Will 2009 be any easier on traditional media?

In the summer of 2005 Leonard D Witt, the Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication at Kennesaw State University, held a prescient international conference in San Antonio.

The title: Wake Up Call Can Trust and Quality Save Journalism?

The programme attracted some of the heaviest hitters in the business, whose names, though synonymous with the digital social renaissance back then amongst new media types, are today more common place.

It may not have seemed obvious at the time, but the public's flagellation over the news industry was opening up and news execs were now ready to tell the board: "Hey Bob this sales decline is no glitch".

Blogs were about to go critical mass, Flash would finally embrace video and video journallism would be adopted by the UK's first newspaper group, the Hull Daily Mail - a scheme I would be asked to look at.

After 6 or thereabout months online with Viewmagazine.tv, Guardian Journalist Jemima Kiss, then the news editor of Journalism.co.uk posted this piece, Wake up Call for Magazines and this, Online Journalism News - a site for sore eyes, that would come to the attention of Prof Witts.

Somewhere in July I got a call too.

media gathering
The conference lived up to all expectations and to hear in person some of the figures whose work I had admired for a while was the icing.

Dan Gillmor, Neil Chase, Jay Rosen, Clyde Bentley, Craig Newmark, Charles Lewis and Chris Nolan were just a few of the headliners on the programme.

It also marked the beginning of me using my video journalism reporting skills introspectively on the new digital industry.

In any one year working as a staff Video journalists I'd roll of near 500 reports. Most of those covered a wide range of subjects, but few looked at the media itself.

Around 2000 the emphasis changed with a raft of magazine articles for the likes of Sony, The Producers, Creation Magazine, and Blue Print.

Writing for The Producer Magazine 2001, the role of video journalists reporting 9/11 was critical

New Media itself was undergoing its own revision. Some of the best innovative and educational publications e.g. The Production Show, Video Age, The Video Mag, were either defunct or being repackaged.

New Media was not so new any longer , it was rich and packagable as digital - ones and zeros.

The speakers, self effacing, spoke on camera, my old skool VX 1000, about what was wrong and how the future would shape up. The report itself included a prototype deep link from one video to another, and embedded video within an article.

Dan Gillmor's view:"It's happening because it can". Craig Newmark was looking for greater news variations, and Clyde Bentley likened the public's apathy to traditional media as a tiff that would resolve itself.

None of the aforementioned will be disappointed. But the broader question those years on is has the Trust returned and equally important are we passed the period of innovation?


Is it over yet?
The consensus from newspaper publishers is this new stuff is bedding down, the digital after shocks are there for all to see: twitter, video, google maps and the rest.

This hasn't staved of the depreciating trend. In the news at the moment is the Chicago Tribune, which filed for bankruptcy last week.

I too had a friend who was one of the early casualties. Now almost 15,000 employers are going through something none of them deserves.

Trust may be harder to quantify and a round up paper is therefore due from Prof Witts, but in terms of innovations, I don't think we're in any ways out of the trees yet.

Interestingly, there's a chasm opening up again between journalism and geekdom; they've come together albeit in limited fashion to help each other.

But if you broadly ask journalism experts, this is it, we're plateauing. It's the long road ahead. In business terms the seven year cycle.

If you ask the techs, the last few years have been the warm up act. The tools and code are toddlers waiting to grow up.

It's something the head of BBC Interactive at the time Richard Deverill said to us in 2004.

Back then working with a broadcaster, we assembled some of the best creative brains in the university and under the guise of News Futures, looked at social sites, moblogging, geospatial interactivity and where they would go.

"The students predict that the mobile phone will become an increasingly essential tool for journalists, with moblogging replacing digital video footage and blogging on increasingly sophisticated content management systems.

Students were encouraged to be imaginative but also realistic, said Mr Gyimah, presenting practical ideas and tools for journalists to explore in the next few years. But the push towards new technology, particularly take up of mobile services, will be mostly consumer-led." More BBC Hears the Future of News

So the question is will 2009 be any easier on traditional media?

The economic downturn will drive its own disruptive course. But will it lead to us digital beings becoming more innovative or will we simply batten down the hatchets.

Truth is this scenario in micro ways has played itself out and it'll take a brave Canute figure to claim it's over; the disruption and innovation is done.

In any case that's what I'll be looking at producing with a series of short films in the future.

