Revolutionising Journalism Education in International News Reporting Via Zoom

 

Wefaced a crisis in cracking teaching online. Two-hour straight lectures were not going to work, particularly staring straight down the tube.

 But first a flashback. Two main problems need solving to capture this extraordinary event in the photo above. How do I convey what this experience is like and how do I preserve it?

I’m near the Syrian border teaching a group of young Syrian journalists Cinema Journalism. It’s a style of news making that makes use of cultural, social and literary forms in storytelling pulled from different cultures, which more often fictional cinema makers deploy.

I interview the storytellers after my training session and then organise them into a photo-shoot. Below is the completed product which drapes across video. When I begin this story, I have attendants attempt a mental image of the scene by describing a cinematic narrative.

 

Imagine this I say:

The US has ordered US nationals to vacate Syria and Southern Turkey as they consider bombing Syria to sanction Assad. A number of journalists are travelling to meet us. Many are on some wanted list. They carry no passports. The night is quiet, a slight warm breeze blows. It smells of sweet musk. It’s eerie and then one by one they arrive at our hotel exhausted and with stories to tell…

 

Fast forward to 2020. COVID-19 lockdown has pushed all lectures online. It can be difficult enough teaching how to be an international reporter in-person, because the methodology involves sitting in sanitised surroundings.

A former senior BBC executive refers to this as air condition journalism. Quite how you impart emotion on the necessity of a risk assessment, should a missile come your way, is challenging.

One day VR of the kind, such as “Carne y Arena,” by Alejandro González Iñárritu will be common place. The experience puts the viewer in the moment. In this case the desert as Latin American immigrants find themselves under assault. Imagine being a reporter in this situation?

But until then, what?

In 2006, a decade from now I tell Apple Inc, in a presentation that yielded a profile on their front page, we will be streaming from our homes into businesses. You have become the brand.

Television has already given us the tools for this feat ahead. We’ll gladly watch hours of TV. What if online lectures became a personalised TV programme. This is what the Open University attempted did in the 1970s and perfected in the 90s and to date I still watch Bob Ross’ Joy of Painting on BBC Four. I watched it yesterday!

In lockdown can you provide a comparable experience for the next generation of journalists? I see fault lines, particularly in the pipeline. Zoom has become the default, but I can see a number of new features to make this process a better experience. Three key words here are:

• Experience
• Memory
• Storytelling

 

This is what I did liasioning with our course director.

1. First build a pop up studio using a three camera set up
2. Break the lecture programme into a virtual travel-to- zones. Each week we’ll visit a different country where students would in advance have to find news and provide a briefing.
3. To simulate this as real, we set up a news agency with directions for cohorts: know where you’re going and get together with your colleagues to plan the news. This encouraged early group collaboration, sharing and debate. Sometimes I’d spring a surprise a couple of days before lectures, by changing the team or designated country we’re visiting.
4. Amongst the student cohort where there would be a producer from each group and super producer at our morning news room meeting who would have to devise a programme news agenda.
5. Through multiple pitching, using online videos, students refine their techniques.
6. Each week, on average, two guests (senior news reporters) from that region would speak to the class for on average 25 minutes explaining the news ecosystem, and how each reporter got into journalism. This has proved popular. I would add that’s also because the students are already mentally attuned to that country. Psychologists refer to this as a desirable difficulty.
7. The best bits have been the questions the journalists-in-waiting have asked the guests.
8. By using short burst lectures, less than 20 minutes, I’d provide theoretical knowledge around their practices and news offerings.
9. We’d finish with a debriefing of the guests and day.I would then stay on 30–45 mins on average after lectures for informal conversation, the longest duration was an hour and half.
10. We were guided by a Programme content wheel I devised. We’d start with a quiz. Two reasons. Firstly it loosened up the class. Secondly, it involved knowledge transfer. The key is repetition, memory, and each week referencing prior framing. (below Journalist Afua Hirsch on craft skill)

 
 
 

Latest stop over Russia

We’ve several countries to go: India, Romania etc. Our latest guests were Oksana Silanteva, one of Russia’s first multimedia journalists and Daria Dergacheva, a former agency journalist in Russia, now completing her PhD.

I’d spent the morning with a group of Russian journalists organised by Oksana presenting creative storytelling. One of the the attendants wrote this, which after translating I thought I better not show my other half. In the UK you might get a ‘He’s alright. Seen better!”, but this…?

