SnagFilms Presents Free Memorial Day Documentaries

SnagFilms is a site where you can watch and share hundreds of free feature-length documentaries online. This weekend it is showcasing a slate of films devoted to Memorial Day themes.

As SnagFilms CEO Rick Allen wrote for Huffington Post:

Featured films include Return To Tarawa, the story of a veteran of one of the bloodiest battles ever fought by U.S. Marines, who returns to that Pacific atoll only to discover that what should be hallowed ground has become a garbage dump—and that the bones of warriors remain in place, unidentified and apparently ignored, at least by our government. Leon Cooper won’t forget, and the film outlines his last battle: to clean up “Bloody Tarawa” and venerate the dead.

Nanking is the highly-honored documentary that picked up its Peabody Award this week—now online for the first time. It brilliantly depicts the heroism of civilians just prior to World War II who tried to prevent a Holocaust from occurring when Japanese troops marched into the then-capital of China in 1937. Nanking reminds us that bravery is not the sole province of the soldier, and that moral and physical courage can come from unlikely sources.

In Vietnam, Long Time Coming, U.S. and Vietnamese soldiers embark on a 1600-mile bicycle tour throughout Vietnam, reflecting with their former enemies on our long war. A similar approach to post-war understanding, On Common Ground, tells the story of American and German World War II veterans meeting 55 years later on the very battlefield where once they’d fought.

Other Memorial Day films featuring World War II themes include Battle of the Midway, and Pearl Harbor: Day of Infamy. East LA Marine tells the story of US Marine PFC Guy Gabaldon, who captured over 1500 Japanese soldiers and civilians—single-handedly. For those who wish to reflect on Memorial Day along the contours of its original creation, SnagFilms is showing Arlington Field of Honor, which offers a tour of America’s most sacred warrior graveyard. Other films in the special offering include Devil Dog Diaries (National Geographic’s inside look at a unit in action during Desert Storm), and So Very Far from Home, the true stories that were the basis of Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun.

We tried our hand at creating our own SnagFilms Memorial Day movie-theater widget, and found that it is easy to do. This one contains 3 films -- Pearl Harbor: Day of Infamy, Return to Tarawa, So Very Far From Home -- but there are plenty more on SnagFilms that are worthy of your attention.

Watch more free documentaries

See SnagFilms' free Memorial Day documentaries here.

Countdown to Soul of Athens 2010

Every year the students at Ohio University's School of Visual Communication and E.W. Scripps School of Journalism canvas the Appalachian community of Athens, Ohio in search of colorful stories that lend themselves to online multimedia presentations.

Incredibly for the past four years they've continued to find and explore the pursuits and passions of area residents in this diverse small community, and never seem to run out of engaging ideas.

The annual project is dubbed "Soul of Athens," and every year it is recognized for its excellent photojournalism, videojournalism, and multimedia packages, which are strong on storytelling. The site is designed, edited, produced, and operated exclusively by students; this year, 60 have participated. They tackle an array of topics, ranging from poverty and sustainable farming to fashion, arts, and religion.

The 2010 edition launches on Tuesday, June 1. You can follow the countdown here, with sneak previews of what to expect.

The first volume of Soul of Athens launched in May 2007. Since the initial launch the site has continuously been recognized for its accomplishments in the fields of photojournalism, multimedia web and video production and editing. In 2009 Soul of Athens was honored by Pictures of the Year International with the “Award of Excellence” for “Online Publications Best Use.” The 2008 edition of Soul of Athens landed 1st place in National Press Photographers Association’s Best of Photojournalism contest in the category, “Best Multimedia Package”.

The 2010 Soul of Athens website will be published in a series of editions, starting on June 1. Every two weeks additional thematic editions will be added to the site. The editions include Expression, Shelter, Passage, Thrive and Experience.

Here are some of the 2009 Soul of Athens video stories that were showcased on KobreGuide.com:

Growing Up After Foster Care
Caeshel Sue Rae Allen, 18, faces single parenthood and life with a drug-using partner who's awaiting trial for abusing her.