Meantime posting real soon on the front cover of Viewmagazine.tv here's that report from San Antonio: Wake Up Call Can Trust and Quality Save Journalism?

What do you think?

Fela Kuti, the great musician, and some

Last of the deviations, but the thing with colds is you can't sleep, so I have been restlessly pottering around the house, just.

Opened up this suitcase..urgghhh!

Filled with reel to reels.

I spoke yesterday of getting more audio files on viewmagazine.tv

Well I'll start to bring some in, that actually I had on a while ago and must have jettisoned the idea.

So teeing up now is one of the last UK interviews with a giant of world music, Fela Kuti.

He is mad bonkers, but we love him. Fela passed away a couple of years after this interview, but he remains a colossal and huge influence.

Here he talks about Afro-beat being a con, how he and his 26 wives took over a squat and how he would rub government officials in Nigeria the wrong way by buying a merc and desecrating it.

Mercs were the preferred government vehicles.

Couple of more of the audios include an interview with Quincy Jones

television - we decide - yeah!

A celebrated Wall Street trader is arrested over an alleged monumental $50bn fraud. Whilst Vauxhall are are offering staff a sabbatical with 30% wage cuts.

However what will they be talking about in the press tomorrow?

The BBC's decision to wring one more week out its competition, Strictly Come Dancing, given that its main rival, The X-Factor completed its run this weekend.

Sneaky!

Whilst TV execs like to visibly show you the audience are in control, this cuts across that message.

The decision to go into the next week and pick up all the viewers suffering from the X-Factors withdrawal, will not have been missed even on an 8 year old.

Yes it's a game show, but it's pride and figures to justify the spend that's at stake. Xfactor claims it had 8 million people vote in.

That's probably 8 million viewers then. 8 million viewers that the BBC will be hoping for next week.

Lets hope they can get Beyonce whilst they're at it.

International video journalism 2009

For 15 years I have belonged to Chatham House, whose US equivalent is the Council for Foreign Relations.

I have had a good share of international stories but haven't been as active as I'd like to be recently in producing original stories.

Next year I hope that'll change.

I have got a couple of police stories planned and would dearly like to return to a report I made earlier looking at intel and young people.

You can see the trailer on the front page of viewmagazine.tv, as well as short piece working with the Financial Times.

Meanwhile, there's an interesting pdf on Chatham House putting into prespective Ghana's elections.

The off agenda election
Ghana has been presided over by President Kufuor, nicknamed The Gentle Giant, for the last 8 years.

This present election has been nail bitingly close.

Kufuor's man Nana Akufo-Addo picked up 49.13% of the vote, whilst his rival John Atta Mills supported by Ghana's previous president Jerry Rawlings took 47.92% of the vote.

According to the electoral commission, reported on the BBC, because neither broke through 50% this means a run-off on the 28 December.

The significance of Ghana's election passing off peacefully cannot be down played. Particularly as it's used its patriarchal status to shape its own image abroad.

Kuffuor has played a huge role in African business and democracy

I'm wondering if there are any Vjs who could point us to their reportage.

Posted by David of www.viewmagazine.tv at 11:20 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Film making - a downside

Film making isn't so much a job but a passion. You've got to want to make them because the hoops you have to jump through are huge.

Listening back to the recordings of film maker Asif Kapidia, two things struck me.

Firstly, and I had some understanding of this through a friend, if making your first film is herculean, making your second is near impossible.

And then Asif was asked a question, one of those rare questions that you really shouldn't ask a film maker?

"If this is your second movie in the space of 6 years how do you make a living?"

His response: You learn to leave frugally. You get paid a lump sum and then you learn to live in those means. Frightening really when you think about it.

You've really got to want to make films.

aarrrgghh bloody cold

I really shouldn't be up.

That strange metallic taste in the mouth, which means anything you try and eat comes across as paper mache.

Ever so often, you cough so hard you think your small intestines will make an appearance. And then when the cough takes a lull, here comes the mother of all sneezes.

The tissues near the wastebasket show home much you suck at basketball. And you find yourself sleeping upright otherwise here comes the coughing fit.

The paracetamols aren't working and the last time I counted that was 8 in 24 hours - the limit which comes with a severe warning.

Yes it's that time of the year. I was so looking forward to visiting one of my mentors - who broke me into Radio

It's not just that I look like something the cat dragged in, but if you even look at me, you'll probably catch my cold.

Monday, last day with the internationals, hopefully it would have cleared up by then. Aaaaaaarrghh bloody cold.

