelling, basic storytelling, and what makes a story a story."

Of the committee's ten solid recommendations, this one came closest to addressing the need to prep and train videojournalists:

Teach journalists and their managers the theories behind why they should use new media technologies and examples of best practices, rather than just providing lessons about how to use equipment.

Among the bright lights SPJ's Digital Media Committee enlisted for this roundup were media analyst Ken Doctor; Joshua Benton, Nieman Journalism Lab; Josh Breitbart, New America Foundation; author Clay Shirky; Pulitzer Prize winners Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker, Philadelphia Daily News; former Seattle Times executive editor Mike Fancher; digital media pioneer Howard Owens, Washington Post National Innovations Editor Mark Luckie; Jay Rosen, New York University; Tom Rosenstiel, Pew Research Center; media analyst Alan Mutter; Rick Edmonds, Poynter Institute; and Mark Briggs, author of “Journalism 2.0.”

The independent committee, appointed by SPJ’s president, interviewed more than a dozen media experts to advise the 101-year-old, 8,200-member Society on how to stand out among more than 90 national journalism organizations.

Its top recommendations include:

1. Bridge the divide between new and old media by aggregating and spotlighting high-quality journalism and facilitating communications among online start-ups and legacy media.

2. Create a vibrant network for new media start-ups to share ideas online and in person.

3. Take stands on hot-button digital media issues affecting the future of information sharing. Become an advocate for expanding access to the Internet, news and information.

4. Teach reporters to use powerful emerging technologies, from software to websites and gadgets capable of providing greater depth to stories and increasing public participation.

5. Educate members and citizens in the basics of journalism because proper information-gathering and storytelling techniques are more important than ever in the digital age.

You can read the full report and list of recommendations here (PDF).

The committee also recently published a two-part “Digital Media Handbook” filled with training tips on new media. Part I of the handbook is available here; Part II is available here.

Video is addressed, perfunctorily, in "What Makes a Good Video Story," by Rebecca Aguilar:

Video stories have become a vital part of online and newspaper multimedia reports, but not every story should be turned into a video report. I thought I’d ask three television news videographers to help us in our quest to figure out what makes a good video story and when should it only remain a story in print.

Conclusion? In a nutshell: good action, good characters, good audio.

SPJ also offers free online "Training on Demand" to members, including Basic Video Techniques in three parts: camera movements, shot composition, and Flip cams.

What else do you think SPJ can and should do to promote videojournalism?

*****
LINKS:

SPJ Report

SPJ Code of Ethics

SPJ Blog

SPJ Training on Demand

Digital Media Handbook, Part I

Digital Media Handbook, Part II

YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video

Go take a look at some of the 125 videos that have been shortlisted for "YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video." They've been selected from more than 23,000 submissions from 91 countries.

A jury, which includes performance artist Laurie Anderson and film director Darren Aronofsky, will now select their top 20 choices to be revealed at a special event at the Guggenheim Museums (in New York, Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice) on October 21, and on view to the public and on youtube.com/play through October 24.

What sort of videos?

...innovative, original, and surprising videos from around the world, regardless of genre, technique, background, or budget. This global online initiative is not a search for what’s “now,” but a search for what’s next... The end result will hopefully be the ultimate YouTube playlist: a selection of the most unique, innovative, groundbreaking video work being created and distributed online during the past two years.

We received a wide range of videos, from experimental or abstract work and mashups, to animations, music videos, and narrative short films. They include submissions from students, video artists, photographers, filmmakers, composers, video game programmers, a comedy improv group, an American women’s chess champion, a Swedish rock band, a South African hip-hop group, and an Australian electronic music producer, among many others.

In short, not much videojournalism, but probably plenty to inspire videojournalists... and amuse video aficionados of all stripes... Watch here.

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.

Video Tips, Tricks, Techniques from a Pro

Bill Mecca (pictured) is a former TV and radio journalist, and an award-winning documentary filmmaker, whose career spans three decades. He's taught mass communications college courses and currently serves as "a one-person video production department" for a state agency.

On his blog, he periodically shares video "tips, tricks and techniques for better video and audio."

Here are his first half-dozen video tutorials. Check out BillMecca.com for more insights.

Quick Tips Episode 1: Lens Filters & Lens Hoods


Quick Tips Episode 2: Free Motion Graphics, Video Backgrounds


Quick Tips Episode 3: Dealing With Plosives


Quick Tips Episode 4: Sound Treatment


Quick Tips Episode 5 : Free Music


Quick Tips Episode 6: Framing & Composition

Wired to Publish iPad Magazine

We're relieved to be in good company when we called the iPad a "game changer" for print journalism.