A Life Alone
After 63 years of marriage, Tom Rose shares his perspective as a depressed widower struggling to face life on his own.

20 Free Multimedia Resources

Tim McLaughlin (right) is the Director of Multimedia at the Maine Media Workshops and Maine Media College. As a self-described "multimedia documentarian" he has worked with MediaStorm, the Eddie Adams Workshop, and the Rocky Mountain News.

Tracy Boyer's Innovative Interactivity blog invited him to contribute his list of "20 educational (and free!) multimedia resources."  It covers photography, audio, video, post-production, and Web design.

Read it here, or download a printable PDF file here. Lots to learn -- get clickin'!

From Still Photog to Videojournalist

Good profile of a veteran print photojournalist who expanded his skill set to incorporate online video:

Former Newspaper Photographer Becomes Mobile, Social Journalist

By Damon Kiesow (Poynter.org)

"Hi, I'm Jim. I'm from the Internet."

That was the moment Jim MacMillan (pictured), a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, veteran of 17 years at the Philadelphia Daily News and former embedded journalist of the war in Iraq, realized the game had changed.

He uttered those words two years ago to a fire chief at a scene in Philadelphia while shooting video and still photos for the Daily News website. Pursuing a Web-first strategy was relatively new for the paper. And that was the confusion, said MacMillan.

"If I barked 'Daily News,' it said something about the cultural and social authority [of my presence] and where they could find the pictures the next day," he said. But explaining that he was shooting video for the Web and pulling video stills for print, and that the video could be found online via a series of clicks on the site, lacked the same efficiency and charm. "Trying to boil down the shorthand in the middle of a crisis is really difficult," he said.

MacMillan, who is finishing up a year teaching at the University of Missouri J-school, said that moment was emblematic of his transition from a street photographer covering crime in Philadelphia to a "social media" journalist who at last count had more Twitter followers than Katie Couric.

The epiphany took place in April 2008, some months after MacMillan had returned to the Daily News from a fellowship, after which he taught himself video and Web skills. As the paper's first video journalist, he was working that day with a Sony HD video camera, using still images from the video for the newspaper.

MacMillan shared the despair of many newspaper videographers at the time: The craft was still new enough that few media websites displayed video prominently, which meant a lot of innovative work went unseen. "You couldn't find my content," he said. There were "no distributable media players and no RSS feeds" on the Daily News site to help the videos get shared and discussed around the Web.

As much as he was concerned with distribution, the technology of remote electronic newsgathering was also a challenge. MacMillan was working at the time to fit a TV live truck into a backpack so he could stream video directly to the Web from anywhere in town. In 2007 that required a laptop, digital video camera, wireless modem and a fair amount of luck. Now, of course, the live truck fits in his pocket in the form of an iPhone.

Read the whole story here.

Multimedia Immersion Rap Video: 'Somebody Bring Me Back a Story, Please!'

In celebration of the kickoff of the NPPA Multimedia Immersion workshop in Syracuse, N.Y., Evan Vucci and Matt Ford produced this clever music video parody about being multimedia journalists -- inspired by Jay-Z’s 'On To The Next One.' (Crank it up! Play it full screen!)

New Categories for Online Journalism Awards

The Online News Association and the University of Miami’s School of Communication today opened their call for entries for the 2010 Online Journalism Awards, with new categories that recognize emerging platforms and technologies.

Work published between July 1, 2009, and June 30, 2010 is eligible. Deadline for entry submissions is July 16, 2010, at 8 p.m. ET. Applicants can submit their work at JournalistAwards.org.

This year, ONA has introduced changes to acknowledge the role of investigative journalism, the development of emerging platforms and achievements at the collegiate level, as well as a new site that streamlines the entry experience and judging process. Eight awards now come with a total of $33,000 in prize money, courtesy of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Gannett Foundation, which also is supporting innovative investigative work with two new $2,500 awards.

The newest category honors Outstanding Use of Emerging Platforms, achievement by an organization in the use of devices such as smart phones, eReaders and tablets to tell a story and serve a community. To better reflect work being produced by future journalists, students may now enter in three categories — Multimedia Feature Presentation, Outstanding Use of Digital Technologies on the Web and Online Video.