Radio or TV - I choose you

It's a fair bet that if you ask quite a few media types who've worked across both genre, which one they like better, they'll opt for radio.

It's no fuss, immediate and well, works the imagination. Truth I'm in that category as well

But whilst TV and the likes of VJ receive dollops of attention, you'll hardly hear about the pluses of radio unless that is it's packaged as podcasts, which seem to get as much mention now as a triceratop.

There's no denying though that radio packages ( term given to radio reports) have a ready market, with the thousands of commuters listening to their ipods in the morning.

Trouble is radio packaging from podcasters can often be an exercise in self indulgence.

I still think there's something in the IM6 approach, which means stripping media 6 ways and the best example of that is the diving expedition to Gallipoli, which I posted about earlier here.

But what if say on viewmagazine.tv I could reflect the big topic of the day, which is another way for saying package my news agenda.

And what if I could find a way of posting to my site via a proxy using xml. That way then the news report could be a current as a twitter post.

Now how do I go about building this?

BBC jobs - Musical Chairs stalled

Sometimes the pithy messages can be the most powerful.

Recapping a previous post.

A BBC bod tells us yesterday that there's a 3 year freeze on hiring at the corporation - and that this is the first year.

The implications are significant.

The BBC has often acted as a clearing house; a sort of jobs musical chairs where people leave, others are promoted and new jobs need filling at the bottom.

I often thought whether its possible to create an alternative BBC by dint of the number of people who leave. That would be fascinating.

But the real concern must lie with trainees and new grads. We've been here before in the boom bust cycle, but this time I can see hiring execs becoming more discerning.

A freeze is a freeze, but if you're blindingly good, you'll find a way. What's the figure again?

20000 grads per year wanting to do media and only 2000 jobs recycling.

There's work to be done on the ranch.

Game Changers Guest Post: David Dunkley Gyimah

Early November Beth Laing, from Wemedia, asked the finalists at the 2009 Game Changers Awards to write about their projects, what they’ve learned along the way and what’s next. This is the essay I submitted.

We Tell Stories

We tell stories. Everything we do is about stories. From the young child skipping home from school, the mother navigating a hard day’s work, James Joyce’s epic Ulysses to the shortest passage in the bible: Jesus wept. It’s story telling.

We tell stories across different media: Designers through space, image and text; artists through bold or subtle gestures of paint, sculptures, digital ones and zeros; dancers through the contours of their bodies, and today’s journalists, through an emerging basket of digital goods.

The stories we tell are shaped by their medium, Marshall McLuhan said as much in his medium is the message. Critic Andre Bazin extolled the language of Cinema and Muhammad Ali across a throng of Harvard students regaled us with “Me, we.” – the shortest poem there is. Rest of the article here

Camera tests for VJs at some point? Thanks Cliff

bluprojekt said...

Hi David - Check out the Zacuto's Great Camera Shootout '08 video - a very eye opening video on the differences in image quality and round table discussion on what determines the equipment to be used - thought you might appreciate the video given the nature of the title of this blog posting.

Cheers!

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | solo video journalist blog

8:54 PM GMT

David of www.viewmagazine.tv said...

Cliff that's an awesome find. Whilst I agree with their assertion about the test being for film and doc makers, I'd say it's going to be of huge interest to VJs looking at long format.

The A1 holds steady for its price and range coupled with a lexus lens adapter.

But as VJ matures, and the audience becomes more discerning watch for the winners.

Reasonaby sized cameras that allow for DOF ( depth of fields), richer saturated colour palettes.

The response I got from Asif Kapedia was equally interesting.

I can see issues ahead for VJism, where a film scores high online and wants to make it to a bigger screen, so yes your find, this video, flags up a very important debate.

2:06 PM GMT

BBC shares I-player and other technology

This is huge - an announcement within the BBC minutes ago, reported here by the Guardian of the BBC's move to share its technology and digital knowledge.

I met and spoke to the BBC's Eric Huggers, soon after he joined from Microsoft. He's since been made appointed Director, BBC Future Media and Technology.

One of the questions that Erik was considering two years ago was where the I-player, just before its lannch, could go.

It has undoubtedly been a huge success. Given what we're seeing is version I, the future's looking good to score more digital points with its next iterations.

Making that available, though I'm unsure it will be a white label for off the shelf purchase, should give other broadcasters a leg in.

