Oh the joy of code

" So why do you do all this?"

A national newspaper editor asked me why I was carrying all this different baggage. You know, the ability to report on radio or TV, produce or direct in either medium, shoot- effectively video journalism... Ok it doesn't stop there but you get the point.

Because, well I guess I'm still a student in a manner of the word and truthfully I can. I recall many years back almost failing my Applied Chemistry degree because a friend studying economics had asked me to help him revise and I got sucked into the vortex of Bretton Woods and money flows. It did me some good as I remember circa 1991 at Newsnight being put in charge of the markets.

Maths, Economics and to that code have always been fascinating, ( yugo p's stuff is just sublime ) though I did give up lingo on director and have not given action scripting the respect it's due.

But lately CSS has become bed time reading. How very sad, sad indeed. To me this all makes sense.. a line from the Matrix where Keanu's character asks Cypher (Joe Pantoliano) what he sees on the screen. "Oh I just look at it code.. there's a blonde.. there's a redhead"... Ok I'm paraphrasing, but the point... all this digital stuff, FCP, Photoshop, Pods.. there all ones and zeros.

If you get photoshop then as one good friend, Rob Chiu - the ronin would put it After Effects is photoshop on steroids. There for the taking.. no not the drugs!

So where am I heading with all this..? Oh the beauty of code and elegance in design when you lift the bonnet of a site and you see how beautiful it's put together. I'm currently in the process of redesigning viewmag - where will I find the time?

But also that if this stuff scares you, yes it scares me in a healthy way, then it must not be lost on you that we are in the midst of another paradigm evolution - forced on by the onslaught of the new digiratis.

Arguably main stream remains relevant and perhaps will do so for many years to come. In part its is their collective ability to improvise, embrace the new and play catch up that are determining factors, but they're having to share the table now with, well people who just shouldn't be there. Make no mistake that hurts. That a different breed of media makers - the pirates of the play ground - are gnawing away at what was once sacrosanct when less than a a decade ago you could count the number of double firsts only allowed into the alter of television.

The BBC made bi-media a term of universal acceptance de rigeur, whether employees thought it successful or not, during the mid 90s. If you could do radio and TV, a halo beamed from your arse. Was it and is it so difficult? Then tri media - do TV, radio and the the Internet. Now that's a prized commodity of an employee if you found one.

Now that universities are opening up to this new new thing a generation ahead will with a disdainful disregard pulp this digi-media. " I think once the universities take hold and collapse the artificial boundaries in the media, I guess video journalism will take off big time". Words of Scott Rensberger, whom if you have never heard of before please google. I have the most remarkable interview with Scott about what he does as a one man band.

Coming soon the UK's print media accrediting governing body for universities, the NCTJ, will require all journalists on a print patherway ( a redundant term) learn video.

In years to come we'll wonder what the fuss was about. Not that we couldn't be a jack of all trades and master of all. That rule was long broken when mothers tackled the house and worked. But that the mental divisions of labour held out so long; a faustian pack between accountants wanting to spend big budgets and managers accepting those budgetary plans to sustain next year's figures, plus the indexing to inflation.

Oh but for the joy of economic code there goes.

I want to a journalist - How can I change the world

Over the weekend, a good friend invited me around for tea. Actually her best friend's son wanted advice. He wants to go into the media. At 15 it's a fair bet this fleetingly prepubescent ideal was a whim. For all 15 year old males have an insatiable desire to think about the ff as career choices
a) play football - chase girls
b) go into music - chase girls
c) Chase girls - as a main profession.

But I'm bound by a warped notion to change the world. He wanted to be a journalist. Couple of things to sort out.... ten minutes later it was obvious, we had a lot of work to do in this quest.. Not surprising, but when you have trouble convincing a 15 year old that Bill Clinton did not play funk, or that George Bush is not a slang insult.. yep tme to re-engage.

It soon however became apparent that a new quest could be photography. We got past the glitch that Lachapelle was not a comedian, but then got our groove. Have a look at Rankin, Type in photography into google and just wander around. If you want something that might give you a few restless turns at night go to Yannis Kontos.

Do you have a camera?

A muted yes followed.

Well then take pictures and do the Flikr.- Glazed look

Oh never mind.. go to myspace

15 year olds, I know aren't homegenous. At one web 2.0 conference, get a load of Jane and John. A little passed 15 but savvy enough to have all the brand managers chew their fingers. Whispering: "Did that kid just say they don't download, but bluetooth the video to each other F***!"

John and jane could be journalists - not, you know tradtional ones. In a decade, like the climate the journo as we know will incontrovertibly be alien. John and Jane are the power rangers of the new world.. anything digital is a jelly doughnut about to be wolfed down. They facebook, twiki, text at speech speed and radiate sunflower confidence.

My humble 15 year old did none of the above; keen, but on the timid side.

Did you know according to BBC Radio 1 somewhere in the region of 10,000 students will graduate ( can't remember the exact figure) but only 2000 on average will grab those jobs going into the media on first base. Trouble is 80 percent odd students want to work in the media and journalism scores high.

Mike Eboda, an editor of the UK's Black newspaper New Nation tells me of an incident on an estate. Couple of hooded young black boys gathered around his jag x something futuristic.

What they really wanted to know is how he could own one of them and wot did he do, sort of thing?

I'm a newspaper editor and there on he attempted to explain to the young men what a newspaper editor did to abject amusement and bewilderment. Two stayed on out of a dozen.

YCTV a media school for urban youngsters gets 15 to whatever age to learn about the media, but centres like that are few and far between. The media, journalism is a very middle class affair.

Hurumphing.. going on now.. Yep you still might be the barrow boy from east london preserving the community about you, but those that open doors in the profession do so to others who tend to mirror their sensibilities.