We've been among those forecasting that the addition of touchscreen visual journalism -- especially video -- is going to compel people to fork over a few bucks, either for each issue or for an extended subscription. That's partly because audiences are already in the habit of buying apps with the push of a button, even as they've lost their desire to purchase publications on newsstands and magazine racks.

As we've been predicting all along, iTunes will do for print what it did for music. Smart publishers will get on board early.

One such publisher that has vindicated our vision is Conde Nast, whose upscale titles include Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and GQ (which already publishes iPhone/iPod Touch app versions of its issues).

First out of the chute for iPad conversion is, appropriately, their premiere tech title, Wired. Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson announced at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference on Friday that the publication would be releasing its content for the iPad by summer.

Anderson said the iPad allows periodicals for the first time to do digital content with all of the same values and artistic range that are the hallmark of print magazines. Wired Creative Director Scott Dadich worked with Jeremy Clark from Adobe (pictured) over the last six months to design the Wired iPad Magazine. [Ed. note: Couldn't they have displayed a more optimistic headline?]

Readers can sift through the contents horizontally and when they find an article they want to read, touch and drag their finger on the first page vertically to browse through the pages up and down. They can also turn the device horizontally to take advantage of the automatically-rotating display to view two pages side by side like a magazine and zoom out to see thumbnails of the content all at once.

Naturally, the best part, from our perspective, will be the inclusion of video. Touch a photo of a product being reviewed, and you'll get a video report about it -- a feature that will be especially enticing to advertisers.

And of course another big advantage over print is that the portable digital version can be offered for a fraction of the subscription price, which runs as high as $70/year for overseas addresses.

More info here.

We Watched 33.2 Billion Online Videos in Dec.

American online video viewing continues to surge in popularity. December 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix service shows that nearly 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month. A record 33.2 billion videos were viewed during the month.

The top outlet by far is YouTube/Google, with 13.2 billion video views.

Hulu ranked second with more than 1 billion videos viewed, an all-time high for the property, and representing 3.0 percent market share. Microsoft Sites ranked third with 561 million (1.7 percent), followed by Fox Interactive Media with 551 million (1.7 percent) and Yahoo! Sites with 539 million (1.6 percent).

Nearly 178 million viewers watched an average of 187 videos per viewer during the month of December. Google Sites (YouTube) attracted 135.8 million unique viewers during the month (97.5 videos per viewer), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 59.8 million viewers (9.0 videos per viewer) and Fox Interactive Media with 56.8 million viewers (9.7 videos per viewer). The average Hulu viewer watched 22.9 videos during the month, representing another all-time high for the property.

This certainly bodes well for purveyors of videojournalism who were once worried that people wouldn't sit still long enough to enjoy videos on their computer screens.

Read more here.

84 Websites Where You Can Watch Videos

Here is an annotated list of 84 Websites where you can watch videos online, courtesy of Step to Tech.

Most of them don't qualify as (or even aspire to) videojournalism, and we can't even guarantee that all the videos are any good -- though there are plenty that merit your attention.

But with each passing day, we can't help but observe that -- despite all those dire predictions that nobody has the time or patience to watch video on their computer screen -- all signs point to the fact that, for whatever reason, millions of people are somehow finding the time and patience.

10 Tips for Adding Music to Video

Courtesy of MediaStorm's Eric Maierson, here are ten techniques that their team uses when adding music to their multimedia productions. We'll give you the essence, and then point you to their excellent blog for the details (and examples).

First and foremost, decide if you even want or need music -- and that's a completely subjective consideration. Many purists believe that, unless you're using music that was actually heard at the scene (i.e. natural sound), it's a violation of journalistic ethics to add it to your video, since your choice of music (and its tempo and mood) demonstrably affects how viewers process and interpret what they're seeing.

If a soundtrack is indeed desired, here are some "notes" to consider:

1. If the music you’ve chosen is not exceptional, don’t use it. ... If you do use music, don’t steal it. ...

2. Don’t needle-drop [i.e. play a song from beginning to end]. You’re going to need to cut up your music... Try to avoid using music for the full duration of your work. ...

3. Use music with a strong rhythm...

4. Use music with strong stings [i.e. final notes] to provide a definitive conclusion to a section of your production...

5. Turn off other audio tracks when editing music. ...

6. Keep levels consistent. ...

7. Strategically place imperfect music edits. For example, hide an imperfect edit by lowering its volume and placing a voice track over it. ...

8. Create an interplay between your narrative and music. ...

9. Fade music levels as interview bites begin. ...The fade between music and interview should be smooth enough to not draw attention to itself. ...