 

Анастасия Пахорукова Я влюбилась! Он просто потрясающий!

Here’s what Oksana wrote about the project on her FB post. If you’d like to get involved, or believe you can help innovating on top of this please email me Gyimahd(at)Cardiff (dot)ac (dot)UK

 

 

Today I had a day of Russian-British friendship. In the morning,

David Dunkley Gyimah

gave a lecture at Silmedia Club about rethinking visual storytelling and templates of television journalist’s work.

And in the evening,

Daria Dergacheva

and I met with students of Cardiff University, whom David leads a course in international journalism, shared his feelings and thoughts about what is happening and where it all goes)))

David designed a completely amazing structure for his course. Every week students dive into some country. They study sources, look for stories, meet people, try to write about what is now relevant to the country. It could be India, South Africa, Brazil, China, Russia.

We train fast switching and diving skills into material. I think it’s a crazy scheme.

Considering that we have different regions sometimes more different than some countries to, it would be fun to do something like this inside the country, between different regions.

Although of course, David and I dream of joint projects of Russian and British students. While ′′ looking in the direction of dreams “, it’s getting old.

Forethought

Forethought — Looks to the future and reflects through past…

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An idea about an idea, a video journalism about video journalism.

My hotel in Montenegro. No words, but this picture may have an affect on you

Our ideas are disparate, our thoughts randomly flicker from concepts to perceptions, sometimes crystallising as understandings. To the cineast, French philosopher Jean-Louis Schefer would see this is as cinema being a giant in the back of our heads.

This morning, reading an article on my mentor Mark Cousins, I watched what he describes as one of his favourite films, "The House is Black" by acclaimed Iranian director Forough Farrokhzad. 

David cracking a joke with Mark Cousins at Sbank.

It is a disturbing, yet humanistic film which to the sensibilities of the Abercrombie & Fitch generation will be avoided. Leprosy after all is not an easy subject to stomach.

But Farrokhzad, shooting this film in 1963 for a leprosy organisation doesn't flinch. The camera  moves into the subject matter in ways news would prefix : "some of these scenes are disturbing".

But I can see the majesty in the film. Like a distant runner the film speeds up and slows down to near stillness in places. In some takes the shot holds mesmerisingly to the point of provoking further thought. 

This stasis is equivocated by the lack of music. The subjects supply a sound track of sorts from their own musings, coupled with ambient aural effects.

Also prevalent in the film for a "documentary short", which is how the film is described, is the classic trope of Hollywood - the shot-reverse-shot.

The shot-reverse-shot is where a scene often deemed the master shot is inter cut with a series of relational shots, but always returns to the master scene. It thus anchors the viewer into a point-of-view.

If you're a documentary maker with one camera this can be an extremely difficult shot to undertake, as in documentary mode a scene begins to decompose as you're turning to film what you might call a cut away. I have experimented at length with this technique to understand where I can start pulling away.

Film and ideas
Film or video is an idea translated into an image. The founders of television attached, and purposefully, a particular literal value to its form. But it's not just an idea, unless you're in citizen journalist mode. It is at its algebraic an idea about an idea.

John Birt, the former Director General of the BBC introduced a textual quality of thinking through the idea, by the maxim: Birt's mission to explain. A report needed context,  but Birtism today misses an altogether different big point.   

You can see this distinguishing line of an idea, and its symptomatic form, manifest itself at its best as a lecturer. The student goes through an epiphany when they begin to understand how to translate ideas from thought, to the first base of film making, its literal position. 

A student wanted to film a gymnast falling of her bike, which was integral to a point in her documentary.  But film and video transcends this "uger, uger" transmission. 

I call it "uger, uger" as film brilliantly relayed by Plato's Cave, not only describes aspects of its primitiveness, as prisoners might under the circumstance grunt  at what they believe they know, but in the final scene, the prisoner attempting to describe cinema is himself perceived to be "ugering".

When li Xiang, from many years back, apologised for not capturing the shot of a stricken Chinese gymnast falling 7 feet to the ground, she had not realised that the co joining of two shots, the girl on her bike, followed by a prolonged one of the injured girl on the floor, was cinema - that cinema in the back of your head.

