Videojournalism: the revolution in media influencing academia. On assignment near Syria's border.

In this video, something happens at 1.27, but you need the contexts of the earlier footage, so be patient,

The girl singing survived, you see her ushered into a safe place as her caretaker calls her name.

The caretaker is a videojournalist, an activist documenting the atrocities in his country. Two years ago circumstances led him to pick up a camera. For the next 7 days, I share a space with him and fifteen other so called "activists", in one of the most rewarding and emotional projects I have been involve with for a while.


End of prologue. 

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"Non-emergency personnel and family members" were ordered to leave Beirut and given permission to leave Adana, near Turkey's border with Syria.

This news reported on Reuters couldn't be any worse. No S**t a friend said. In 8 hours time I was heading into the very region, Adana, where Americans officials were being ordered out of.

Was I scared? 

Apprehensive, Yes! Enough to talk about a likely exit plan, if things were to go Pete Tong [wrong] , as we the Brits say.

Last time I had butterflies like this was traveling to Tunisia, Beirut, Cairo and in the 90s South Africa. What's new? Except there was no whiff of air strikes or rogue chemicals in the air.

There are lecturers I know and respect who make it a habit to stay in touch with their craft e.g. Bill Gentiles a figurehead in the world of backpack journalism.

Not by design, more by default, but firstly, the need to stay in touch with the field I'm in is an anti-bored pill. Secondly, it furnishes me with my narrative for storytelling I like to tell. These story-forms derive from a fascination in what experts call the world without theory: Bakhtin's Carnival.

Beirut Videojournalism

I train enthusiasts to become videojournalists, but to paraphrase Mr Cobbs " I specialise in a very specific type of security  videojournalism". I apologise if that sounds arrogant. It's not meant to be.

This videojournalism has been the subject of a six year PhD, [historical and qualitative] which through the selfless help of  Rosensblum, Drew, Turness - NBC first woman president of News -  and several other people.e.g.  contemporary videojournalists such as Adam Westbrook. The thesis should  be evaluated soon.

videojournalism study

The working-in-the-field also, many performance lecturers believe has benefits for their students.
What I do constitutes experiential knowledge. Lectures become hermeneutical. Practice is informed by theory, and the process of curating information becomes wrapped in that most basic of perceptions.

You know the story of the politician expressing a point evoking Mary with one child agreeing that raising taxes puts her 100 UKP in the red each month. Well yes, merely saying that gives you scope to imagine Mary and hear her predicament, even when she's not real.

In performance lecturing, based on actual events, the narrative of teaching journalism, say expressing SEO, ethics or how to keep a low profile, is a story in itself.

A brief visual history of videojournalism from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Did I tell you the time, I had to Q and A with Nelson Mandela at a press conference and I was terrified out of my wits, and then met him at a foreign correspondence do? South Africa 94.  Or being asked to film for Heavy weight Boxer Lennox Lewis and his camp as he fought Tyson?  Memphis, 2002. Or  back in February explaining cinema journalism to the Arab media summit? Cairo, 2013.

Experiential notes on a page - that mobile narrative.

The story of what happened in the week in Adana is extraordinary.  A series of lectures, exchange of knowledge, seven stories that we  (Marwan, Fires, myself ] had to shape - some of which constitute war crimes of a nature that would make you physically sick.  

 Marwan, from the think tank Menapolis presses a point over verification

The video at the top.. dramatic, terrifying.. their stories deserve a proscenium, where we can learn more about them in ways that are affective Presence reality?

Imagine going to see a film at the cinema, and then seconds after the film finishes the general manager tells the audience to hang on, because we now have a personal skype interview with the participants in the story.

Otherwise imagine I create a story that leads imperceptibly into their stories, and everything from the technology to the social issues become dialogical.

David discusses the philosophy of the 100 videojournalists and specialised videojournalism equipment

Or what about a lecture in which the wisdom of crowds is also the narrative. This is the domain of Touch cast which I explained in my previous post. 

These are methods to bring journallism straight into the lecture room in a more visceral way, but also to pump it out again as both narrative and eipitome [ notes in a lecture]. See my post yesterday on the BBC's secret weapon and popular post, the theory of new videojournalism

It requires a new collaboration - a pragmatism to lecturing emerging from the interplay of the professional practice and theoretician. The two have always been bedfellows, yet academia post 70s has invariably delineated the two. In his wonderful articles Bordwell expressed this in a related way why don't academics and critics get along.

This merge will also spawn a new type of university, one which corresponds to the demands on the one had of emerging technologies, but also as part of its core values thinks up the next generation of practices, not as a theoretical exercise, but by creation.

This new proscenium will see a heurestics of emerging media as key, utilising apps that bring journalism in the field right into lectures. I'm excited by this.


End



Thanks to Marwan and the team from Menapolis

Viewmagazine.tv is about to undergo an overhaul to reflect what academics refer to as an autoethnographic study, where I use myself as the narrative to express the changes to journalism and communications, such as shift media and videohyperlinking - my most recent post.


David Dunkley Gyimah is a Knight Batten winner for innovation in journaism, an international award winning videojournalist and Channel 4 Digital finalist, among other awards. His PhD research reevaluates videojournalism repositioning a new understanding of the form. David is a senior lecturer in online ( social) and videojournalism. he is a juror for the RTS awards.

Presidential Videojournalism- Don't throw the baby out with bathwater

Presidential Videojournalist. President Obama shows his shooting skills, but is he shooting stills or video? Picture WhiteHouse, Pete Souza See here for David's 100 Day Obama video played at the Southbank Centre to an original live score by composer Shirley Thompsom

You're a would-be videojournalist. You're researching a course and you're at a loss at

• What to look for?
• What outfit to choose?