10. Learn an instrument. The more you understand music, the more skilled you will become at editing music...

For details and examples, read the article here.

Time Video Follows Winter Olympics Training

Ever wonder how athletes train for the Winter Olympics when it's not winter?

Time is following U.S. Winter Olympic hopefuls in 9 sports as they train for Vancouver 2010, for an ambitious Web video series. Here's a vertiginous sneak peek:

Anne Frank: The Only Existing Video

You've seen a photo of Anne Frank; you've read her diary. So why does the prospect of viewing previously little-known video footage of her intrigue you?

You're not alone. Though it's only a few seconds long, the video is going viral, lighting up Facebook and Twitter.



Proof of the power of video over still images and printed words?

Here's the background, courtesy of the Anne Frank House channel on YouTube:

July 22 1941. The girl next door is getting married. Anne Frank is leaning out of the window of her house in Amsterdam to get a good look at the bride and groom. It is the only time Anne Frank has ever been captured on film. At the time of her wedding, the bride lived on the second floor at Merwedeplein 39. The Frank family lived at number 37, also on the second floor. The Anne Frank House can offer you this film footage thanks to the cooperation of the couple.

Attention Newspapers: Video Improves Your Google Ranking

If you don't have video on your Website, you jeopardize your chances of getting a top Google search ranking.

That's a lesson that newspapers should take to heart, judging from the advice of Bruce Clay, a veteran of the search engine optimization (SEO) industry.

In an interview with ReelSEO, Clay discusses what is known as "Engagement Objects" -- multimedia components such as MP3 audio files or videos that Web page visitors can interact with.

Whereas Google once used 120 variables to rank Websites, thanks to "engagement objects" its algorithms now incorporate 200.

In the case of video, we believe that as one of the more important engagement objects, Google has actually started to build it into the algorithm. That means if your Website has video on it, it is going to be received by the algorithm better and your site will actually have an opportunity to rank better.

A year from now, we are going to be sitting here saying, "If you don’t have video, if you don’t have engagement objects on your website, you are just not going to rank. It will make you last among equals if you don’t have it.”

This corroborates the findings of Nate Elliot at Forrester Research earlier this year, in his study, “The Easiest Way to a First-Page Ranking on Google.” He concludes:

“Not only are video results increasingly common in Google’s search results, but your videos stand a 50 times greater chance than your text pages of being shown on the first results page.”

Forrester's tips for optimizing video for best search results:

* Insert keywords into your video filenames.

* Host your videos on YouTube, and embed those YouTube videos into your own site. Google says its algorithms consider how many times a video is viewed, and any views embedded videos receive on your own site get added to the 'views' tally on YouTube. (And yes, nearly every video we saw Google blend into its results came from YouTube.)

* Optimize your YouTube videos by writing keywords into your videos' titles, descriptions, and tags.

* Embed videos into relevant text pages on your site. The context provided by the text on those pages (which is hopefully already optimized for search as well) will help the search engines figure out what your videos are about.

* Also create a video library on your site, so Google knows where to find your video content. (Google Video Sitemaps can help with this too.) Write keyword-rich annotations for each video in the library.

Many newspaper Websites bury their video, poorly annotate it, and make it impossible to navigate (from text story to video and back, or from one video to another). They would do well to heed the advice from marketing pros, and start affording their potentially most valuable asset better care and treatment!

Watch the video interview with Bruce Clay here.

Hey, Google Labs, How About a 'Fast Peek'?

Google Labs just launched Fast Flip, which is an ingenious way of quickly browsing entire pages of online publications that enables the publications themselves to better share in ad revenues. Everyone benefits!

You can currently access about three dozen titles, using a variety of criteria, but even Google's own description doesn't do it justice: "Blindingly fast overviews of headline pages of top newspapers." So just go play with it for yourself.

Since Google owns YouTube, we'd like to propose a video version of this. How about a 'Fast Peek' of the top news videos? Or for the less hurried, a 'Slow Look' at some quality videojournalism. Just sayin'!

Meanwhile, if you want to see the other two dozen cool apps Google has been cooking up for you, check out Google Labs.

ReelSEO's Big List of Online Video Resources

ReelSEO's Mark R. Robertson has put together a terrific list of online video resources that he personally follows. Though its scope extends beyond videojournalism, there will be plenty of interest here to anybody who appreciates the industry's technical and creative innovations.

With the online video industry in what seems to be a continual rapid growth mode, it is difficult to keep up with all that is going on with regard to news and information about online video platforms, online video marketing, video advertising, mobile video and everything else... Consider adding the following sources to your daily RSS feed for keeping up on all that is going on with the online video industry. ..