Videojournalism, all of twenty years old, but with antecedents, proudly flexes its chest in capturing the literal. This is where citizen journalists wrestles with the professional for accolades, but there is a videojournalism of videojournalism, a language that conveys a deeper understanding of issues.

Like language, it is iterative, nurtured, refined, and explicated through ideas about ideas. It senses when to be referential and when to be symptomatic. It may seem curious that over the centuries that our own languages, living entities, has evolved both in volume as new words become available and we find new ways to express ourselves.

Yet at the same time we are wedded to a fixed ideology of expression in this thing, which is unravelling, called journalism.

A mega-institution supporting a great many people, intellects, scholars largely resists any notion that dated concepts need to be looked at anew. And another venerable institution called academia is largely ill-at-ease at proposing fundamental new offerings to change the status quo in industry.

I know possibly of a number of techniques modern film makers would use to modify Farrokhzad's film, but it is an exemplar and classic for the reasons that it makes us think through our thoughts.

For any videojournalist they would do well to observe Farrokhzad's and train their  ideas to ideas, to enhance video journalism within video journalism.

David Dunkley Gyimah is an international award winning videojournalist and producer, and one of the UK's first official videojournalists. He is a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster, completing his PhD into cognitivism and different journalism narratives, and a digital/ social network consultant for a range of companies. David has previously worked for a range of  Networks, including BBC Newsnight, Channel4 News and ABc News. He can be reached at David(at)viewmagazine(dot).tv

In forthcoming posts I'll be speaking about my PhD research as it draws to completion. The interviews I conducted which include many senior or former senior BBC figures such as Mary Hockaday, Peter Horrocks, Peter Barron, Richard Sambrook and senior figures within the industry.  The results strongly suggest a change in news story form.

All in VJ day's work- the tech vs theory debate

Busy ! But I guess the following's all in a day's work.

Marking papers: It's been interesting to see the journey by students. We so often take what we do for granted, but their end-of-year reports reveal a consensus about this evolving new media way of doing things.

Being a Masters or trainee VJ student has its moments. Today, not only do you have to wrap your head around this new new thing, but you've got to be steeped in the ways of old and tried and tested.

Then there's an array of hardware and software packages you have to master and its not just what button does what but the theory that underpins these new habits.

So pity the editor in the middle quadrant of their life, whom with years of experience is utterly floored by this convoy of nonsensical events, which is why you'll want to get yourself over to as many conferences as possible.

And it's to the young that they look for answers. Oh yes, journalism may not be dead quite yet, but no one would deny it's something quite different to what they remember and it's those "young people that get this hyper media".

At Goteborg in Sweden, I saw some work from the media students covering the conference. Their films looked OK, but in two minutes of talking to them I fell into Lecture mode:

"People, you're producing something that's very safe, that the editors downstairs might find watchable, but this film is more than about them, it's about you. Give someone a reason to come back and watch these films because of yor signature".

I have a motto, that says do something that scares you everyday. To them I said go experiment and if you **** it up truth no one's going to chastise you.

Michael Lally a head honcho at RTE tells a story with a similar thread.

Michael gave over the evening slot to a community to broadcast their news on a designated evening. It was a bold and truly innovative experiment, which I advocate every broadcast manager repeat.

Only Mistake he says: the community aped their ( professionals) standards and methodology.


The woes of a lecturer
As a Lecturer there's a double whammy. You might have read Ullyses and indeed understood it, but can you assist a student seeking an action script code. And then, admit it, there's the super students who are so networked in you find yourself asking ever so often, "what's that?".

Flasha and too a less extent , has only just become part of the lexicon of an editor's attempt to come across all interactive.

Couple of years back I was informally boarded for an academic job.

My boss-to-be, a former manager at the BBC, asked me this question: What's Flash got to do with interactivity?

That was it. If the head of interactivity doesn't even know what Flash is, there's a er, well.....

The new new media video thingy journalism !

A rewrite of an earlier post from way back when
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 that's a redundant albeit necessary legacy term we're stuck with for a while.

Journalists ~ writing for a journal.. seems rather dated, just as we no longer rely exclusively on teleporting pictures - as in television.

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 absurdely irrational passion, who believe they can affect change need apply. Your purpose is to inform and interact. Anything goes. A petri dish of ideas which we'll use to push synchronous dialogue. Communities speaking to communities, countries speaking to countries, world speaking to worlds.

See told you it was cookie.

