Reasons to do journalism-the iniquities of Amazon. Respecting John Dewey and video crowd sourcing

The book that arrived at my home had been eagerly expected and the postman, a jolly fellow, telegraphed its arrival through the frosty front window door: "Parcels sir".

Ahh there it was. And yes this book was special. John Dewey is an icon of western philosophy and social reform and his book: How we think (1910) is what we might call today a game changer.

Bowling Green state university, voted recently one of America's best colleges, recounts the views of a scholar Dykhuizen, who described Dewey as

"a major figure of American intellectual history, is considered to be one of the few Americans of the twentieth century who"...can be acknowledged on a world scale as a spokesman for mankind"

However if you're a defender of American scholarly work or books for that matter, look away now. No, actually recant that cliche, please keep reading.

Dewey gets into his prose explaining one of many stories. I have displayed a portion, which says:

The story is told of a man in slight repute for intelligence, who desiring to be a chosen selectman in his new England town, addressed a knot of neighbors in this wise.

Except the text in my newly delivered Amazon book reads and is presented as follows:

The story
consecutive 1s to 0 a man 1 n sSnt repute for intelligence who, not merely desiring to be chosen selectman in his New England a sequence town, addressed a knot of neighbors in this wise

Printing errors from the book

And these illegible prints continue through out the book, 20 - 30 mistakes on a page.


Book Theft
The publishers behind this go by the name of General Books. When I could take no more of the gibberish I looked in the book to find a small disclaimer. It says

Limit of liability/disclaimer of warranty: "While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representation or warranties to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties...

And adds

"We have recreated this book from the original using optical character recognition software to keep the cost of the book as low as possible. therefore could you please forgive any spelling mistakes, missing or extraneous characters that may have resulted from smudged or worn pages?"

Photo of inside sleeve of book talking about their technique for reproduction

Well to the latter, No! In less than a month I'll have around 40 Masters students and soon afterwards 40 International students and I don't doubt for one moment that if I placed passages of this book in front of them, they would find it acceptable.

But here's where this saga takes another uncomfortable twist. Amazon endorses this publisher, the book arrives courtesy of Amazon, and when I made an attempt to get a refund I discovered I would not get the full amount. In fact they will only remittance half the cost on the basis the book was defective.

Why become a journalist
Now, this is why I became a journalist. This is plainly unacceptable from both General Books for selling a product not fit for purpose and for Amazon complicit to this and denying a full refund.

In fact in a more progressive world of customer service, there would be an effort to ameliorate this sorry affair. But lets forget that for a moment.

At this point, I could take the more common sense approach and say I will no longer shop on Amazon, but despite my spending a fair amount on books on the site, I know that will have no effect.

People power and boycotts in the day, has a different effect for the bottom line, as Nike found out when it offended black Americans, Moslems et al over the years

But this: the company versus the individual addressing their rights, is what I wanted a voice for. It's theft. No different from going to the cinema and finding the film is a copy version, a bootleg, with non- native English speakers speaking English.

I'd demand my money back.

What others have said
The last bit to this is despairing, but Amazon's page on John Dewey is replete with customers who have been taken in by this. "Read the review before you buy a book!" you might say.

Well, not everybody does, I often do. But the two best reviews have been placed at the top and the critical ones have become side shows below. Subterfuge some more. Here's some of the posts:

Phi Stone writes a month ago: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Unreadable. Buy a different copy.
This book is completely different than the preview version and the OCR text is unreadable. Dewey is good reading, so buy from a different publisher.

This from an anonymous buyer: 1.0 out of 5 stars
This is a Bootleg Edition
This is not the same edition as the one that can be viewed on this page. There is a disclaimer in the front of the book that states that the so-called publisher "recreated this... Read more

And from M. Schwieterman 1.0 out of 5 stars HORRIBLE
This book was automatic digitization gone wrong. I don't think anyone looked at this before it was printed. There are jumble words and phrases throughout. Read more

What you can do?
If you've been displeased by this and would like to be part of a videojournalism report please let me know. It may mean doing a short video of yourself talking about your concerns and we'll put it together as a global videojournalism report.

Fifteen years ago, I made this report for Channel One TV, a housewife who so riled by the attitude and road humps brought in by her municipal council she campaigned to have them successfully removed. The report at the time was nicely received by viewers.



Fifteen years on I think we can do something more appropriate - a film and something along the lines of this vlog butterfly and video promo I made interviewing a senior BBC figure and was picked up by various credible news sources such as journalism.co.uk

So please get in touch. See you on viewmagazine.tv Hopefully we can do something for this nonsense to be more widely recognised and daren't I add, stopped.

Added 26th August - Update
Since writing this post and contacting Amazon I received the following, so good result!

Hello,

I'm sorry to hear about the problem with your book. It would be expensive to return the item in this case, so there's no need to return the item.

I see you printed a return mailing label from our website; feel free to throw that away. We won't charge you for printing the label.

Note: The label you printed can only be used to return the "How We Think (1910)" from order #XXXX If you want to return another item in the future, you'll need to print a new label.

I've requested a refund for $14.54, the cost of the item, shipping costs, and the import fee deposit (if any). This refund will go through within the next 3-5 business days and will appear as a credit on your next credit card billing statement.

Since you placed your order using the Amazon Currency Converter, the refund you receive will be issued in your local currency. The refund will be calculated with the same rate used when you placed your order.

Amazon

in 2046 journalism died. The machines took over

My city friend runs his investment portfolio according to Fibonacci's numbers. Yes, your invested cash is being moved around by his machine programmed to look for patterns theorised by a 12th century mathematician.

