Calling all Digital Journalist, ethnic journalists in London etc.

Photo: a couple of years ago Programme maker and academic David Dunkley Gyimah hosted B3 Media's "Breaking, Entering and Staying in the Game" at the ICA Cinema with Nelson George (US' Filmmaker, writer), Catherine Johnson (Screenwriter, Bullet Boy, and author), Ray Paul (Executive Producer 1 Xtra, Specialist & Live Music programming 1Xtra), and Maxine Watson (BBC commissioning executive)

'New Media, Diverse Platforms' - NUJ Black Members' Conference
Will new media mean new opportunities for Black journalists? All ethnic minority NUJ members welcome. Speakers include David Dunkley Gyimah, international award-winning journalist and lecturer. Light lunch. Saturday 7 March 2009, 11.15pm-4pm at NUJ HQ, 308 Grays Inn Road, London, WC1X 8DP. To register email joannef@nuj.org.uk.

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A couple of days ago this (below) was posted on the Press Gazette's website. It concerned a major newspaper group for ethnic minorities folding and then finding a buyer. I'm speaking at the above NUJ gathering next week so felt this post apt and timely. Here's the thread. See what you think?

Press Gazette reports

New Nation saved from closure after buyer is found

New Nation and two other Afro-Caribbean titles have been saved after a buyer was found by administrators.

Last month, the Ethnic Media Group – which ran New Nation, Eastern Eye, and other ethnic titles – went into administration. ......(more - the link is further down).

It led me to post a response, which was replied to by Haile Dube Yaas who said

David, the fact is the mega-websites of The Guardian and Telegraph are loss-makers but are subsidied because they believe that is the future. The black media do not have the resources of these giants and need to break even today, not tomorrow. .......

I then replied to Haile.

The absence of any press which has had a relationship with readers, let alone ethnic, in communities establishing and developing their identities is likely to have consequences. This shouldn't happen I say, so what's the strategy?

Why you need (ethnic) media. In some cases it acts as a counter balance to the perceived status quo. When BBC 3 ran a populist but highly controversial programme: The Trouble with Blackmen, it caused an outrage within the press. I set about remaking my own version interviewing people like Doreen Lawrence. More here

Ethnic Journalism in trouble.

Please do take a look and see what you think. Here's the whole thread on the Press Gazette, but before you link of there, this below provides further chill winds.

From the US from New Media America: No Tears for the Chronicle. and from the editor:

Editor’s Note: The San Francisco Chronicle is teetering on the brink of collapse, if it cannot find a buyer or further slash its staff and operating costs. Bought by the Hearst Corp. in 2000, the newspaper lost more than $50 million last year and its readership has steadily declined. NAM editors asked ethnic media journalists and media observers what life would be like without the city’s major daily.

NAM Staff Comments on News of Possible Closure of SF Chron from New America Media on Vimeo.

What is the solution because there are some damn fine writers here, the US and elsewhere finding it hard. Not because of them. But because the dynamic has changed.

No one would have said the Monks of Valencia circa 1600s were not superb as they handcrafted the scriptures, but Gutenberg's press changed the dynamics.

So what do you do. Just what do you do. Do something or do nothing?

BTW if you're from the NABJ or similar it'd be great to hear from you. I have attended NABJ gatherings on and off since 1994- the Big Unity in Atlanta.

Who would have thought back then of this crisis. A crisis indeed for all, but acute for smaller business and ethnic press.

News paper and broadcast Journalism Innovation

At thirty thousand feet the world looks a different place.

Some people however don't need physics to give them a seated lofty view of the world.

Duncan Whitman, who I have pinged a few times is back in London. And it hopefully looks like we/us could be closer to a utility that will firstly disrupt the broadcast/new media industry and provide a mezze of broadcast utilities into your hands.

Yesterday whilst supervising some students, another game changer crossed my path.

Some graphic students in their final 3rd year submission had asked me to take a look at their work. Some months earlier one of them had mentioned something, with me muttering something like: "look forward to seeing it".

Good Grief: Nothing short of genius. The beauty of their design, with graphic boards, copious notes on the technology and animated video shows an emerging plausible future for newspapers and broadcasting merging.

I'd love to show you, but I was the first to say, they need to find a way of protecting their design, yet at the same time placing it under the noses of those who might see what they see.



At a conference some years ago I interviewed two entrepreneurs/ technologists designing different systems: one the tablet, the other flexi-screen app.