So back to our 15 year old. There lies an uphill struggle, but he is young and impresionable and I have handed over my contacts for him to tack me down. His task. I'm not going to let him go without setting him a task is to blag his way into the marketing department on his work placement. Then we'll speak again.

With any luck, I might have spotted the next Rankin.. Isn't that cynically why we help these young uns

I want to be a journalist - how do we change the world - a series of blogs - Redux

"So where would you like to be in ... say 5 years time?"

The clocks ticking away. Your palms begin to secrete even more. You're sitting opposite 3 figures. One's fidgetting with a pen, the other gazing at you as if you're about to confess a crime, and the interlocutor is waiting.

"I would like to be an editor"

There's a pregnant silence.

1 MINUTE EARLIER - DEJAVU
"So where would you like to be in ... say 5 years time?"

Clocks ticking. . .

"I would like to be a foreign reporter

Silence. .

OK PEOPLE CAN WE SCRUB THE TIMELINE BACK EVEN FURTHER I'M READY THIS TIME.

'So where would you like to be in ... say 5 years time, David?"

I don't ****ing know. What the **** do you think I am a futurologist. If I said I wanted your job. You'd think I was an arrogant a***. If I pitch myself any lower, you'll think I lack ****ing ambition, so where do I wanna be in 5 years. Truth? Doing something I love doing. Being successful at what I do.. Yeah, not because of you. But because of the hard work, I'm going to put in and the law of averages.

SILENCE

I walked out of the interview room thinking that's what I would really like to say, but I'm weak and feeble. My final answer was average. My clenched fist almost made it past my oesophagus.


There is ambition; what we love doing; drive; bloody mindedness; and the law of averages.

A loose assessment (1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8 seconds, there!) leads me to a conclusion - how we so easily misconstrue and become determinants at what they mean.

Ambition is good in the US. In the 80s it took on a more aggressive persona: "Greed is Good"- ala Wall Street's Michael Douglas' character.

In the UK ambition is to be left in the fridge with the half used can of beans. We all love doing something and working in the media has a high "I love my job quotient". But here too there are tacks on the floor. How much do I love you to want to stay on late and impress the editor who will remember my radiant chuckly reply when I spoke of drive, and combed my thoughts which screamed "Bloody mindedness".

We all want success: to be the best postman, most accomplished burglar, and a good journalist. And we'll do what we can legally to get there. But we're lumped into an ecosystem which rewards the antithesis to that we deem good character.

B****... HE IS A RIGHT W******
My diary shows I uttered those words possibly 1 trilion times in the beginning of my employ. Well actually I didn't but I must have heard it amongst the small gathering around the coffee machine.

There can be few professions in the world that are so personality driven, residing on ego ( in varying dollops) and insecurity.
And it's this unhealthy mix that is in part the daily catalyst to spring step to work to the sound of music, walk, then drag feet by midday.

But we love it. Many of us wouldn't do anything less. This is no place for shrinking violets my boss told me. Er what did he mean? I had no idea what he meant. Translation, if you can't shout about what you do, then no one will do it for you. Actually the more succesful ones are more tactful about how that's done. Oh yes and at some point you're gonna be loathed. Fancy becoming a manager?

Email 13.17 Sunday
As you know Jim there was a slight problem with the edit that carrie should have dealt with so we went back. Did you see that item on Ar** irrigation on Newsnight's newsbelt?

Inference: The sods working late again, post 10.30. No 11 that's when their newsbelt's on. Gosh how ambitious can you get? And look at the time of the email. **** off and die.

In part, the green mist could quite easily descend on me on these ocassions. But what was it that I/we felt envious about? Them or my lack of that killer "et tu brutus" stroke doing the same thing. I didn't want to

The web cohabits this wierd and wonderful world of contradictions. More so because of our abilty to interact, scrum and thwack that arrogant journalist/writer back in the face. Particularly joyous if it's the paper or journo you love to hate.

But as the new superstars of the web are showing, the old personal human traits so prevalant in the media are showing no signs of abating. One major differences is that this new group have had a rather meritocratic rise in blogospshere based on you, I and my pet dog sparky who would bark when he saw Amanda Congdon on Rocketboom.

No where would you like to be in say years; no where did you go to school; no er, we already have a person with a disability, ethnic background, er whatever in the workforce. This time it's me and you. Our blogs, the quality of them, our youtube videos, flick pics, sniper-edge pods say more about us than anyone could.

Yeeeeees, (i'm squirming) and No (very abruptly !)

Jon Snow on my reel produces the biggest reaction to this schizo-mania. Those who know me, will probably have guessed what it means, that when I sit down the chairs don't illuminate. Of the student's I know and have had the pleasure or working with, I can't imagine a more crass intro walking firstly into a lecture. Not because of what Mr Snow says, but by actually believing it.

C'mon...

But the Snow effect, a visual CV, the equivalent of those pithy comments for the paperback you're planning is a proxy vote of sorts, a short cut if you like Snow to cutting the author some slack, a grandfathering ping

Grandfathering?

Three pieces of advice passed to me, passed on. When considering a career into the media.

Find yourself a grandmother/grandfather - a mentor.

If your dad happens to be Michael Grade, mentor? They'll be coming to you? I was once paying a brief visit to the home of a very powerful TV exec. She sat me down with a cup of tea and begun to tell me about how I should work hard to get where I wanted and then segued into a tale of her daughter.

"Gosh she works so hard. She's just finished two attachments and even the Managing Director's are calling asking if she want to come back", she said gushing.

Yep, musn't be judgemental. her daughter probabaly did sit down to Gustav Holst's The Planets in Full Score, but it didn't seem illogical that the reason also her daughter was being pursued... you get it!