A machine now can, using the the proportions of the golden ratio, tell a master piece from a flawed painting and the weather tomorrow is determined by modelling.

News of course is indeterminate, but generally speaking its classification follows tested rules. The rest is human emotion.

In Spielberg's A1 David is everything but bereft of emotion. In British Politics, as each party equivocates about what they would do next, we might say the machines, Data, have arrived in all but physical form.

They're programmed to say the same thing:
So how will you bring down the budget deficit
A: We've built five new schools
Do you think the pubic trust you
A: go to answer 1.

And according to Nick Davies, FLat Earth, the machinary of PR masquerading as news has already taken over.

So in 2046 when the bulk of data we consume is offered by machines, don't be alarmed, and don't say it can't happen. 10 quid, lets talk again in 2020 to see where we are. I buy the drinks if there's no hint of it.

How do we stop it, by giving a ******

As close back as the 90s and Thatchers poll tax we did.

Now it's ideological movements about the "big brother". You think journalism's dying? Yes it is, because at the point when we fail to take risks to do best what nosey parkers do, then the machines will have taken over, and they may not have to be clad in shiny terminator suits.

What makes a good journalist.. videojournalist?

The Retwitter Show titles - journalism 2046 from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

This video you might watch came about from this post below. After it was retweeted, I created this title intro for a fictitious Retweet show to thank those who pinged this to their friends.


Many students have now graduated, some have found jobs, others will join an unofficial club reeling of letters and CVs.

Having struggled myself initially to get into the media, I still have all my BBC rejection letters, and regularly now find myself in positions to recommend others for broadcasters and newspapers,  I'd like to share some of my thoughts.

The first thing that is apparent is the digital age has changed the job market in the way we conduct a different type of journalism. This in turn has affected, or should, attitudes to hiring from potential employers.

That at least is what senior execs will tell you, but the converse is that traditional values in this fuzzy world have never required reinforcing like they do now.  Values such as objectivity, impartiality, truth, ethics, fairness, learning how to cope with failure - these are personable qualities that universities or lengthy training regimes help you broach.

Take the modules where I lecture in at my University, the University of Westminster, or training programmes in Egypt where I have been helping to create all-round videojournalists ( see Viewmagazine.tv) the concept is to teach, then load students with real-life obstacles.

Invariably, these test a number of skills: creative, technical, personable, knowledge-building and provide invaluable feedback.

Understanding social networks and how they impact user behaviour is crucial, but so is developing your critical analysis. On the top of Egypt's state broadcaster, Nile TV, its 27th floor my colleague pointed to an economically deprived area of downtown Cairo. I took this picture. What does it show?

Downtown Cairo

The next day I spent time walking around the cafes and eateries, and there in the corner was TV with any number of people watching. Social Media may have played a role as some sort of secondary catalyst in the unrest in Cairo, but pushing the chemistry analogy, the substrate appears to me to be good old fashion television - the bastion of social media.

If you are going on to some form of tertiary education, the amazing skills you'll likely to learn during your most fertile period may not necessarily be required within the traditional market place e.g. learning how to use twitter as a marketing tool, unless that is the company you are working for envelopes these into their working practice. Believe me not all do.

Also be aware, most job interviews will tap you for new knowledge and your potential thus as the next generation to take the organisation through the digital sluice gates, but you may well end up not using such skills immediately.

So it pays to develop your own online presence as both a reputation management guide and to offload some of the angst you may encounter in traditional media companies who take the ford system of division of labour.

And before you ask, there's nothing wrong with the Ford system, its all about horses for the right course.



What makes a good journalist.. videojournalist? ( Reduxed - since writing this yesterday)

1. Personable: good social skills in handling different scenarios and a matured responsible manner. Being able to illustrate you're a story teller, by telling a story... and that includes job interviews. You have no idea how bored interviewers get when one candidate after another subjects them to monosyllabic answers.

A friend of mine walking up to the panel tripped on her stilettos, fell down and then held her broken heel aloft. "I've made a right heel of this without even starting", she said. She got the job after recounting other witty stories in her answers. But don't do what politicians do... " Earlier I asked this (fictional) lady called Margaret about her ...." NO!

Also learn how to be firm without being cocky; the best journalists to work with, and would-be-journalists are those who are generous; they display a voracious appetite to know and demonstrate they care. Listening is a skill. Learn to listen, because ultimately the story is in the listening, as much as the probing. If you care about the story, you'll know what to ask, because it becomes a quasi-conversation.

2. Judicious use of words and being relaxed. Knowing how to talk to people. Please don't be verbose. Use words in a manner befitting of you a potential reporter: intelligent without over doing it. If you have a propensity to say er, a lot, it may either signify lack of confidence or knowledge.

If you can switch from speaking to 5 year olds, without being condescending to non-native speakers of your language and then to a high powered official, that social chameleon skill will get you far.

If your vocabulary is found wanting or 9/11 is a channel, you might want to have some strong words with yourself. Last year at a media event, one 3rd year media student asked me. What's 9/11?

3. An inquisitive and enquiring mind: a nosy bastard. If you're someone who asks "why" a lot, often quietly in your head, then you're the bothered type. On radio some years back, a guest told me something really amusing. During a studio interview she excused herself for a bathroom break, after the other speaker had been talking.

It was only after the show that she admitted, she was so bothered with the other interviewee using the word "peripatetic", that she had to find out what it meant, so she went off to find a dictionary. She never used the word during her interview, she just needed to know.
Journalism is an irrational appetite to know things. In effect you're a wordsmith or visual detective.