I'd hope the BBC gives preference to smaller outfits serving significant niche and minority interests.

video journalism - learning from the film experts

I have just recorded an audience with Asif Kapadia who shot to fame with his film Warriors.

I wanted to know how well the language of cinema translates to video and I got an interesting answer, which I'll post tomorrow.

New Journalism from outside journalism

Yugo P setting standards in visual design and story telling continues to amaze.

In the 90s/2000, a number of designers blazed the most incredible trail in the use of an app called Flash.

They were the new journalists. Story tellers for a completely new medium where: what, where, why, when and how was supported by interactivity, play and spatialness as opposed to a temporal linearity.

Such was their talent, that they achieved rock star like status and came to be referred to in a number of publications as the Masters of Flash.

I purchased a number of the books, some better than others, but was spell bound by their work, many of which have served as inspirations for my own, even if admittedly I don't have their skill set.

They included the likes of:

• Todd Purgason; Acoustic
• Eric Jordan; System
• Brendan Dawes; React
• Hillman Curtis
• Yugo Nakamura; Nervous
• Joel Baumann, Tomato Interactive
• Joshua Davis; Chaos

Coded journalism
Yugo P whom I began to write about in a loose connection to journalism in 2000 does things in action scripting ( the code language for Flash) that's simply breath taking.

If the Open Source made the expression "code is beautiful" de rigeur, Yugo P makes it look like Angelina Jolie.

It's easy to look at his work as a non designer/ journalists and question what you're looking at and its validity in story telling.

Two things:

• The design is the story, the arrangement and flow of information has a strong aesthetic and emotional draw and is thought provoking.
  
• The functionality for a story about taxes, people et al may be found wanting here, but here's where we attempt to extract the DNA thread to incorporate into our work flow.

Designers got this web thing way before the journos did and have continued to open new and exciting discourses and when the two have come together, we've had some interesting new creations.

For instance, contemporary multimedia, which breaks free from the rigid definition of multimodal offerings of sound, video and text on a page. This is fusion, a new language; sometimes, many times, in which we simply won't get it.

I once remember standing in the National Gallery transfixed by this painting.

It was Perseus fighting Phineus and his companions by Luca Giordano- October 18, 1634 - January 12 1705. Much later when I saw the modern Rashamon Vantage point, I chuckled. Multimedia, multi-angled story telling from history.

But this and coded story telling, as Adrian Holavaty has demonstrated in his way is still a vastly untapped area:

Design Journalism
Take for instance Yugo P's Monocraft work from 2001. It's sublime and opens up so many avenues in navigation, and navigation becoming the story - a trail back to the origins of a news story and how its developed http://yugop.com/ver3/index.asp?id=11

There has since been a site like this, but like most things in the early stages was ahead of its time; not enough critical mass.

This model sliced with an elastic movement that responds to mouse movements has a deep playful quality to it. And play, art and functionality is at the heart of some of Yugo's work. http://yugop.com/ver3/index.asp?id=26

And then there's:

• https://www.ecotonoha.com/ecotonoha.html
• http://www.nike.com/nikelab/site.html?en_US#/ made for Nike in 2002 . Still contemporary today.

The challenge and it's a beautiful one is for us to continue to look cross discipline and draw from others and one of the riches area to mine is where code, art, design meets video journalism.

In 1999 one of the seminal pieces to mesmerise the design world was 9 months, a designers journey as his wife was due to give birth.

Nothing like it had been seen in this way.

That and many others inspired ( Rosalind and me) for an idea called The Family. Here, video journalism meets photography, code and design. That was 1999/2000.

There have been a great many works since then, brilliant works, highlighted on sites like multimedia shooter and Media Storm. But I'm certain Brian Storm and Richard koci Hernandez would agree we've still got a way to go, and it's an interesting time.

New Journalism from outside journalism, finally. For this week Yugo P's work will become even more popular having been made a Global Game Changer.

And that inspire me even further.

David Dunkley Gyimah was cited for an honourable mention by Wemedia, which awarded Yugo P Game Changer award, "for elevating narrative, multi-media journalism through tireless experiments that push multi-media on a wide range of topics to a higher standard on a wide range of topics".

Response to Wemedia Game Changers - David Dunkley Gyimah

Excellent choices for the winners of the WeMedia Game Changers.