But grandfathers/ mothers have a place, and self belief as well. One of the professions I advocate to anyone/friends e.g. journalist aspiring journalist is to teach.

Because a) I'm finding I can shortcut all the ***p I went through by hopefully passing something on
b) the first time you stand in class you're as naked as the day you were born. If what you're saying doesn't make sense, watch out. Furthermore, there are no airs and grace in the lecture just what I refer to as the cauldron.

Everyone is equal, our respect reciprocated. It's an assymetric coms line, where often the more you're pressed, the more you learn about yourself. The more you learn about yourself, the more you want to push further.

I worked at so many outlets in my broadcasting career that I lost touch, and while a quick flash at my CV may look dandy, it's in part a card trick; huge highs followed by lows. In the UK in 92 I couldn't fnd work in the UK, so relocated to South Africa, ploughing townships and the most aweful places for a story. In 97 I emerged from an agency disillusioned and then like everyone else probbaly goes through badgered enough people to get work, in 2002 having dusted down the last year's general election, I begun to question whether this is what I really wanted to do.

And then I had a idea - viewmagazine.tv though it wasn't called it then. here's an early incarnation if you're interested.

The law of averages says this it's a big numbers game. The 5 percenters. The more we play in the field, the more we're likely to get the ball. Success is relative. Hah I was once touted in the Evening Standard as some doer. What i want to do is pay my mortgage. The law of averages says in this ecosystem where there's a lot of back/foreground noise, find something you're good at and keep doing it. The law of averages says it's a big bell curve, that only a few will make it, a large percentage of us will do ok and a small amount will... well.

The law of averages says those who work hard will be rewarded and the best reward is that which you like doing, whatever that is

The irrational media makers

I'd like to be involved in building a school for media makers; irrational ones who insanely believe they can make a difference.
To some extent they would be journalists, but I feel it's a redundant albeit necessary legacy term that we might be stuck with for a while. Journalists ~ writing for a journal.. seems rather dated!

Media makers are platform agnostic, they deliver to the journal, the TV, online, and all manner of sub constituents.

The advert would read: Only those with an irrational passion to make a change need apply. What is our function? Journalists write stories, you write the new rules. In the course of their growth, we would foolishly make them privy (electronically or otherwise) to that we feel uncomfortable, even shy away from; poverty, abuse in families, racism, death, murder - all the while pushing them, testing to see where there is a higher sense of ethics that we could develop.

If you've never seen death, strife, injustice at play, does that make you a lesser journalist? Do you need to experience pain to understand pain. "Act my dear boy, act" the late lawrence Olivier told his co-actor Dustin Hoffman in the Running Man.

But there's no doubt, Walter Cronkite and many other journalists before and since have had their senses smacked when in Cronkite's case he returned from Vietnam.

We would also want to re-evaluate our relationship with the story. As a journalists we tell hundreds of stories. Some stick, some don't some indeed are mediocre. It happens, in a narrow corridor, there's so much news about, or is there? I'll come back.

I asked Scott Rensberger - a 32 awards winning journalist, photographer, and possibly the first contemporary video journalist with a 20 year track record, what his favourite stories were. Not supprisingly, he had many, and they were strewn across a wide geographical plate. There's something in that.

Bono and Geldoff ludicriously believed they could make a difference with music being a vehicle for change and change agents. Financiers deluded themeselves many years back with The Marshall Plan and how we might rebuild a crippled dejected democracy and Europe. Al Gore, we thought must have been barking mad when earlier in his environmental career he preached the mantra of global doom.

Of course I'm not any of the above, just someone who believes a re keeling of the way irrational media making might work. It's unfathomable but every story they publish will have a banking purpose. The net does that now with linking. So if I said this in 1994 I'd be even more deluded.

But our feat is to redefine the database for news and its agenda of hit and misses. I onced asked a delegate at one of my talks how many times she checked her stocks and shares. At least once a day, she replied. It meant something to her, I concluded. It had value. But I added, today's news: Hurricane Katrina, The Tsunami, the Virginia shootings will soon fall of the agenda of our present custodians of news. It may be inportant but something of more significance has come along to shift its from its temporal location. Never mind that. Someone's now saying, there's no possible way you can keep showing the same news every day.

No I didn't say that, but how do we pick and choose our news is something to look at and should we be blaming the news hosts for their lack of our choice?

The news would not be a showcase of us; perhaps there's no helping that, but the purpose would be seek a new discourse in how we tell it.

Here videojournalism has been rather better placed, but it's not the panacea. Except the nature and characteristics of video journalists - at least those I have met - tend to mirror the attributes of photojournalists. Lensmen and women who tread that place angels would hesitate to go, and yes there are a kerzillion other journalists of indistinguishable merit who have enriched is before, But.. But on the bell curve of behaviours they're at the top end.

Video journalism I told a BBC reporter in Berlin, much to his delight - he told me later - is about getting down and dirty: Gonzoims updated. Finding a story that often makes little sense on paper. I'll be posting an interview with Rensberger and some of his films to illustrate, but Kevin Site's solo missions also make me wonder.

At the dawn of TV and radio, I'm returning to my narrow corridor theme; the world, as complex as it was then as a microcosm of now, must have been simpler to peer at and wonder. For one thing nations and issues were more more definned, less blurring around the edges. The world we live in today is complexity sans border.

So the issues to report were perhaps more obvious. The uniqueness of air travel also meant, any story back from the "Far East" or Africa resonated in its novelty.

The world shrouded by a chaos theory, which cycles through good and bad times makes it impossible to report on single issues, even to sustain such reports e.g. Darfur and the Genocide.