In the course of their growth, we would foolishly make them privy (electronically or otherwise) to that we feel uncomfortable, even shy away from reporting; 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.

A fatally wounded coalition soldier, would you show the close up picture?

No?

Ok, does that need to be applied above the board?

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.

The Uptake.org's townhall weekend debate highlights more than any other event I have seen the schism between mainstreet journalism and grassroot, or as one mainstream producer claimed: "the far left".

It was journalist ambushing journalist: heaven's what's going on?

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, but there is an irrationality about how the media works.

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 the 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.

Concludes tomorrow....

The Digital Hub enters Academia

Exclusive pics from The Financial Times' Digital Hub, published in Viewmagazine.tv in March.

The hub, a contemporary feature of the modern newsroom is now making forays into academia.

Whilst most academic outfits feature lecture rooms equipped with the latest gizmos in presentation, the layout has preserved the hierarchy of the lecturer with students facing on from one direction.

Now news emerges in the UK of a university creating a digital hub, not unlike the FT's.

In this case, it's a sort of throw back to the ampitheatre of Aristotle's school - with a digital upgrade you might say.

Is this the first?

I can't be absolutely sure, but from my involvement in the BJTC, I have broad knowledge of developments, though I welcome your comments telling me how this or that institution is ahead of the curve.

I'll keep you posted with what I know as this may have wide ramifications for other institutes.


Universities of the Future
I have always felt the role of universities is to be where industry would like to be.

And occasionally it succeeds but perhaps not as much as it should.

However because both must fit like glove and hand, academia quite often mirrors the industrial world.

How else would it recruit an able workforce.

Couple of months ago, I produced a package on the University of the Future, which I think is ready for an update.

New Journalism, New thinking

Famous illusion - here for some more to test your point of view with friends

I very rarely post about the Masters module I run; it's just seems a bit off limits though of course I don't in the least mind students posting.

Some even blog live.

Today however we looked at the mindset of the journalist, or future journalists in first contact for online journalism

It allowed some interaction with paradigms and the "aha" syndrome.

One of the biggest threats facing us isn't the deludge of new applications and hardware tools on the market; all of which I'd play around with if I had the chance, or even the trend-to-dismiss web 2.0, but the mindset that predetermines how we percieve what we do.

- - - Dyson's thoughts here
- - -

If big old crinky institutions have their way, the emperors clothes would still be the status quo - producers swearing that their tried and tested model works.

All the signs though are that matters will continue to evolve, so whilst we may have to learn one bit of software or another, that's not really the point for me.

Those determined or bloody minded enough could sooner learn Final Cut by or Flash via books.

I know I first did.

No, one of the issues bedevilling us is about our propensity to accept change, to be sure about the uncertainty ahead that there is no certainty, that today's blog may be tomorrow's "Pass it on" and that we should not fear the unknown.

We're at sea
We've been sailing a ship as deck hands where the seas have been fairly calm, occasionally rocky but nothing we couldn't handle and now all hell's broken loose.

It's rough, really rough. We're outside our comfort zone and it's scaring the bejeez out of us.

Question is how adaptive or creative are you at finding solutions?

Rather reminds me of the APRANET story, of the men with high foreheads submitting their original idea to the military brass, for a pre-internet system.

"This Sirs will do the job in command and control capable of relaying a message in the theatre of a nuclear first strike war".

The brass saw them off; bring back something else, was the riposte.

"We'll give you more, so much more that you'll not know what to do with it", seems to have been the attitude.

The Net is born.

Who do you see?
The picture of the old woman - young lady is a favourite as it tests our capacity to see another person's point of view when it's not at first plainly evident there is one.

It further allows for the sudden sharp intake of breath and exclamation: "Aha", when the alternative image appears.

As a Chem-Maths student I used to love that feeling producing an organic compound which would show a high yield with minimum impurities when passed through a Gas Chromotograph.

The roots of journalism and storytelling will prevail, our ability to inform and entertain using variant models, which we haven't even fathomed must sit at the core of what we do.

That's progress - something big media has cosily shared within itself, parrying, where it can, any disruptive force.

It's no surprise that within computing science and technology, young brains have played a major contribution to the force of the web.

We should equally, sans the politics, not be surprised to see the present crop of tomorrow's journalist pushing this media completely of the scale - our percieved scale.

Change is good.