ZeFrank and Yugo Nakamura I have known about since when. Here's an article for the Brit design mag Blue Print featuring mention on Yugo P from the Masters of Flash series. Yugo's work was simply mesmerising the first time and still is.

You simply have to go and see their work. If you think Flash is an app for streaming video, the two give the primary perspective.

About five years ago YugoP exhibited with all the other Masters of Flash e.g. Hillman Curtis, Joshua Davies at London's contemporary design theatre.

It was breathless stuff.

Twitter and the John S and James L. Knight Foundation need no introductions and have simply been transformative in many ways for others to benefit.

Social Vibe has been a relatively new one for me to come across, but no less awesome in its impact.

• There was an honourable mention for
• Witness (my personl game changers)
• Media Storm who's worked I have very much admired
• the Pulitzer center who've tirlessly raised the game and lent their name to phrase "excellence".
• and a cetain David Dunkley Gimiyah - which that surname must be me LOL.

The term game changer for such an instution like Wemedia is profound and just to be in the company of the above has been seriously humbling and fun.

I have been chugging along in my own process, so it's been undeniably an interesting journey, which truthfully has looked to originals like zefrank, Media Storm, Yugop and Frank Knight Founation for my inspiration.

And for all the people who said kind words, your beers in the post :-D

We Media game changers announced

This from Beth, Wemedia.

Thank you for participating in the first We Media Game Changers Awards and for being a finalist. We had an impressive group of organizations and people and projects and I have enjoyed learning more about your projects via essay and other communications.

First, we will be formally announcing the winners today but I wanted to give you all a preview of the list as well as the press release. Secondly, I want to renew the invitation to you all to come to We Media Miami Feb. 24-26, 2009 with complimentary registration. You can use the promotion code WM-FIN to register. If you have questions or want to discuss further just let me know. For details and to register visit http://wemedia.com/miami/.

Press Release: 2009 WE MEDIA GAME CHANGERS AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Recipients include digital storytellers, social networking activists, mobile media pioneers and a foundation focused on journalism.

RESTON, VA - Online media star ZeFrank, mobile texting service Twitter, David Plouffe, the Obama campaign mastermind, Japanese digital designer Yugo Nakamura and Kenyan mobile alert service Ushahidi are among nine winners of the We Media Game Changers Awards to be presented at the We Media Miami conference in February.

The other award winners are: The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Innocentive's crowdsourcing for the science crowd, Humana's Freewheelin' and social network Socialvibe.

You can learn more about the winners and their achievements at: www.wemedia.com/awards.

The winners will be celebrated and featured speakers at the We Media Miami conference, Feb. 24-26, 2009, where their stories will become the content of the conference. Register for the conference at: www.wemedia.com/miami

The awards recognize people, projects, ideas and organizations leading change and inspiring a better world through media. Specific recognitions include:

Plays

Key trend: the end of apathy

Twitter is recognized for changing the real-time communication game.

Innocentive for taking Web 2.0 to the marketplace.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for changing its own approach and everyone else's by shifting it's money to media innovation and the information needs of communities.

Ushahidi for redefining the ability of people to quickly communicate vital information for action.

Freewheelin for demonstrating that the Internet is not just something on your screen and challenging the fundamental assumption that health insurance is only for after-the-fact care by steping into preventative and holistic health.

Players

Key trend: society's new storytellers

ZeFrank, essential contemporary culture, proves that a new type and scale of engagement and entertainment is possible.

Yugo Nakamura, designer of Design and the Elastic Mind, for exploring non-traditional forms of storytelling through interactive systems in digital and networked environments.

David Plouffe, for the mobilization of millions with a methodical media campaign that utilized the Internet, cell phones and personal communication devices as never before.

Community Award

Key trend: social networking gets serious

SocialVibe for unleashing the power of distributed advertising on personal media.

An international panel of pioneers from media, technology, business, social activism and blogging judged nominees for the awards, and the We Media Community award, for Socialvibe, was selected by the public through online voting.

The awards highlight achievements through exceptional story-telling, novel business models, significant social impact, innovative design and powerful visions of media for the connected culture.

The awards are organized and administered by iFOCOS, the media think tank and futures lab that organizes the We Media conferences and global membership community.

The We Media conference also features a media venture startup gallery and an early stage media venture startup competition with up to $50,000 in seed capital awarded to winners.