So what are we to do? Irrational media makers report and with their multimedia skills let you thread, thus soon every niche of a debated issue becomes a top page rank. Last time I checked on google as an experiment - a story I posted with 90,000,000 returns placed me at number 3. Intelligent software and human eyes, intelligence gathering gives the stories new impetus.

I asked my Mac, so how have things shaped up in New Orleans? It returned a slew of links, but in our new frontiere, our stories featured prominently. There's still more than enough anxiety to topple the cadres who stood by for the worse to happen. On another morning I asked for the top health stories around the world, then my favourite reporters. Each time the data base returned with annotations from us irrational media makers. "Huh" we said, now everyone's deep linking video to get more currency.

One of our features will be to move as "swarms" - think of it as special units. In London alone after one month, what you'll know about the city will be far and above what the daily diet of a thirty minute news programme tries to show. And whilst we won't neccessarily seek out "good stories",our aim would be examine those that ripple with their effect.

We'll need to deconstruct story telling. Pre 20th century cinema , the narrative for film wasn't fully conceived. I've no idea what it is, but where we are now, cannot be the be all and end all.

As irrational media makers, we work across news, video, photos, pods, design, promos and articles. To us they are all ones and zero, with however deeper instrinsic social purpose.

The new paradigm will ease us away from the nomenclature which defines us at the moment.

Yes, Cyber MI6 ( integrated multimedia Video journalists working the Outernet ) repurposing old ways. No.. shifting things altogether, yes, yes, yes.

.....then I woke up. 6.30 the alarm went off to the BBC's Today Programme.
Wow some *****ing dream that was.
But I managed to jot something down. It said little drops of water make the mighty ocean - an irrational thought if there ever was one.

Power to the People

The incredible battle of trafagar square - simply brilliant.
Before television was atomised to show endless runs of soap, and liquorice drama it was Pilger, Cook and World In Action et al. TV's social function, not withstanding the rose tinted outlook we attach to the yesteryears, meant something.

Injustices were served up without the chiming thunderous scores - alright just a little bit. There were few in comparison to today's consultants and pinstriped analysts telling us what we should be shown.

TV was about finding good stories and if they were about the under dogs, the neglected, the dissed, then all the more better.

Thatcher's Britain was an invitingly outrageous time to be in TV. If anything the tories gave TV land a reason to be earnest and all important. Then labour came to power and what happened next? Well if you ask anyone in TV land, we're doing as good a job then as we are now.

Tim Samuel's programme is big themed and generous, poignant and piercing. That was television, non-derivative and bold. I want my television just like that to expose the duplicitous nature of politics, life, of MPs who want to hide behind a bill that prevents the electorate - the very people who put them in power - from knowing how they serve the people. And to give some dignity to those people they were all cocker hoop to send to war, but readily abandon on their return suffering all manner of ilnesses.

More, please

newspaper reporters are now video editors

Very interesting post in which indie VJ Cliff Etzel - an email buddy - exchanges views with others at the water cooler.

The big one! Newspaper reporters are now video editors, what's your take? I have been fortunate to work with quite a few newspapers in the UK, more recently with the Financial Times amd while video is the new kid on the block, my contention is the written word remains strong, and possibly will get stronger.

Couple of things to consider for such a statement. The triple play eventually may well be the choice between the article, video or audio podcast.

When I developed viewmagazine, I had an idea that was so 'nuts' that to tell any newspaper company to adopt, well...I'd imagine the rhetoric: "Stand aside - what do you know?" And that's being nice.

Viewmagazine relies principally on the writer and strong photojournalism - the very tenants of basic journalism. But what would happen I asked if you clicked the picture? What if I could hide video behind it? In some cases what if the picture slowly animated? That's the now.

Then what if an incon next to the article, when triggered, delivered the article in the spoken word? What if also we could link audio and video seemlessly as yo do with text? That's the next phase.

The implications whether to do with accessibility or creatvity - the triple play should increase the dispersal / readership of articles.

In the last two weeks I have since learned that two national newspapers in the UK will break through in the aforementioned style. And yes as I imagined if you want to see just video you can by jumping to the paper's library or in viewmag's case Apple's podcast.

But something else kicks in which is the stuff of newspapers - 21st C. equitone. It's from the era of Addison and Steele C17th; literary figures who drove the evolving newspaper industry. Equitone became the emerging prose in which newspaper writing would adopt, developed further with journalese, headlines writting etc.

300 years odd and you could argue that while video is a threat of sorts, the written word itself online is fighting itself.

By that, what often works offline may not punch above its weight online, because of online's rules of engagement: meta tags, and linking phrases. We're now writing not only for an online audience but a cacophony of spiders trawling the web googling your prose, deconstructing your article and testing the limits of its web-friendliness, with the reward that the more webnastic it is the more people get to see it, cuz it rises up the google ranking.

I bought a video recently, something about great cinematographers. It proved something I'd thought but not been able to get to the bottom of. That all the things we're doing now with video is history on a loop. Before Man with a Movie Camera, Birth of a Nation, the early pioneers of film did it all themselves. They presumably had nothing to be concerned about as they was no strict division of labour that has come to structure our industry today.

The industry is going through its own perestroika and glasnost and the big question is whether newspapers adapt. Do newspaper reporters become video editors...........?

In this link newspaper journos in their own words talk about video journalism and what it means to them.

the new new journalists

I have been invited to speak in Bilbao - The Association of Eurpoean regional TV - about the future TV makers.