There's a test I usually run on my masters students, the first time I'm supposed to meet them. I send a  not to the lecture hall apologizing I'll be late, but have the room strewn with newspapers and mags, some with marked headlines. It's fascinating to note those who picked up the newspapers before I turn up and those who felt they'd use the time talking to friends on the phone.

Short film I made of former MAJI student who today are successful in their fields answering "If". If they could change one thing, what would that be? This is an edited version.

4. Capable of sacrificing your time and efforts for a good cause - illustrate this. This is a personal quality. Stop being the Narcissistic Ego; you know, the "know it all". The me-society, which has its green shoots in Consumerism of the 80s (You could argue also the 60s) and is congealed now, means its all about you. I find this space-sharing tested when asking student journalists to collaborate on projects. Some excel, others still believe they should be guarded.

If you're sitting next to someone struggling because they don't know what button to push to post their wordpress blog, and you've just posted your 10th, why would you tell them to email the lecturer???  Please don't misunderstand me, this is not about lecturers or mentors abrogating their roles, it's about the we media and wisdom of crowds. You'll win far more accolades playing alongside others together. Yes you got the interview, we know!

5. A good understanding of technology and applications. You work in TV and don't know what DTT means?? An appreciation of a technology will suffice. Blog? Ah yes, isn't that when you write on the Internet. There will be 20-somethings appearing on journalism courses this year, who will not know what a blog is, let alone have written in one. Why?

It is inevitable ( I sound like a borg) but digital journalism today embraces a fundamental understanding of basic tech. If you're railing against computers because you hate them, two things. Firstly, you won't be able to avoid them and some of the tools/software they come with. Secondly, you're doing yourself no favours.

With limited spaces available working for an outfit, even if you're not going to use online skills, don't pass them over.

6. The usual suspects: law, admin, politics - Yeah. Somethings you just need to know, but some of you will quietly and methodically push the envelope some more. My Masters students will know me for the saying: "You can work and pass this exam, or you can work and excel in industry. If you choose the latter, you're assured to pass your exams and get a job. If you choose the former, you'll pass, hopefully, but that job won't have your name on it".

Why? simple. There are in the UK on average I'm told by a human resources manager 100 applicants for every job advertised. So, you need to be special, and want it. You can, but it costs.

7. Persistence and heightened sense of keenness. I see this in the MAJI students when they're doing online. Those that are committed will reap what they sow. One of my former students had a persistent knack of keeping me on campus until 9pm.

He wanted to know, but not in an asymmetric relationship, he'd push me as well. Most managers like nothing more than someone who can in a respectful way push them. But if you're going to turn up to a class or newsroom know that before you ask that questions, er what's 911, you've at least googled it or asked a friend. Yes someone did ask about 911.

8. Respect. You may have a double first, but humility is key. Your job is to extract info. Older people or those deemed "alien" may seem worthless but they possess huge reservoirs of experiential learning. If your inclination after a week on the work placement is to think your editor is a W*****er, then time will become your foe in years to come, when you're no longer young and OH yes it will happen. The expression be nice on your way up, because you will come down and meet the same people, is TRUE.

9 Independent mind - an opinion. Personally I'd rather have a student in front of me talking about how she/he got out of a ruck in Borneo, than someone telling me she/he has 3,000,000 twitter followers. A senior figure at the think tank Chatham House, was my mentor, but on the occasion he would ask I speak to a relative of his considering journalism, my advice was back then and now: " Go and make yourself interesting". Travel... experience new things.. broaden you social horizons.

10. Think on your feet. Be bothered by mediocre, second best and go-slows. When it all goes horribly wrong, will you be the one in the newsroom to pull it altogether and not lose it? I'd like to end here with a tribute to another former student who showed how "self belief" in the constant face of uncertainty and how risk taking does pay off.

11. Wanting it. At the end of each module I conduct a lecture on "Wanting it". Simply it's a quasi- army talk on the lengths you can or will go if you want something. For there is no right or wrong route to this trade called journalism.

As part of my PhD research I recently interviewed an old colleague of mine. When we worked as videojournalists in 1994, he was first a researcher, then talked his way into becoming a videojournalist. Today he has a 10 million pound turn over company. In Touching the Void, a climber who could not face death crawled back to camp. In 127 hours, the same fighting spirit. As I write this now, there are Master students who are blurring night and day.

Online classes, with CSS and the likes, fold into video doc projects. They're probably calling me all sorts of names ( LOL); I also get the most delightful emails after the course, but I know now they're finding out about themselves: in group dynamics, in their own desires, in finding solutions, in sacrificing one year of their lives to work their socks off.

As a chemistry undergrad, a good friend became my mentor: "David", he would say,"forget the nightlife and the socialising, get the degree. The rest will be here when you finish".  Later on during my Postgrad, my lecturer asked me to make a choice. I was making 150UKP a week as a DJ, but my studies were suffering.

The choice of abandoning that pay check, helped me into my first TV job in 1990 at the BBC's flagship news analysis prog Newsnight. It's high time, I thought then and do now of paying that favour back. For without that timeline, it's very likely I wouldn't be doing half of the things today e.g. a juror for the UK equivalent of the EMMY's , The RTS Awards and of course lecturing.