Brace yourself -- there's a lot here. It will make for good weekend exploration. Enjoy!

Pogue Evaluates iMovie '09

Final Cut Express is the affordable video editing tool of choice for most videojournalists, but many folks get their start on iMovie (right), which comes with every Mac computer.

Our favorite tech columnist, David Pogue, ranted in 2007 when Apple took a giant step backward with its iMovie '08 video editing software:

It's nothing like its predecessor and contains none of the same code or design. It's incapable of the more sophisticated editing that the old iMovie made so enjoyable.

But now he says that the new iMovie '09 is "far more usable."

If you're scoring at home, here are the features that have been restored: themes, extracting audio, chapter markers, direct export to iDVD, visual effects (including slo-mo, reverse motion, black-and-white and more).

Here's what's still missing: plug-ins, audio effects, manual audio adjustments, bookmarks, importing old iMovie projects without losing all your enhancements.

That tally isn't exactly fair, however, because it doesn't consider all the things the new iMovie does that the old one couldn't.

The killer app ... is image stabilization, making jerky footage smooth, even if you were filming while hiccuping on a camel ride during an earthquake...

Our verdict: Play with iMovie, since the price is right, but eventually you're going to want to spring $200 and graduate to Final Cut.

One More for Election Eve

What a long strange trip it's been -- the longest, costliest, and arguably wackiest presidential campaign in American history. And now, here we are. The New York Times puts it all in (balanced) perspective for you, in this three-part video retrospective that covers The Landscape, The Candidates, and The Voters over the past two years. It's called, simply, Choosing a President. Enjoy!

Should Newspapers Get Out of the News Business?

Everyone presumes that newspapers will soon get out of the print business... and somehow make a go of it with online journalism. But maybe everyone's looking at the problem the wrong way.

Newspapers don't make money on news. They make money printing and distributing ads. News is what they LOSE money on -- even online. So, logically, newspaper companies should get out of the news business, and find something less expensive to fill that "editorial" space.

Besides, newspaper reporters, photographers and editors possess many invaluable skill sets, but shooting and editing video and telling multimedia stories, with audio and moving images, are not likely to be among them.

Which prompts some good questions: In your vision of the future, WHO will produce high-quality online journalism, WHAT will it look like, and HOW will it be commercially viable? We're all ears.

Prof. Kobre’s Video Tutorials

Subscribe here: http://www.youtube.com/kkobre


Shooting video of a live music performance

How to shoot and edit a short video sequence of a music performance using one camera.

---

The tripod: Three legs are better than two hands

When and how to use a tripod for producing a video sequence, and when a hand-held camera will suffice.

---

Video sequence with and without zoom: French Cafe

How to produce and edit a video sequence with and without a zoom shot. The problem with zoom shots and what to do to avoid them.

---

Video sequence with and without zoom: Fabric Merchant

When to zoom the lens and when not to zoom if you are shooting and editing a short video sequence. Part 2

---

How to edit a video sequence

How to take 15 video clips of the same subject, a French flower merchant, and edit them into a sequence that can be used for a larger documentary.

L.A. Times Launches Visual Journalism Dept.

Newspapers everywhere are struggling with how to best adapt images to the Web, a medium that can accommodate so much more than still pictures.

Photojournalists are having to learn a whole new set of skills -- not just the nuts-and-bolts of shooting and editing video, but also how to tell an entire story (and not just provide visual accompaniment), complete with audio interviews and sound bites, while meeting the basic standards of journalism. Whew!

Similarly, print journalists are being handed fancy new equipment, given fast-track tech and software training, and sent out to shoot and edit audio-slideshows and video stories (and still meet their daily print deadlines).

The Los Angeles Times is in the vanguard of metropolitan dailies that are making a concerted effort to maximize their talent pools, and allocate their personnel and resources intelligently, to meet the new challenges of telling stories online with moving pictures.

Read today's memo from L.A. Times Editor Russ Stanton, about the creation of its new Visual Journalism department.

Excerpts:

Today, we are creating a fully integrated department in editorial that will serve our site and our newspaper, combining our print photo, Web photo and video operations into one new department: Visual Journalism.

Today, three photo staffers and five editors work full time to produce photos, photo galleries and videos for the web, and almost all others in the department have been cross-trained and contribute to both mediums.

Combining these three departments under the umbrella of visual journalism will improve our ability to present multimedia storytelling in an even more engaging way, and take greater advantage of our outstanding photo staff.

KobreGuide will be watching, and looks forward to seeing improved video and multimedia on LATimes.com. We'll be right here in a few weeks to point you directly to their best efforts.