In short its this 3 years down the line

15-19" Mac super - laptop treble the speed at present inbuilt net-sat reciever
Final Cut VII -integrated editing tool with after effects + motion 100 and HD Deep video for the Outernet
Adobe Solutions X+ CSS Xml coded package with deep video 2.0 to hyperlink video
Sony HD A111 - HD camera with shifting lens and variable speed mimicing 8fps - 75fps with blue and wifi server technology

Off course this is all gobbledygook.. but the point is the next generation journalists will work off laptops and cameras that fit in a rucksack

I am a journalist with a camera: a film maker

A feature caught my eye in one of the UK trade magazines: "We will invest in quality journalism", intoned the article, attributed to a senior news exec.

How many times have you seen that? It's a bit of an oxymoron really, suggesting those on board aren't quality, but more to the point is an easy rhetorical point to convince evetyone, that, yes, frankly we will invest in quality journalism.

How?

More law training?
More public body reportage?
More international stories - quite?
More what really!

Well more innovation frankly and that means understanding the new rules of the trade, and those riding this new wave: Naka Nathaniel; Travis Fox, Mike Kraus; Sabine Streich: Ruud Elmendorp; Claudio Von Planta. . . the list continues

An old friend friend rang me yesterday. He needed a voice over for a documentary. So I headed down to his house to masquerade as five different characters - some of which have done the most heinous things in war.

Claudio Von Planta is not a name you should forget in a hurry. You've seen his work, but he is an unknown. A craftsman, whose trade goes back many years. His most recent productions have found their way onto Al Jazeera and Witness presented by Rageh Omar; Sky and Mercanaries in Afghanistan, and an hour speacial on blood diamonds with the award winning Sorious Samura for CNN.

Claudio's most high profile production though is Long Way Round, a feature starring Ewan Mcgregor and Charley Boorman on motorbikes travelling the world.

Now the point I'm trying to make. The camera Claudio is holding aloft, that's what he uses and a laptop to make these superb programmes. In a video feature I'm about to post we talk about the creativity these cameras offer, the new programme makers, the insecurity of broadcasters and the phrase: We will invest in quality journalism - frankly whoever says that without considering video journalism doesn't know what they're talking about.

Detailed article on Viewmagazine.tv soon

8 Days - How newspapers learned videojournalism in 8 days

How newspapers took 8 Days to learn video journalism



Overall this film is 15 minutes long. This segment is around 10 mins. Please go to Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLwjWsne6GA to watch the second part



Also Inside the Financial Times and their extraordinary grasp of Videojournalism. Plus the newspaper videojournalists who only make films for their newspaper.

Fancy that! You train as a newspaper journalists. Apply for a job at a newspaper and are told, you're only going to be making news features. Double page feature within the UK industry trade magazine UK Press
Gazette

omg You may know him from Oz. His repertoire boasts the best of, and his just the salt of the earth guy who you'd sit down to a beer to.


So.. I'm walking and see this figure fleetingly. Now, I'm not a star struck kinda person. I remember last year odd standing next to Jay-Z and thinking er! I guess if you work in television you can become blasse. But ocassionaly I will go wide eyed like a saucer and I couldn't resists stopping Eamon Walker who's playing Othello at the Globe, London.

We spoke for about 10 minutes and he was so incredibly nice and humble. Frankly on the odd ocassion someone's come up to me... yes I have been humbled..but I'm not sure what to say.

Anyhow I'm going to go and see Othello. Do come along if you're in London and lets hope I can catch Mr Walker at The Globe for an interview. Judging from what we spoke about, it should be a cracking one.

What are personal sites for

When I worked as a daily journalist and producer I often found there was nothing more frustrating than to present an idea and for it to be rejected. There were a myriad reasons; quite often that idea in hind sight was not editorially suitable, though having said that I reckon I had more hits than missess.

In programme commissioning, it's like pulling the teeth of a big white, ALIVE! I once remember the ebullient former Head of BBC 3 Stuart Murphy agreeing to a meeting after we exchanged emails at length. We had one of those marveous meetings - going on 2 hours. So what happened afterwards? Er nothing. I'd been passed down to managers who had no vested interest.

You soon learn commissioners have their own set ideas - of course they've got to - and you're either a name to help them or you're an irritant. And this came after working/freelancing for the likes of Newsnight, Channel 4 News, ABC News, BBC World Service... and so on. Mind you having worked for those organisations doesn't guarantee I know what I'm talking about.

But if like me you had a fair few ideas swilling around in your cranium what were you to do?

One evening I started toying around with whether I could get some of the programmes I'd made independently out on the net. Why not, what else was I going to do with them otherwise.

viewmagazine.tv was my outlet. I wanted to combine several elements: videojournalism, a fresh look at online design; Flash movies, audio files, video hyperlinking files and possible if I could my newphew's pet dog Scotch.

Some people got it and were deeply encouraging asking questions that I always tried to reply. Others hurled abuse - woops, what have I done.

I can't navigate your site
It's crap what 's it about
It's somethig the cat threw up
your files are too big

There's really not much you can do here, an I gently tried to bring to the attention of those that this wasn't a publicly funded site and that with some humility you do have a choice. The site was built around ideas I had, perhaps some of them stubborn. But yes I understood what some people were saying, particularly if they'd been reccommended to the site and thought... what the heck is this? It breaks all the conventions.

I guess if we deign to produce anything new rather than derivative of something else you're heading for some public humiliation. Viewmagazine isn't perfect.. ohh noo! But it's still my attempt to offload issues I have come into contact with.

And that to many students of journalism is the only bit of advice I can pass on. The medium and profession is changing. More and more managers are likely to look for someone with net skills. In ten years time heavens knows what journalism will look like, but I am certain, there will be a stronger component than now online.

Publish and be damned. Let tose ideas go. Learn CSS. Learn Final Cut. Learn Flash. Learn After Effects. Learn Photoshp. Learn how to use the camera as a journalist and the psychology of how we consume all this.