Discretion prevents me from divulging so much as to embarrass her and break my own position as a confident, but after a chat, we made a report for her reel. She managed to blag (persuade) the publicists of the premier Dreamgirls ( she's interviewing Danny Glover) and 007 Casino Royale to be part of the TV crews. Nine months later she was selected as Sky's Entertainment Correspondent in LA.

How bad do you want it?

Your thoughts??

p.s And please don't so what one student did when at a journalism gathering I introduced her to a respected ITN reporter. After talking to him for ten minutes, she said she had to go, gave him her card and said: "call me sometime". Our mouths dropped in shock!

David is a director of the Broadcast Journalism Training Council, a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster, PhD Candidate researching future journalism at te SMARTlab, University College Dublin and publisher of viewmagazine.tv and consultant for a number of news organisations. He has worked for some of the biggest news orgs. These views are his own. They are not in anyway shape or form connected to the policies of his university

Here for more on David's background and to talk to him


David interview the former head of the CIA in Washington, James Woolsey and below working as a director-camera film maker in West with the US Special Forces.


David Dunkley Gyimah joins UK industry experts to decide who'll be the Royal Television Society winner for innovative media for the last three years: 2010 and 2009.

Follow up with these.

1. Where next for technical videojournalism news?

2. Do you speak a video, Yes You!

The death of the multiskilled journalist - sans corporeal experience

When the Guardian Newspaper placed its half page ad in its newspaper looking for videojournalist, anyone would have thought they'd be inundated with applications.

The Guardian stands as an iconic newspapers in the print world; its award winning Berliner design, double page photojournalism spreads, and of course Guardian Journalism - a synonym for excellence.

When the applications came pouring in, they totaled around 200; of which around a dozen met the requirements stipulated in the advert. Four got jobs.

Back in 1994, the Guardian was the chosen newspaper to host the advert for associated newspapers plans to recruit videojournalists to launch the UK's first and only videojournalism station.

Over a month lead period, around 1000 applications were received; some from broadcasters who are top names on BBC TV today. 100 applicants were seen over two staggered half hour rigorous interviews and then whittled down to 24 successful applicants.

Talking to one of Channel One's former employees, who went on to carve a career in ITN, she tells me, as many others have iterated ..." There was something unique about the group; we were all different, actually all mavericks in some way".

And that perhaps is it. A point also echoed by my interview with a former senior Guardian editor who says in their job interview he was willing his applicants to be attitudinal, relaxed, composed, edgy, expansive and knowledgeable about their subject.

Why? Because the job, you're about to enter, which will require quick turnaround will also be measured by high, veering towards exceptional standards. And that says the editor is rare.

Martin Adler, an award winning videojournalist epitomised the new digital journalist. He was shot in 2006 in Mogadishu. Kevin Sites, is another. There are countless more, but these two will forever be associated with the art of the new journalist.

Says Newsnight's Paul Mason of Martin Adler

"Martin's approach to video journalism is the opposite to the way most mainstream media works: you go there, get the footage using little battered video cameras, you don't shoot "sequences" - you shoot the truth. He went on and on at me in the edit about the film director Lars von Trier and his philopsophy of Dogma.."

The social self and stories
If you're reading this it's a fair chance you're into multiskilling; invariably that's one of the themes that runs through these posts. You may or may not be a practicing journalist or content aggregator, but you know your way around a Mac - that's multiskilling plenty.

Then close your eyes and imagine: your diary you've discussed with your editor includes:

• reports from Afghanistan with Bravo company
  
• interviewing Angelina Jolie at a film premiere
  
• interview with a CEO over the potential economy collapsing
• Death Knock

Four different jobs, requiring more or less the same apparatus, yet requiring fundamentally different experiences from you.

And that whether by way of perception or otherwise is one of the problems we face in the digital-body age.

All the above are executable as derived from experience, if not actual, the perception of what those might entail from proxy experiences.

Going to Afghanistan by yourself: logistics. Filming in a high stressed area: discipline. Getting the story from soldiers: association. On the other end of the spectrum, talking to Angelina Jolie will require some suppression of emotions, if you're a fan. Yet respect, for who she is.

The CEO requires an embodied patience. The art of doing nothing but looking busy, knowing you're bored out of your wits, but you MUST not show it, as his secretary tells you he'll be out in a minute, and then when he arrives you seamlessly set up your equipment, while engaging the pre-interview space ( the idle, but necessary chat before you start).

And how is your authority in challenging his point of view?

Then there is the death knock. Perhaps the most confusing, emotionally sapping, and delicate of tasks. A story must be told, but it requires you to breach the privacy of the bereaved.

Now, multisklilled journalism ceases to become primarily concerned with technical competence, but increasingly of the sort of paradigms expounded by philosopher Merleau Ponty.

Not an exhaustive list of formulas for what a modern journalist ought to be, but an understanding of our embodied selves. Your experience shape you, and you won't find those extraction skills from lists on twitter or a blog or facing a terminal.

GET OUT! travel, experience others. GO NATIVE!

The job interview that says: "must be sociable" scratches at personal attributes. Sociable to whom- a virtual online community, whom you' re unlikely to meet face to face, or the ability to switch facades corporeally ?

These are new spaces I believe that are creating new, yet virtually ignored areas of debate and will affect what and how we come to perform the function of journalist and storytellers in the future.

Postscript.
As I was writing this a former student of mine ( anonymity guaranteed) sent me her covering letter to a potential employer. I'll talk about the art of writing to an editor later on.

Can the Wire ring on a different form of journalism

Solo - a film about videojournalism from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Chapter 13.