Register for the conference at: www.wemedia.com/miami

About We Media

The We Media conferences, community and awards are organized by iFOCOS, a media think tank and futures lab founded in 2006 by media visionairies Andrew Nachison and Dale Peskin. They help anyone create, operate and sustain ventures in a media-centric culture powered by everyone. We Media programs function as a marketplace of ideas and actions for business and social innovators. They connect individuals and organizations from across industries who believe the power of media, communication and human ingenuity should be applied to innovate in business and to make the world better through media. More about We Media at: www.wemedia.com.

###

In addition to the winners listed above we have a group of Honorable Mentions that will also be part of the We Media program.

Honorable mention:

(Key trend: Advancing journalism in the digital age)

Witness’ The Hub for creating a platform for global rights media and action. A You Tube for people who care about the world.

Akron Beacon Journal for showing there is still an important role to be played by the so-called mainstream media at the community level. Its American Dream project applies the best of civic journalism in familiar, low-tech formats for print, the Web, and video.

Off the Bus for enhancing the coverage of the presidential election through a national network of citizen journalists.

David Dunkley Gimayah for elevating narrative, multi-media journalism through tireless experiments that push multi-media on a wide range of topics to a higher standard on a wide range of topics.

MediaStorm for creating a new, digital platform for high quality journalism: a multi-media production studio for storytelling wrapped by great design, photography and aesthetics.

Born in September for demonstrating the Power of One, using personal media to make a global difference.

NPR for creating technology that opens content to public use, putting it in the hands of citizens to do with it as they see fit.

Footnote’s The Wall for bringing personal stories to physical spaces, in this case tributes to each of the 58,000 names on the Vietnams Veterans Memorial.

Pulitzer Center for showing media practitioners how to evolve their work across multiple platforms and multiple formats to engage with wide audiences.

Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Thank you,

Beth

Journalism jobs - 2009 recesionary woes

Recessionary times and how Brit youth were dealing with it - Tx BBC TV

Much is spoken about the hard times ahead.

Notwithstanding the econ crisis which is really yet to truly bleed in next year, publishers and broadcaster are already bloody nosed from the disruption of journalism's business model.

It's difficult to think of a way out.

In the 90s and the characteristic cycle of boom and bust, jam today, gone tomorrow, you could more or less read the signs and make contingencies knowing somehow there would be a recovery to recent levels ahead.

Many youngsters, irrespective of their profession, in the 90s moved countries. Falaraki was a favoured destination for casuals, whilst the European continent and the US became a one way ticket for grads.

It really was a case of supply and demand.

Recession 92
Here featured in The Brain Drain for BBC TV, my piece to camera/ stand up goes:

"People have been worrying about the brain drain for years, the cream of British youth leaving the country in search of new opportunities, but with the current recession is itreally a matter for concern ?"

These were pre-Net, digital days. Tom [post here] and Englishman who now works for one of Russia top broadcasters advocates moving East for those caught up in the Economic whirlwind.

Yesterday, I spoke of the tale of two friends. It is a young person's game. Everyone want's it free. And even when the economy recovers there's no cheer.

One of our British National newspapers pays out $135 million a year for paper cost alone. It's ad revenue had dropped from $120,000 for a full page US to $37,000 US.

CNet's daily vid, below puts a voice and face to the woes. There's no hiding. What's the true value of journalism?

And when it does pick itself up from the floor, will it have been transformed to take on these various challenges, business model n' all?

Or will it be much of the same, bracing itself unguarded for the next financial onslaught?

Emily Bell from the Guardian saw the formation of Trusts as a model, though she could also see problems with this.

I'd be up for more conferences looking to tackle the elephant in the room. How do you stay afloat and make money to pay wages.

TV's instructions to Vjism

Front cover of Viewmagazine.TV, Through the Eyes of Child.

Showing is Veronique then 13, who today will be 28. You don't need to have worked in TV, I say but you can borrow from its language.

I'll write more on this this week.

Tale of two differing era journalists - digital vs traditionalist

He was respected in television, working for one of the most respected programme makers in the UK.

The other equally ambitious has started his tentative journey into broadcasting with a big bang.

It is the tale of two journalists, digital versus traditionalists and today presents the most starkly differing paths in which both now plough.

Today I heard from both acquaintances - one of them someone I have been mentoring

He young working as an intern is now a researcher for one of the biggest brand names in global broadcasting. Someone who's name is synonymous with world class.

And by all accounts talking to my mentoree on the phone, he's made his own personal brand quite something in the few weeks in tele. For in the short time as a researcher he's pulled in some heavyweights to the programme such as Kofi Annan.