And yes you'll be criticised. In some ways that's a good thing. Once in a while a genuine commentator will add to site, by making a salient point. But in many ways you'll control your own media. We are about five years or less away from broadcasting taking the biggest batering.

It's questionable whether it may even survive in its present state. Hopefuly you won't have that to worry about. You'll already be a jack of all trades and master of many. That much I'm going to be telling delegates gathering at Bilbao - where 400 odd TV stations meet as part of CIRCOM.

See you there.

beware the ptc glitch

woops BBC TV's 10 Oclock news featured a double take Evan Davies, Econs editor delivering a piece to camera... stopping and doing a retake. Ouch! someone forgot to edit that out. The look on the newsreader Hugh Edwards after! Me thinks the editor or producer might have to explain a few things to the programme editor.

We know what it's like.. and at some point we've all been on the end of such er, howlers, particularly on news shows with fast turn arounds working right up to the wire. ;-)

Turnaround

I got talking to a UK national newspaper. We've been talking for a couple of months and met in Kensngton for a coffee etc. I was a fruitfull meeting and I'm hoping to see if I can spot emerging talent in their selection process.

One of the execs said something that on reflection I noticed I get asked time and tme again. How do you do this?
Sometimes it's translated as why I do it? This isn't self aggrandisement. Oh no..

I was always a big fan of the Sunday Times Business section profiling people who had a built a business because you could always come away inspired. There was always a nugget. And so what I'm about to say, I see in the same vein.

How do I do this?
Because often I see the end story quite quickly from the strands of pieces in front of me. Otherwise I tend to think what would make the story stronger and go hunting for it. A friend, an award wining composer once told me, when she is composing, she sees images. I laughed: when I shoot I see music.

Part of this is practice. It's the second nature of anticipating the flight of the ball, from the torque of the racket and body shape of your oponent. It's the old mantra. What's often at the end of a ball bouncing into the road.. a seven year old streaming behind.

Instinct plays a huge part, which in itself is often habits now maquerading as impulsive thoughts. If I'm interviewing and I get short answers and a restlessness from the interviewee, I know to cut straight to the question I need to know, even if it's quite blunt.

We tested this in Norway, for a four minute interview, it took a further ten minutes for its to be edited and ready, and with that I'd also managed to shoot further drop-in shots.

This thing we do.. TV, Video, the Media.. It's not rocket science, but in defence of some throwing the baby out with the bath water, you still need old hands, wise heads around to make decisions swiftly and firmly.

So.. why do I do this.. because I can. This is my allotment, my garden shed, where I experiment growing new produce.. There is no substitute than to get your hands dirty after some training. And then break the rule book. Nothing is sacred.

Why do I do this... because no one, no one, as we may all rather attest is entitled to anything and the only way we get there is by wanting it. Want it

Guns and assailants

Dirk Coetzee wss part of South Africa's apartheid government's death-squads. He commited countless atrocities, the most prublicised was murdering Griffiths Mxenge, the human rights lawyer for ANC personnel.

"We stabbed him 35 times and then burnt his body ... while that was happening we were having a brai ( barbeque) nearby... " Coetzee would later tell me.

I was at the Holiday Inn in down town Joburg with friends eating when a senior South African broadcast manager spotted him. "I want to talk to him. I have alway wanted to talk to him", I said. Whilst I was a freelance correspondent based in South Africa 93-94 the opportunity never arose. Now here I was some years on (98) and he was in talking distance.

It sounds so long ago, but seems like yesterday

"Why don't you go and ask him?" was her reply.

I approached hands in the air talking courteously but loudly so he could make out my English accent. At his table, four friends all packing and his son stared up.

Then he agreed. A journalist who had never held a dvcam in his life was given the camera and a few instructions and then we started to film. I'll post the interview on viewmagazine.tv

What are some of the things his done?
Why did he do what he did?
Did he not feel any remorse?
Is he a free man? ( Coetzee got amnesty for talking to the Truth and Reconcilaition Commission) But is he a free man?

Then after 30 minutes we wrapped up, chatted off camera for a while and the star formation his son and colleagues had formed around us eliminiating any blind spots from a potential assailant dissipated.

What did I get from the interview? The unique opportunity to hear a calm rationale of why he killed and what he felt. He talked about being a reformed person, a Christian. I felt I could have asked him anything and he would not have shirked from it. It's one interview I wil never forget. You can see the unedited version soon.

Footnote: this is one of those incidents that shows videojournalism strengths. I had a camera, sa an opportunity for a story and within minutes had a remarkable film, and because it was on dv, its physical integrity has held well.

Reporting mass events

The Virginia multiple murders will fill anyone with sorrow. As new reports more and more details, I have found myself rooted to TV screens, radio bulletins and surfing the net. Such scavenging for information has become the norm. My appointment with TV for its schedulled news is unwavering at these times.

Here also at these times, I find myself screaming at the crassness of reportage defaulting to something almost bordering on postering. It's perhaps not that blatant. May be I need examining.

During the UK's 7/7 I used my blackberry as a note pad incessantly typing in the indiscretions of reporters saying things they were not in a position to say e.g. ..the ambulance and fire services got to the scene very quickly... rather than, the ambulance and fire services say they got to the scene very quickly. The first rule of journalism; attribution. Then there's the reporters being emotive with language when a cool restrained approach would facilitate greater understanding.

I feel so profound about this. So while there are fingers being pointed at Virginia's authorties for something akin to a lack of professionalism - clearing the campus - I believe media outlets we so trust should take a closer look at themeselves to evaluate language and approach in such delicate and tragic circumstances. After all these are real people, ordinary people, people who the previous day were a family, but are now grieving.