The Wire - good for videojournalism

Detective: The reporter comes with us?
Producer: He's a VJ..
Detective: A what? ( laughs) sounds like you said he has the crabs....
Producer: You know they film and edit their own stuff
Detective: Unions let you do that shit?
Producer: What unions? Stopped paying subs when we lost an injunction to you guys. You pay subs?
Detective: Yeah, robbery... times move on. Guess your VJ will get an Oscar for this.
Reporter: Oscar does films, Emmy, most likely get a bullet. Does he get a vest?
Detective: What like a vest, vest? You been watching too many dramas!
Reporter: He gets a vest!
Detective: In the f*****ing Wire he do. Here we so damn down on it, be lucky if you get a hot dog.
Detective: So what's the beef with the boss saying I should let you guys in...
Producer: Oooh noo, we aint going in. He is ( pointing to VJ)
Detective: You guys have one $%£^ing sick sense of humour.
Producer: He'll be inconspicuous..
Detective: Yeah like no one's ever going to find him when he gets out a there.
Reporter: Where are we anyways?
Detective: Dagenham.
Reporter **** where?
Detective: Outside London somewhere!
Reporter: Then why the hell are we talking like we Americans
Detective: We're having a "Life on Mars" moment.
Reporter: True...
[ pause]
Reporter: Does he get a vest?


There's no denying The Wire's huge influence. Realms of thesis have been written and combed over. I'm still suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

If men would knit in public and police could be exposed for cross dressing, you'd find it in The Wire. So what's it got to do with videojournalism?

Not a lot except that it inspires to go beyond the mundane. For original VJ inspiration, Homicide - Life on the Street, is the bible. In one scene it breaks 5 TV rules. But what The Wire does is inspire thought for the way contemporary chat has moved on.

The way you might speak and access info differs broadly from the way news speaks to you in intellectual high tones. That doesn't mean journalism should dumb down, but that there is a new language that's required, a new semiotic, which few have rarely tried

Er sorry Fox News doesn't count.

As I mentioned at SXSW - the film is not enough. Now where's my vest?

Info overload, the new journalist, so why become a journalist?

Imagine in 2030 - all outside kiosks, plasma screens, holodecks will be showing data like this one - a view of viewmagazine.tv captured in an article on Apple Pro. If we're surrounded by data what's the role of the journalist?

The concept of the journalist of the 21st century has still to be resolved. At some point like all industries, networks will get smaller, new citadels will usurp others, funding becomes unsustainable and then what happens when the next information wave hits, where more data than ever is available, what then the role of this arcane 16th century profession, journalism?

There is such a thing as information overload. It was the french Philosopher Baudrillard who gave it a universal currency, but in order to qualify what is an overload we must ascertain what our limits are in the first place - for it fundamentally affects are notion of journalism.

Meanwhile inside the BBC circa 1999, I had finally met with one of their senior execs, lunch! He reviewed my CV, made some remarks and uttered, lets get you in and see.

This image of me at various workplaces is also an allegory for the way, I, even you have come to imbibe data.

If you follow the development of media: Traditional medial - Cable and Satellite media - Digital Media - The Net, each occasion we take to its form, we're met with new data in which previously our cultural ways had no means of accommodating

Think about it. Pre-web, you worked, went out for a drink, home made VHS movie and slept. Today we have an assortment of gadgets that impinge, and require us to alter our social habits.

Social habits that have been built up over long periods are now met with the sudden challenge of, ok instead of looking at my favourite game on a Sunday, I'll blog.

This predicament is most acutely on display in lecture rooms, where students access facebook, twitter and the likes while a lecture is in progress. Our choices have boiled down to: all monitors off or lets reinvent a new way of lecturing where you're able to multiskill. Personally now, I give 10 min FB windows after a 40 min lecture.


Devised in the 1920s, will it celebrate a 100 years in good shape? That's a political answer.
So I didn't get into the BBC as a roving reporter, maybe that was my fault. Should I have pursued my contact some more? But I knew I was doing something right. A piece of advice given to me by an ol' time manager rang in my ears: "if you're wanting to be a journalist, do something, bring me something that the other person wouldn't do, or couldn't do, and people might want and don't endanger your life doing it"

The networks had to find a way to mediate what they felt we the public needed. They couldn't and wouldn't be able to show us all the world's woes.

It's impossible, that would be overload, but instead of finding a means to facilitate our increasing penchant for news, their attitude was still 1950s" "the news is fine as it is". They by and large still think that way, when I think other than our desire for stories, news has become cause and effect.

News is fine as it is ? It couldn't be: the web has showed that with a new breed of citizen journos, determined not by wise counsel sitting yonder, but by you and me, has room to bring us news.

The big shift
What's happening? We've culturally shifted our access to information absorption. MIT Henry Jenkins talks more about this in his writings. However it's still pretty much an unregulated system; they all are when they start, which in time we'll find a way to manage.

So if you can find something that the other person wouldn't do, or couldn't do, and people might without and endangering your life doing it, I reckon the road to the next elevated stage will be short in coming.

What makes the networks work well is their access to data and unquestionably some bright people mediating and delivering that.

The latter is something the best citizen journalists easily do. If all those clever people that couldn't or wouldn't want to get into a network set up their own, or all the people who left a broadcast network did so, we've the makings of some powerful new mediators.

We've started that adhoc already, with blog lines and tweet followers; we still like our repositories. So a new line of journalists, semi-pro, becoming pro not by earnings, but by their knowledge acquisition is on the rise.

The next thing is knitting a structure together and a good friend of mine Steve Punter has produced a document that does just that.