What the graphics group at the Uni have done is unknowingly elegantly merge the two with their own innovations.

Hope to bring you some more when we've figured how to do so in their interests.

Video journalism - what does it take to be one - before and after the web?

South Africa circa 1994. The whole world holds its breath for THE elecction to consign apartheid to the history books.

I'm in South Africa multiskilling, working with ABC News, independent production companies and filing radio reports to the BBC World Service.

I have a hi8 camera and Sony recorder I'm using in the townships in areas like Katlehong described as the murder capital of the world.

Nine months later, a total of 18 months in South Africa, I'll be in London going through the ropes on this new thing video journalism.

We often talk about the tools to become a videojournalist, but what about the qualities?

Back then:

Alpha male or female. You needed to be scrapping with national news for stories and the few crews who'd lob insults at you for debasing the craft of TV news making.

Passion and a self starter. You had to know how to solve problems, find a way to bring the story in.

Some appreciation of journalism - Generally broadcasters including the BBC took newspaper journalists and trained them to become visual. Most of the VJs were at the start of their careers and came from newspapers.

People's person. You had to like people and know how to banter to keep an interviewee occupied or open up an interviewer.

Tough skin. Had to know how to take (constructive) criticism.

Ambitious. It's no coincidence that Video journalists went on to work and are still at the likes of BBC Breakfast, News 24, Sky, BBC London, CNBC.

Relentless. We all had pagers and mobile phones and were in regular contact with the office, often filing two stories a day using track and rushes. In one year 500 stories was not uncommon.

Fearless, but not reckless. I did night duty for three months starting at 9 p.m. till 9 a.m. On one story in Brixton my car with tripod was broken into and a group of three were after my beta camera.

Creative. We did not have archive stock so had to be innovative on feature length stories.

Stiickler for facts. You owned your story and needed to be on top of ethics and the law. We were governed by the guidelines of the ITC now Ofcom, which overseas television.

And what about the qualities today. Much the same I guess with noticeable exceptions.

Videojournalism Training ~ Press Gazette article

Still on the press gazette, I was interviewed last week about setting up VJ in the newsroom.

It's an easy-entry article.

Apologies as there is one thing that I would have wanted to have changed, but reporters deadlines and all that I didn't see the final piece before publication.

Anyhow fairly simple stuff: what camera, tripod, editing kit, training needs...

In a recent post I spoke about videojournalism for managers, which is worth reading if you're going local production or hyperlocal.

Some time soon, I'm speaking to managers of one of London's most succesful newspapers and will be telling them almost everything in this post.

BBC Radio 4 - Can newspaper survive?

Listening live to a series of excellent analysis of the media on line on the BBC - Can Newspapers Survive? by Industry heavyweight Kim Fletcher

Guardian Editor, Alan Rusbridger says he's excited by change, adding before hand the precariousness of the industry and how things are changing.

Online advertising does not generate enough compared to newspapers, but overtime this will change, but will this go to newspapers in their current guise, was a question raised.

Andrew Gowers formely editor the FT spoke about mistmatch in online advertising and in the newspaper, despite the fact that online was growing fast.

David Montgomery, formerly Mirror exec is building a newspaper in Europe - Newspaper will be run by those from the online world he says.

Different technologies to read newspapers will appear; Alan Rusbridger talking about if someone creates the ipod to read newspapers, while another interviewer says the mobile phone is the next battle ground.

But adds another pundit Alan print will always be here.

Rupert Murdoch, Kim says, has just invested 650m in new printing plants. A shrewed operator with knowledge of the internet, so this investment is saying something.

Kim concludes that it's about journalism, so if there's a newspaper or not, it's the journalism that matters.

The credits said broadcast produced by City Productions. Is that Adrian Monck's at City Uni?

I'm about to find out.

Listen to the next programme tomorrow if you work in the media or not.

p.s There's the Society of Newspapers Editor's conference going on. Be interesting to see what emerges from them given the frenetic nature of this debate and in light of the NUJ exec saying web 2.0 is rubbish.

Read Shane and the Telegraph's exchange

8 Days - from newspapers to video journalism

UK newspaper journalists put themselves through an 8 days boot camp programme to learn video journalism, while one of the largest police forces tests them by opening up a recent murder case. 8 Days.

8 Days took the international video journalism award for independents in Berlin'a annual award