The job of reporting tragedy is a huge responsibility. It bears resemblances of war. Don't embellish the copy, cut the adjectives. Let the story tell itself with facts and figures. That much I have held to from a former BBC Correspondent, the late John Harrison whom I so admired. Reporting tragedy is one of those pit-in-the-stomach experience I had while a full-on reporter. Asking people how they felt in order for them to open up is a well known technique, but it is equally deeply intrusive. What do you do?

Our language and use of specific words is one of my greatest beefs. In reports submitted by students, if anything comes close to a cliche, a tired expression wheeled out to impress, inadvertantly or not, it finds my red pen.

It's crass, but today across the media I watched. The old adage that reporters report to compete with one another came back.
Words which sounded more like iambic phrases were sprinkled throughout reports... "an evil has visited this community..."
"Their dreams of a future has become their worst nightmares"..

Why do we do this? I can think of a master of reportage who eschewed the aforementioned and should be studied as we study great books of learning: Charles Wheeler -a BBC Correspondet of phenomenal ability to make the complex appear conversational. Watch him talk about the Watts riots all those many years ago.

We, they, reporters must surely do better. Online journalism removes any personality to the journalism. This is not the solution, but online at least offers an opportunity to bury for news without being pre-occupied with the obstacles I mention.

Most networks spend a lot of money rehearsing the big stories - the death of the Queen, a Prime Minister etc. But it appears there may well be a need to study the way one reports such tragic events.

A community will be besieged for a couple of days, people grieving will say things, and then a week later they're gone and people are left to pick up their lives... pick up their lives ( yuk)... then a week later people are left to make some sense of what's happened.

As South Africa celebrated its first all-race election, I stood in a township taking in this massive indelible event. I had just posted to a unit in the BBC World Service, but felt a tinge of anger. Days, maybe weeks later, back in the surrounding areas of Melville the media was decamping. News had reached of murder in Rwanda. South Africa had seen of any blow-up and was deemed no longer news worthy.

There is no rule book that says bad news only sells, otherwise inspiring positive stories would not have a place. It is in the way we package, adhere to principles perhaps are deigned still worthy. In a mature 21st century, of further deconstruction of media, we may appraoch a turning point when we find empathetic ways of sharing knowledge, of reporting, or making the narrative easier to digest. I do look forward to that point.

Talking bout a revolution

Too much to say in too little time.

Very buoyed by the VJ gathering and range of speakers. Will write a report for viewmag and pass on to a few of the publications I write for. Firstly thanks to everyone for being so hospitable, to Tord for inviting me, and the Institute etc... Acceptance Speech done.

Not quite, and to the many attendants who dragged themselves out of bed on Sunday after a night of hedonism and much drinking to take in some VJ tips at the Master class.

I hope you found it interesting; it was like cramming four days into one hour, so it might have come across as dense etc. I have got the elements for a VJ package so I'll try and post that soon..

Back to marking and other things, but some deeply interesting things to emerge from the gathering.. if you go to the front page of viewmagazine, you'll see a clip of a wonderful robo_VJ contraption and a crane-like device to hold your camera . Sublime..

Gunnar, Tord thanks for the info from the blog. Here's Gunner's take www.videoreporter.blogspot.com

VJ in Norway

I thought I'd provide a running account - as much as I can - for the videojournalism event in Fredrikstad at the Institute of Journalism

Just seen a presentation from one of the country's most experienced VJs, Magnus whose work is simply superb. Very artistic and creative. He's been a VJ for about seven years and I loved what I saw. Looking forward to us collaborating on something.

Magnus' touch combines a hand held whip pan element with a creative narrative and even though it was in Norwegian was visually strong to easily follow the narrative.

...just looked up from my screen to watch a heart-touching reuniuon between father and son in a story by one of Norway's foremost award winning investigative journalists. I'll get his name in a bit.

One thing that is evident is that videojournalism has a strong relationship with broadcasters e.g. NRK - which is Norway's equivalent of the BBC. And contrary to what attendants have been saying the movement appears robust.

It could be down to the gathering ie a concentration of people in one place, but I'm not completely buying that VJ hasn't got deep routes.

I can't for instance name any VJ that reports nationally for a news-type programme and makes their own long format item. Alistair Leathhead (?? - must check name) a correspondent for BBC files VJ reports from frotlines et al, but that seems like the total of it.

Tim who's speaking later will likely expand on the BBC's interest in Vjism and the 800 plus vjs it has amassed.

Are newspaper journalists the only ones who can do video journalism?

Interesting post from Anon. Thanks

++++
I see you write about video journalism where newspaper journalists are VJs. What about writing journalists for internet publications, or former tv journalists? There are a lot of VJs with background from broadcasting..We've worked in team with a photographer before, and now work alone. Do you mean that videojournalism is primary for former newspaper journalists?
+++++

Nooooooo on the contrary videojournalism isn't exclusive to any one group at all. And I's so aware of the many talented individuals in the industry

I'm in the midst of training an estate /Housing project (US parlance) to be videojournalists
I have trained African TV Journalists ( South Africa and Ghana) where they used it to produce their first co-production and possibly a first State-to-state coproduction on the contient, though I shouldn't be so presumptious
http://www.viewmagazine.tv/africatalks2

My TV Masters students gain an insight into videojournalism
I have trained photographers whom I know make great vjs as they already possess that 3rd eye and Videojournalism is photojournalism with a movie camera anyway.
And yes I have trained TV broadcasters - who seem always to find the process incredibly liberating. I started off in radio before going into TV and trained myself to be a VJ back in 1994.... so why newspapers?