Honorees will be announced on the final night of ONA10, the Online News Association Conference and Awards Banquet, Oct. 28-30, in Washington, D.C.

CATEGORIES:

The Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism: This category, with a prize of $5,000, honors a person or company, journalistic in focus or not, that has built a digital tool significantly enhancing the practice of online journalism.

The Knight Award for Public Service: Recognizes digital journalism that performs a public service for a geographic community through compelling coverage of a vital community issue or event; one $5,000 award.

General Excellence in Online Journalism: Honors a Web site in each of four size categories, plus two from the non-English speaking community, which successfully fulfills its editorial mission, effectively serves its audience, maximizes the use of the Web’s characteristics and represents the highest journalistic standards. The award is $3,000 for each winner, funded by the Gannett Foundation.

Breaking News: Honors digital coverage over a 72-hour period of a breaking-news event or development.

Specialty Site Journalism: Recognizes niche Web sites that focus on a single topic.

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism: Honors stories that uncover major news based on the reporters’ own exclusive investigations or that offer compelling and original analysis and interpretation. Open to all formats, including Web documentaries; two awards of $2,500 each.

Multimedia Feature Presentation: Awards excellence in telling a story to an online audience using multimedia techniques.

Online Topical Reporting/Blogging: Recognizes beat reporting by an individual or team.

Online Commentary/Blogging: Honors a unique and powerful voice of commentary original to the Web.

Community Collaboration Award: Recognizing a news project or Web site that produces outstanding journalism through strong interaction with the community being served.

Outstanding Use of Digital Technologies: Recognizes achievement by a site in the use of digital techniques to tell a story and serve a community.

Online Video Journalism: Awards excellence in online-originated video journalism.

MORE INFO:

ABOUT THE AWARDS

RULES & GUIDELINES

CATEGORIES

ENTER HERE

New Ways to Make Money in Journalism? Adam Westbrook Tells You How

After a clever ramp-up promo campaign on his content-rich blog, Adam Westbrook has at last released his 68-page eBook, 'Next Generation Journalist: 10 New Ways to Make Money in Journalism,' chockablock with solid info and advice for those crazy enough to pursue our beleagured and underresourced profession.

Guess what distinguishes each of Westbrook's strategies for landing a gig? The recognition of the fact that there are scarcely any gigs left to pursue -- and that you have to find and make your own opportunities.

And so his methods have little to do with the conventional job-application route to success -- forget about resumes, interviews, climbing the corporate ladder.

As it happens, KobreGuide's editorial director lives and works in Hollywood, where he is surrounded by hordes of starry-eyed wannabes who say that they yearn to be a writer, a director, an actor, a producer. His advice? Stop wanting to be, and start doing. Write, direct, act, produce. Think verbs, not nouns. Don't sit around waiting for someone else's approval or permission. Go out and do your own thing. Next time you meet him, ask him to perform the ditty he wrote about this frustrating phenomenon -- 'Everybody Wants to Be (Nobody Wants to Do)'.

So back to Adam Westbrook, who clearly gets this ethic -- don't wait, create! He embodies it by virtue of his informative blog, and now this eBook, available in North American and (his native) UK editions, for an "early bird" discount price of $9.50 US (thinking entrepreneurialy!)... You'll personally find lots of solid nuggets here to warrant the investment, and point your life and career in a positive direction.

Here's his pitch:

* 10 new & exciting ways of making money in journalism
* 7 bonus chapters covering the practical nuts & bolts
* 12 interviews and in-depth case studies with the journalists and entrepreneurs who are already making it work for them
* Solid advice on what makes a good news business idea
* 30 things you can do right away to make the new career paths happen
* 2 introductory chapters which guide you through how to decide what you really want
* Step-by-step guides to creating your own portfolio business, collaborative & hyperlocal website
and loads of ideas and encouragement!

And here's a sneak preview of the Table of Contents (click to enlarge):

Download 'Next Generation Journalist' here.