When I just finished speaking to him, he'd just come from his employer's office, who'd offered to write him a reference, if he needed it.

"If he's willing to say something on tape so you can stick on your site that would do", I said.


The New Rules
Rule 101: When looking for a new job do it from a position of power, when you're working and on a high.

Rule 201: In today's climate it's far better to build a one page site and email a prospective employer with a 3 para letter and link to your work. Keep it very short.

Showreels and letters don't really work as well and cold calling, whilst bril, can sometimes leave you hanging.

Email, then follow it up. This is something I tell my Masters students all the while

Rule 301: don't expect to hear back from your source the first time. Email again later and then again.

Trad journalists
After twenty plus successful careers in broadcasting my other acquaintance I heard from today is retraining in social care. But in the meantime as I learned today he's cabbing.

It's giving him he says the flexibility to work his own hours.

There is nothing wrong with being a minicab driver. It is a much in need profession for many people who need to get around.

But I suppose it's not something you have in mind, after winning media awards.

I understand the thin line that divides broadcasting ( something you enjoy doing- it's not really a job) and anything else ( where you realise the strain).

We've all been there and will continue to tread these two finely separated paths.

For the fact is media/ broadcasting was mooted as a young person's game in the 90s. Today it is nothing less than a young person's world; the pay, the hours and the rewards.

But I can't finish without this news. Forty years of working for one of the world's most formidable news agencies, Peter who took compulsory redundacy has found a job as a lecturer. Never say never.

Rise of the super blogger and possible erosion of core journo values ?

Air JetLiner Crashes into Sea

November 1996, one of the most potent images by a tourist (pre- citizen reporter)
became the subject of a broadcast bidding war.

Could the "them an Us', broad attrition between broadcasters and super bloggers, become an imploding force between emerging bloggers and the rise of the super bloggers?

And how the clamour for superdon is eroding one of the basic tenants of journalism practice, attribution and sourcing. Does that matter or is it time to seek a fresh way of attributing material, beyond external links?

A two parter which culminates in the Alchemy of Journalism.
_____________

Image from WeMedia 2006

Everyone of us starts somewhere, most of us at the bottom.

Broadcasters have made strong claims on citizens' offerings from the Zapruder film and before then, to the more recent tragic events in Mumbai, here clipped on Journalism.co.uk.

Two years ago I shared a stage with the Director of BBC News, Helen Boaden.

We got onto the subject of citizen contributions. It's not a new phenomenon, citizen journalism, I said, broadcasters have always relied on the Joe and Josephine public for contribution.

Boaden, like so many broadcaster who've been finger-wagged for not being CJ friendly enough agreed.

What is new, I added later of stage, and where broadcasters have been founding wanting has been the level of plurality and recognition in using this source.

Looking back even the wisest sages in broadcasting will say they didn't see it coming.

What the most 21st public pioneer of this form, "Oh My News" did was to not only prove there could be an honest brokerage of information without mal aforethought, but it could work en masse.

Because before then for every News summit convened for global broadcasters, the Net was an irrelevance.

Nothing New Then
Back in 1994 Channel One, a UK VJ outfit positively encouraged them.

It didn't have a large pool of reporters and so I remember several occasion soliciting video.

The more memorable was corralling an American tourist's video in Earl's Court when she emerged from a stationary smoke-filled underground train with pictures.

In November 1996, working at WTN, one of the most potent images by a citizen reporter became the subject of a broadcast bidding war.

The video was shot by a South African couple on their honeymoon on the Comoro Islands, East Africa, whilst lying on the beach.

125 people died on Ethiopian Airlines flight 961 including Africa's leading, and one of the world's most respected cameramen/,photojournalistst, Mohamed-Mo-Amin.

On scene reporters
The boon in the "every reporter within us" and the largely unfilled web 2.0 knowledge gap from broadcasters and publishers adverse to change, has been a major contribution to the rise of the this 21st centuries philosophers.

The successful media savvy ones often have backgrounds in the very institutions they're finding holes in, and deliver their missives with alacrity and a lack of pretentiousness. They are the super bloggers.

Many will admit that their openness is both their strength and weakness. The Net is all to play for.

It is an alchemists pen, pulling in consensus from the wisdom of crowds, buffeted by their own original thoughts.