You're now in possession of the most amazing piece of shooting kit - a stills camera that shoots film and you have a bit more time on your hands than the US president. So options?

• Do you go on a course to jump start your solo shooting career?
• Do you go it alone?

When you open the directory for videojournalism outfits, there's the university and as many short course videojournalism training outfits leaving you a trite bewildered. They offer different epistemologies as those who have done short courses and proceeded to Unis or vice versa will testify. Not least the length of study. Consider this, a thought I'd like to stake in this piece, a sort of iambic pentameter. "Da de dam du dum, dum. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water".

"online video part of 'the new journalism'? - original article 2005 on journalism.co.uk by Jemima Kiss. Here for the rest There are now two schools of journalism. In one, the journalist must be accredited and trained. In the new school, we have bloggers, mobloggers and latter-day gonzo. You can attract a large international audience through blogging or podcasting, so a generation of storytellers may well bypass traditional routes of education and the mainstream if they don't feel the industry is relevant to them any more. "

Television is your answer Professor Leonard Witt, talking about Trust in the media from his 2005 Conference in San Antonio. You can see the film I made on this on their site. Trust is an issue I'll come back to later. Many of us may chasten television, I did and ocassionally still do, for the manner in which it tells stories. But this semiotic exists for a reason. Its use dependent on its medium. There are horses for courses. It's not the art of television journalism that is at fault as you pursue your new love. There are the most brilliant TV practitioners that ply their trade or have left extraordinary legacies for us to be informed e.g. Murrow, Jennings ( I met as an ABC news producer in 1994 in South Africa and was just awe struck), Bradley, & Wheeler, It is its application by those no longer turned on by its creativity and the extraordinary association and connectivity with the audience that has reason to make you feel frustrated. How many times as a journalism students have you screamed at the television reporter proclaiming you could do better, because a pun was not necessary or the reporter dominates disproportionately the message of the report.. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Da de dum, da de dum Television journalism was and is a necessary lingua franca and just as Latin begot common parlance e.g. Catalan English, French, Italian, so will generations ahead proficient in a paradigmal shift in visual factual literary story telling, be thankful to this form. Which begs the question for you right now. You've decided to go on a short course. It's cheaper and provides a quick rush to build your confidence. What do you look for in the background of the trainers?

A still David reporting for ITV's "London Tonight", circa 1998, from David's book and PhD study in which using phenomenology he shows how his background working for the likes of Newsnight, Channel 4 News, dotcom new media companies, Designer, Commercial Promo maker has informed his notion of visual grammar.

Television, yes, to impart to you an understanding of the foundations, but then something else, hopefully, an illustrative vision on how to push the form. In learning about about composition today we still go back to the origin e.g. Caravagio et al. Yet to break the rules, you need to understand them and many of the rules, we call "rules" are in fact guidelines, there to be broken by the innovator e.g. 180 degree. Mind you my thinking comes with a footnote. In years to come again when we've turned over, we'll likely not teach television in videojournalism, just as you don't teach radio writing for TV journalism. Or or taking form for for, you would not teach creative storytelling in novel form for print journalism So back to Videojo how do you know your trainers will be able to place you in this new space?

• Simply ask them.
• look at their body of work. Bill Gentile has thirty years shooting in the field; he gets to teach me, yah! Rosenblum needs no introduction.

Be wary of abject recommendations. I spoke about this presenting at the World Newspaper Forum, last year. I once knew someone who approached scores of people for that cred letter. He eventually found one, and guess what pride of place it went. Front page. A caveat though, as in any profession, there are some people who are autodiadactists or combine conventional education with a penchant to keep rethinking. I can think of a few like this, but would not want to embarrass just yet. They possess that "kwa" to push you beyond the boundaries of your comfort, which is what you need. "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. dada de dum da de" Teaching is a selfless act to others and a mirror reflection of ones self. That's contestable you might think as you're paying for the time to be taught, but the philosophy of teaching is not simply saying, this is a good film and this is how to carry a camera, but a psychological process leading to critical thinking and analysis, that enable you to be able to make your own judgement. Why is a chair, this chair beautiful to look at and how can what I know about this chair be transferred to how I might build my website? The answers lay within us all. The frame work is what teaching, building on knowledge, imbibing different socio-cultural indexes and pedagogical explorations, is all about. Whatever videojournalism is, and I have my own convictions littered through out the history of this blog and articles I have been writing or contributing to since 1994, it transcends all that which came before it. It has to in many ways otherwise is fraudulent of packaging itself as the new new thing. Pic. David reporting from Africa on its first cross production between two African states using videojournalism: Ghana and South Africa ( 1997) David is in Slovenia, Cairo and Chonquin in the coming months lecturing in "training the trainers" for professional TV execs and University Professors

Journalistic ideas with Bill at the American University DC

Picture copyright Dominique Brewster

Bill Gentile, a remarkable figure in independent journalism and documentary filmmaker requested whether I'd be interested in being an advisory board member at the American University for his backpack journalism programme. I am deeply humbled by his gesture.

Tom Kennedy, formerly of the New York Times, is there as well - and I am just full of huge admiration for Tom.

Here's Bill's biog. Thanks Gentlemen.

Bill Gentile is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker at American University, where he brings 30 years of field experience and professional contacts to the next generation of communicators. In 2008, Gentile traveled with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU) in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province. The film he produced and shot, Afghanistan: The Forgotten War, was broadcast by NOW on PBS. Later in the year he shot and produced a story on America’s nursing shortage, also broadcast on PBS. In December C-SPAN broadcast, The White House: Inside America’s Most Famous Home, on which he worked as Documentary Consultant. Gentile teaches Photojournalism, Foreign Correspondence and Backpack Documentary.