Learning video journalism - a trainer's tale

Learn video journalism - a trainer's tale from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

There is an iteration of videojournalism as a newsgathering unit which has yet to find a widely acceptable lease of life.

I'm not referring to the individual. There are magnificent videojournalists around, but how it works as a unit and with a news agenda that delivers on a new approach to the audience.

David Brewer a fantastical media manager who's been behind some of the biggest online launches around e.g BBC, Al Jazeera, ITV, and CNN International gave a presentation in Podgorica, Montenegro.

I may show it here one day, but the essence of it was how a newsgathering unit becomes reliant on the "diary" by as much as 70%, when it should be driving its own news by that amount.

That's a lot of money and resources. Actually it's not and depends much on your underlying strategy at driving a well oiled news system.

At Miami University, the students' coverage of the Special Olympics targeting
the family of the Olympians is an example of innovative reportage.

Videojournalism at its basic form is a a device to collate more material, but just like a burgeoning Net which is unrecognisable from the time I built my first web site in 1996, it is much much more.

The video I have posted provides a basis of that thinking, when I say it stands to be a language in itself.

Having worked for the BBC in radio and TV, Channel 4 News, WTN... I'll stop, but you'll get my point, videojournalism's operating practice has for me been an exercise in the modifying the strengths and revising the weaknesses of its related disciplines.

Motion graphics, photography, cinema, TV, radio, montage, online, social network, innovation and the Outtherenet - my own area of research.

But what makes me terribly excited is what might come from the interaction with artists - at the South Bank.

Here, perhaps is the opportunity to push again and new vigour outside that comfort zone we inhabit when co-opting technology.

And throughout the summer, I'll be looking to put on a few masterclasses and gatherings that seek to address some of these evolving issues.

See you there!

NB. If you're interested in training - you can contact me on Viewmagazine.tv

Training the Trainer

It's one of those facts of life, once we require knowledge we endeavor to share with others. In journalism, those that are sent of for videojournalism training often become the trainer-in-residence for the rest of the team and group as well.

It's not uncommon for a newly minted video journalist to be given a few scores of people to train.

More often than not that training will be adequate, but consider the converse, at university what usually takes a lecture-student learning relationship a good many weeks is condensed into a few days within the commercial sector.

Which is how training the trainer will be a feature that I intend to talk about at the forth coming Video journalism Camp and in Sweden's World Newspaper Association.

What can we do to strengthen the hand of VJs turned trainers?
Do they needed added training, beyond what we deliver in those few days?
And how do they motivate their colleagues?
And how can recently graduated journalists feedback into the cycle to aid the next intake?

Just some of the things I hope to report on in the coming weeks