Did I mind I never think I fulfilled my potential? Well it depends whether potential= working for the networks. No, not any more. All the rejections I had accrued made me develop alternative ways of working.

David presenting at SXSW on IM Videojournalism from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Segment of a SXSW presentation that showed we've done all these things before. There's nothing new in multiskilling

A decade ago, the idea that someone could or would do as many things constituted an overload of sorts. Today we take that for granted, until that is the next spike occurs, perhaps - the outernet - where info isn't locked on the web, but like air all around you.

A student called it the "information wave". She's not wrong, then what kind of journalists will you be then - curatorial is not a bad start.

Effecting a Matrix Lecture

The nature of a Matrix Lectures stems from an idea within Matrix maths, where multiple columns and rows are multiplied across each other - necessary within algebra and studying geometry.

In effect then multiple calculations are in process; it requires acute diligence and stamina from the executor and observer.

In many ways matrix lectures as a methodology are like a good comedian on a run. He or she uses the personal, abstract, plays with the audience and above all introduces a motif, an icon.

The very best ones, without you seeing it coming, use the motif as the denouement.

Many of you may have engaged in matrix lectures ad hocly or under some other name. But few will have tried it in its performance guise. The performance Lecture was first mentioned to me in its modernists terms by Prof. Wolfgang Kissel of Bauhaus-University Weimar.

Videojournalism in mathematics is the integration of different practices along the XY, and I would contend as yet not much on the Z plane

University teaching tends to be monocausal. It's based on an eventuality - that you may need to know - as a baseline for all. Many are yet to crack a system otherwise and will not want to veer far off from the syllabus.

The matrix then is a sign of the times. In a non-viewed multimedia world, we'd expressively countenance that students would be unable to think about a cluster of different disciplines at the same time.

When radio was just radio, we taught the voice, writing, technology of operating the gear - all geared to the single cause. You rarely have a drum or guitar in the room and say "right then lets make some music, talk poetry, reductive speech patterns and metronomic talk".

But why later you might ask are some accents more geared to the radio and how might we attenuate the voice as an instrument. If you've ever listened to BBC correspondent Fergal Keane you'll know what I'm talking about. Music thus become part of the lecture.

The Internet out of its net- The Outernet from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Made in 2005 - this promo explores ideas

Matrix lecture pulls from different strands, but fundamentally is less about the art of teaching you what to do, but how you might do it differently or not at all. It's not an oxymoron.

In a group work I have noticed individualists gradually assume the identity of the group. If the group is cautious, you will soon taken on those attributes, sometimes temporarily. If the group takes risks, you'll do too in the long run or risk being exposed.

In that vein the idea is to get the individuals within a group to become "illogical rationalist", challenging antecedents in constructs et al.

Birth of a station - Video Journalism revolution from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

How videojournalism looked like in 1994

Here's another one, you might believe the inverted pyramid is ideal for journalism, but remember when that was and the culture is was born out of, and online how it might manifest itself as the truncate- pyramid.

The processor seeks to fit into the system, the artists looks to redefine it, thus wrestling with the very things we take for granted.I have taken various groups including students from the Communications University of China, and all have responded favourably
_______________________

Hi David,

I'm Amanda, a Chinese student in your class that day. I'm Chief Editor of
the GDUFS News Group in London (GDUFS is abbreviation of Guangdong
University of Foreign Studies). Since we plan to report your class, we long
to know your comments and opinions on our 3 ideas made in your class that
day, and we also want to know your comments on us (the 3 groups in your
class). We will be very grateful if you can send these information to us as
soon as possible, for the news cannot wait.

Furthermore, thank you for changing the way I think, for help me to jump out
of most people's prsent behaviour style and to try to shake off
the restriction of stereotype. Your lecture did make the oversea trip
worth.

Amanda

------------------------------
In the coming months I'll talk more about this and how I believe it can go some way in addressing modern teaching methods. Incidentally the blurring of the lines between the science and arts is nothing new, so I'm not being "out there" at all.

Here's a suggest link for you about how students will make up their own curricula in the future and lectures will become curators - from a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Westminster. You'll find it on viewmagazine.tv, once you get past the short pieces called EAT. :)

Why I wanted to become a journalist - and you? by David Dunkley Gyimah

David working in Radio circa 1998 physicall cutting tape before spooling it on a reel to reel before playout- you can hear some of those archive moments on his newly launched viewmagazine.tv site

For some it's a calling; others an easy shoe-in ( a linear extrapolation of middle class status sensibility). Then some fall into it by accident, some are well placed given their indepth knowledge of a subject, and some try as they may will perhaps never reach their full potential.

Journalism is a unique field, a gladitorial arena - many will join its quest; thousands will fail. Not because they are no good, but a range of complex reasons. The 80s was an easier era to become a broadcast journalist; in the 60s and 70s when it was in its nascent form it was much easier.

A brief visual history of videojournalism from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.
A timeline looking at one of the areas of journalism that I have practised for a while - Solojouurnalism

Though if you were from an ethnic background; it was problematic. Today, the chances of joining an established outfit against the weight of diagnosed upheavels, makes for serious questioning of : why you want to become a journalist.

Yes you don't have to join the big boys or girls -as the bloggorama has shown, but you'll look to bring in an income.

On Mr tweets journalism the question was asked: this was my response.

Why I became a journalist
In the UK of the 80s if you were black you'd have to gone to Oxbridge for a decent chance of a foot in journalism’s door.