Some of these are bound by grand theories, empirical or ethnographic research, otherwise their practitioners look to alternative and equally valid thesis which involves reshaping methods with antecedents.

The allure for superblog status appears intoxicating and what's emerging now is interesting in many ways.

• Broadcasters interaction with the (super) video bloggers.
  
• The Achilles for the meteoric rise in super blog status can often mean a loss of standard in journalism practice

Broadcast bloggers
The tragic events in India, in which twitters and bloggers, played a vital role informing audiences has some interesting characteristics.

Online, a number of bloggers/cj broke pictures with a number of traditional news sources as well as the blogosphere referencing them.

The link here to CBS and BBC World of an interview with a blogger seems to break far less ground.

The interviewer's aston/ super/ by line has changed to reflect this new standing, as the interviewee extracts witness/by stander information.

If you're a blogger/ CJ I would have thought it's high time a new code recognised this so any broadcast interview would reference your and url.

If you're good enough to be on air and you're trusted, you're good enough for a ping to your blog, though there's an obvious caveat here.

Also, that you should have a claim to the interview with the network so long as you are not selling the VT on.

Why? Because they the broadcaster will most certainly be running the VT with you ad infinitum for news gathering cred.

Gordian Knot for CJs
But herein with CJ lies an interesting issue.

A news correspondent on the ground will in their first minutes of contact on the scene do a couple of things.

• Look for eye witnesses
• Contact officials on the scene for facts, updates, injuries etc.
  
• Contact the office for latest wires etc.
• Assess broad areas of their story. What's passable/legal/ sound conjecture or otherwise.
  

All this before in minutes they'll be required to go on air.

I haven't looked at enough Mumbai tapes for the following point, it's more a generalisation.

But could the CJ be required to do the same or does the risk present itself for CJs to offer commentary based NOT on what they've seen, but what they believe. And yes I do acknowledge that Cjisms' modus operandi is not standardised.

However is this aforementioned acceptable? If the CJ has a background in international affairs and security, they're no different from the pundits wheeled into the studio, but if they don't?

This is really a matter for the recipient, the broadcasters, as truthfully a blogger may not be aware of what their role is going on air. Perhaps an agreement needs to be reached before doing so.

Difficult one as CJ by its very nature can be adhoc.

Every one's an expert
The second point is a more pressing one, which you've probably come across at the coal face training next generation journalists.

This is something I have also observed affiliated to the BJTC. That is the rise of the blogger and perhaps the correspondence quotient of the super blogger has blurred the lines with attribution and sourcing.

To that end it's easy to direct the language of blogging, comment and opinion, into news reportage, when we should still entertain the idea, "if you weren't there attribute". [I'm speaking here not of CJ/bloggers on the scene but often the many reporting reported stories.]

"The attacks in Mumbai have resulted in several fatalities" - how was this fact arrived at? Who first reported it? Was it from the television?

Because otherwise a trend extrapolation of this could see an erosion of any sourcing at all, or lead to the passing of unqualified material down the story chain.

This is something addressed in another way in Nick Davies book Flat Earth . In his case how PRs feed the story flow, which can easily contaminate the news flow.

Reputable broadcaster, publishers and bloggers will say they will never knowingly get to this, hopefully, but for a generation of new journalists coming through there lies the risk that supposition may simply become fact.

It's something a few academics I have spoken to are already addressing.

Post script: Proof however that Cj and attribution can work and very well is illustrated here

Next post
The Alchemy of a story. Using chemistry to formalise story telling and the parallels for observing empirical values.

The amazing Angela Grant creator of newsvideographer.com

The amazing Angela Grant creator of newsvideographer.com from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.
She's young, savvy and punches above the multimedia water line.

When I caught up with Angela Grant of News Videographer, I wanted to know how she got into the profession and her thoughts on how it was developing.

We're in Chicago - all having dinner - when I brought out my from my coat pocket the Canon IXUS 70. So the lighting is highly saturated and the sound tinny in parts.

There's a bit of a misunderstanding when I reply to Rob Montgomery of Visual Editors, whether modest Angela isn't being too magnanimous about her past and achievements.

Video News
What's truly inspiring here is Angela's candour as well as her understanding and creative wrestling of video journalism and multimedia - from her site News Videographer, and training programmes she's given.

If you're a journo student, trainee, pro or manager, Angela brings a level of discourse to this new form, which sets the bar.

The following day I interviewed her on the Sony A1, which I'll dig out at some point.