Perhaps it presents the most interesting challenge, perhaps as my original trainer told me:" If you're a TV person, you're probably going to have to wrestle with a few beasts as VJ undoes the structure so trechantly acquired in TV production". But yes many have bought into it, whilst many also remain unconvinced. Video journalism isn't just DVCams and shoot/edit on a laptop, it's a fresher language , in many ways it subverts the ws/ms/cu. In many ways its become a child of the Net age
Perhaps also I am yet to get into an ecosystem of TV, Net companies and photographers where I can share/exchange thoughts. I'm in Norway next week where their industry has embraced Vjism (TV,photojo,Net creatives etc)

An aspect of videojournalism I teach incorporates web promo making http://www.viewmagazine.tv/webpromos.html so I have employed it working in the Ad industry as a creative director www.re-active.net

As a language videojournalism - all of its ten years in the UK and a few more added on in the US - is still in nascent form, and so is going through huge transformations, much in the same way that every other creative industry has been given a shake e.g. film -dogme; music-multi-skillers; publishing- desk top; literature -gonzo

Skype me on daviddunkleygyimah and lets have a chat

p.s I'm seeing one of the BBC's flagship programme editors about videojournalism in a few weeks, I'll keep you posted.

Al Jazeera - best fun with your clothes on

So I met up with a mate at Al Jazeera. Frankly I could meet up with a fair few mates at Al Jazeera as the whole of the news broadcast industry is there: former BBC, ITN, CNN producers and correspondents, so I'm bound to know someone.

Morgan, is the creative director of AJ. We've done a fair bit of curries et al with Riz Khan, another friend.

I passed around their knightsbridge office, joined by Patrick - a veteran BBC/ Adland producer for a whizz round the park. You know chew the fat, no particular agenda.

Morgan's great. I remember when I showed him viewmagazine about two years ago and he in turn passed it onto a designer who would use it to mould AJs web site, so he tipped his hat.

What followed was grown men talking passionately about the changing face of the media, and how viewmagazine.tv was functioning, or could function as a news driven site.

The overiding question perhaps could have been, why is Viewmagazine.tv not making money? Or could it? I read about Rocketboom's producer lamenting the same thing, and mirror his comments that viewmag leverages my public standing, enabling me to talk etc at conferences and produce for others.

Question: If you're an independent site owner making a clear turnover please contact me to tell me how. Presumably yes advertising, but are you selling content from your site?

So we tood and froed on that. User generated content is a great vehicle for attracting eyeballs, that in turn become your content and bring in the geen backs.

But viewmagazine as Morgan pointed out doesn't do UGC. Why not? I guess it's because I'm not in possession of a behemoth server and more to the point, I think there are good UGC sites that I'd be ill to want to take on.

That's not to say I underestimate viewmagazine, it's just that I believe I know where my stengths are.

Now as we kicked around a few more themes, I admitted yes, Viewmagazine.tv can be at times "a bit out there", but in truth that's the left sidedness of viewmagazine.tv. For me it's the site for the schoolboy and girl to gaze out of the class room window and wonder why planes stay in the air. Or to be more precise why the media works in the way it does.

With 20 years behind me in the media across tv, radio, advertising, and digital media, you begin to get some idea and then you're left with a choice. Run with it or see if you can find new angles to explore and push the conversation either forwards or sideways.

Viewmagazine's principle areas are video journalism, video hyperlinking, the outernet and grey areas of new reportage and new forms of doc making.

And that means for some people the conversation stops now. What the **** is the Outernet? For others it's a chance to engage and share their thoughts.

TV by its very convention is fixed in a paradigm that entertains very little 'extremes'. It's bound by a fixed narrative.

Video journalism purports to offer something new. And it does. Showing Morgan some of the work made by newspaper journalists may not impress TV bods, but the leap is that these are newspaper journalists now shooting video.

In a break from TV, they may have upped the game in picture composition, but yes to make some sense on their sites they will follow, but not exclusively, the model template of TV.

Now here's where the fun begins. Video journalism end game is a divorce from the construct. At its best, anything goes. It is auterism. It is mini film making, dogme , bauhaus, disruption...

And those are some of the areas I find exciting that I write about. The disruption but comprehension of the narrative, that has bound us for the best part of a century with reference to film etc.

At a point in time, which Patrick ( yep I'm still in the board room at Al Jazeera) and I waxed on, might we approach a new year zero? User generated content is as raw as you get news footage, but can we effectively learn coherent randomness, no randomness period; Charlie Parker, Miles Davis in news. Mmmmm.

It seems absurbed, but in the new language of digital media, hurtling light years away from news corp, will we emerge with what is in essence "back to basics"? Strip all the promos, Gustav Holst's intros, garish graphics, to simply tell a story with mood and tempo

I remember seeing Homicide for the first time in the 90s and being in awe. It was rough, ready, torn, a departure from the norm. And it was designed to look like something shot by your nextdoor neighbours toddler, but it worked. Lowbrow, high art.

The question is will news go that way? Could a youtube for news produced in a dscordant, "Homicide - the US series" fashion become a new movement?

In the next couple of weeks, I'll be producing pieces that further open up this debate. In-your-face news productions, with the warts n' all. Basically unsanitised, the remnants of zoo-radio, fades and dissolves replicating the human eye...

And so 5.30 dawns and it's time to leave, but the interaction has become a slow burning beacon, not to reign back on some of the esoteric aspects of viewmagazine, but to explore further those things that allow us ask the question, for which so far we have very little answers answers.

what blogs are for?

I only write this because of the article I'm about to post in viewmagazine.tv If anything my blog is an incoherent pastiche of thoughts - a writers draft of what i inted to buid, xpand upon in more constructive articles.

They're havens for impassioned idea dumps and that's what I'm about to do in the next blog.