It was a naked, disturbing, crass affair (one that publicly would not dare speak its name). It excluded not just the views of a section of society, but people from sections of society who also felt they had something relevant to share in the public sphere.

Years earlier I remember standing in college cadet garb in Ghana circa 1980s in the midst of a coup de tat, with citizens and friends being shot, indignantly, thinking "people should be seeing this".

That was one of many incidents that later fuelled my interests, I’d see something and say “people should be seeing this”.

In 1994, 6 yrs after beginning my hard slog, I stood amidst the masses in South Africa, witnessing and speaking into a phone to the BBC World Service for the inauguration of Nelson Mandela; People should be seeing this, and it stands as one of the more powerful icons for scratching my itch.

Untitled from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

In 2009 I went back to South Africa and fleetingly recorded this.

I wanted to become a journalist because when journalism’s common sense prevails, we have the ability to unveil, expose, talk about those individuals and corporations who feel no accountability for their actions, yet should.

And less it be forgotten tell the most amazing stories about human achievement and those who set examples for us to follow, with the thought at the back of my head that: “people should be seeing this”.

The most advanced technology for the future of journalism

The most advanced technology for the future of journalism is.... (drum roll).. YOUR NOGGIN.

I'm not writing as much now, partly because I realise I need to change this blog's template and also because my spare time is spent buried in books on technology and media.

I have a good many friends who like me are technofetishers. Our love for gadgets sees no end. So the last five years has been an orgy.

But I now find myself questioning such exuberance at the expense of those around me and my social development.

The gadget show
Today every gadget that comes to the market has tech journalists pronouncing its "Star Trek" moment in the ever changingling journalism. They too must drive copy!

Poor journalism. It's as if its been caught napping ( which it had), scolded by the ear and told to wait in the corner.

As each tech device emerges we turn around and recite: "Nah nah nah nah nah".

It's getting to the point of absurdity and the professional and amateurs alike ( if that distinction can be made) need to take stock and dampen down their "wow syndrome".

Oh yes I was an Applied Chemist and the wow syndrome as first described by New Scientist in the 80s captures elegantly the scientists penchant for the new. For me that was before I was lured into the ways of the 'scribe ' - the visual scribe.

In 1964 at a news event sponsored by the Radio-Television News Director Association and Time/Life, a senior executive from NBC, Robin Still, announced how in the future small electronic cameras would be small enough to hold with hand.

The world of news was only just negotiating a move from the expensive and clunky 35mm to its poorer cousin, but a new approach to news film, the 16mm.

Oh they must have sneered.

Video I shot in 1997 showed a healthy discourse between members at the Online News Association, looking at the first trial of the Reuters' mobile phone reportage.

The technologists' technologist noggin
Vannevar Bush, and if you don't know who he is, then er shame on you, spoke similarly in his seminal text "As we may think" of a device, the size of a walnut that would facilitate capturing data

"The camera hound of the future wears on his forehead a lump a little larger than a walnut. It takes pictures 3 millimeters square, later to be projected or enlarged, which after all involves only a factor of 10 beyond present practice. The lens is of universal focus"

He added referring to the camera:

"It would be a brave man who would predict that such a process will always remain clumsy, slow, and faulty in detail".

The year was 1945.

So what's my point? We're in danger of becoming celebrants, no dysfunctional celebrants to technology, when a less talked about asset is human agency; our capacity to dream first before the technology accomplishes those feats.

This is aptly distilled by Avatar Director/ writer James Cameron, who says he had to wait fifteen years before he could make his ground breaking film.

Meanwhile we're caught in a braudrillard-frenzy of instant gratification wooing to be exploiter of the next thing, that any pronouncements have come to resemble a vaudeville carabet. That may be fine, but for the reflective practitioner, there should be more healthy skepticism.

Technologies metamorphise with cultural wants; different cultural needs drive technological considerations.

Which is why in Kenya money can be hot-wired via mobile phones and spent accordingly, but it has not yet caught on in the West where the banks woud resist such a process unless there were at the heart of it.


Innovations inform art and art informs innovation

University of Westminster August 201o Students from one of China's revered media universities - address in a low tech way, their ability to think illogically, but rational. Here devising how "wisdom of crowds' might develop

Let me not sound prudish about this. There will always be innovations of a kind that use a technology that may well yield fresh methodologies.Twitter kept the Iran siege alive, mobile phones captured a plane on the Hudson, and a home movie cam recorded Rodney Marshes beatings.

But the innovators can only innovate once, the next one is a has-been and the technology - now available to citizen and professional - risks redundancy as we search for the next best thing.

It's absurd and it's not because I fail to understand Raymond William's theory of technological determinism but that the phenomenological inquiries; the raising of our consciousness, are crucially abandoned in these moments.

Because what journalism or its many actors should, now that's bold David, be striving for is what Arthur Koestler, a former journalist and celebrated author writes in Act of Creation ( and take note Inception fans when he says: "humans are most creative when rational thought is abandoned during dreams and trances..." is:

"The measure of an artists originality, put in the simplest terms, is the extent to which his selective emphasis deviates from conventional norm and establishes new standards of relevance".

We need the iPhone as much as we need blogs and twitter, but the quest is to radicalise their functionalities for new emergence of new cultural habits and find a lasting source of creativity can be challenging - more so if they are seen to be simulations of an antecedent object.

When the next person launches 'lync' - an app that culls twitter feeds so your feed cojoins with others to form a coherent stream of essays e.g. this blog would have been constructed from a series of tweets bound together, how will we use language and social networks any differently?

If the next iPhone allows me to composite and post-produce incorporating basic apps such as Cinema 4D and After Effetcs we might regale in this feat of miniaturisation, but how might it affect us beyond the conventional of a desk bound object?

Here's where we pound our noggin for the underlying emergent epistemology - and it rarely is a simple process. Of course serendipity will also play its part e.g. Dyson took a cyclonic windflow to create a revolutionary type of vaccum cleaner that would not lose suction.

How does this affect and exact what might be different? Otherwise we might suggest, as some have, that whilst we might be more technologically savvy, we're not growing in knowledge.

To unravel that we need to be more critical, enquiring and contextual of what we're privy to today. Living in the now fails to take note of powerful antecedents that could better inform us to push forward. In the end it's the technology that is subservient.

David Dunkley is a senior lecturer in digital media and is training professionals in the "Illogical Rationalist". How to see ideas when they're conformist

Inside Viewmagazine.tv

Redesigning viewmagazine.tv I wanted a look that reflected something of a magazine format and not overwhelm as criticism of the last front page had done.

So over the course of the next few months, I'l be refining more sub pages.

I have in my library more than 2000 tapes which give a clear inidication how media has changed. And next week I look forward to visiting ITN's archive to research landmarks in radio and television news.

I won't be able to show any film, but I will hopefully bog with pics. In the meantime if you get the chance do log onto to this page on viewmagazine.tv, where you'll hear a track from the forthcoming album of singer songwriter Nancy Ginindza.

You will not be dissapointed.

Videojournalism - It's so much attitude

It is not broadcasting.

Neither is it a new thing, squeezed to the chest by new journalists.

It's not a discipline and goes beyond the technical.

Neither is it a motif, a badge that makes you feel one of the new cadets of journalism.

It is difficult to measure, in as much as it is to define.

It embraces all media, and favours none.

It holds faithfully to a dictum that it's not what you see that counts, but what you feel.

And its interpretation.

That is to be disruptive, but construct fresh palettes

To be individualistic, yet seek collaboration.

It is not the shooting of the event

But the event, unrehearsed that leads you to shoot.

It can be taught in name, but lives through pained search.

There may be many kinds of videojournalism,

but I only know one.

It is the one that imbues a critical, artistic and fearless temperament at creating artefacts.

Artefacts that hold true to an aesthetic that gives renewed meaning to answers we sometimes seek.

Videojournalism, you'd ve forgiven for thinking it's about film.

But in truth it's an attitude.

So much so that the name is meaningless.

What's in a name?

Only for those that seek the comfort of inclusion.

When you're an artist, such labels are meaningless.

It is an attitude.

Call me a charlaton.

Call me a visualist

Call me confused.

I don't care, for in my head

Videojournalism - It's so much an attitude

David is due to present at Apple Stores in the next couple of months and will be revealing new works in his role at artist in residence at the prestigious Southbank Centre

Importance of Video Analytics and Customer Service - Good web hosting

Video professional and academic David Dunkley Gyimah takes a personal overview of how important analytics has become and the value of web hosting customer service. Here presenting at the World Association of Newspapers - a gathering of the world's top newspapers


Thousands of miles from my terminal, someone is accessing an article.

From the moment they enter, the time spent on the piece, where they're from, where they go next, data is recorded.

It's probably a mark of how society has changed that we accept such digital sleuthing, for in today's market place such data is crucial and we've come to accept "cookies" and "analytics" as a necessary way of business.

Some of these delegates would later listen to David talk about targeted media.

In the mid 2000s I would often speak to young journalists and executive on the talk circuit that attracting you, meant we'd have to learn to write for the human eye and robots, traversing a middle road.

The inverted pyramid that prescribes journalism's craft has become a truncated set of trapezoids strategically littered with key words. Video, much the same.

The circle is complete. You have a website whose data tells you where your readers are; you in turn learn to write strategically to gain greater traction with those readers.

In June, a visit from a senior figure within the BBC illustrated just how important analytics has become embedded in journalism. Indeed as a video feature I made at Sky News clearly illustrates their content e.g. video and articles is driven directly by their analytics. Now writing for the web is becoming elevated to an art.

This point was aptly demonstrated by a former student of mine now at Sky, who emailed me ecstatic that a lecture on analytics had resulted in her producing the most viewed article that day.

This video soon to be posted shows how seriously Sky News takes its analytical data

The true value of analytics

I study analytics examining data on what pages work, how long they're accessed and how the site is entered and exited ( see figure on the right), except in the last three weeks I haven't been able to because the given software has ceased to produce such data and try as I might to politely point this out to my web service provider, Fasthosts.co.uk, there's been no satisfactory outcome.

So here's where this article takes a different turn, from not just the primacy of analytics, but to that of the relationship with web hosters.

My web host is Fasthosts. I have been with them for almost a decade and over that period as the Editor/Web Master of the School of Media Arts and Design, University of Westminster, and conference speaker have either directly of indirectly helped set up accounts probably more than a 100.

Recently, as a delegation we returned from China, Chongqing, addressing professors from some of the country's respected universities on "audiencing and analytics" (See Viewmagazine.tv)

I host my own sites with them and have recently overhauled one of them. Earlier this year I transferred a glut of accounts from web hosters Easy Space, who I felt had lost the ethos of customer service.

I have found Fasthosts agreeable and customer service advisors rather pleasant. I could say more kind things, but I'd rather my comments were not lifted out of context.

So what's my issue? My analytics are down since the 22nd July as the figure (a snapshot of
Fasthosts matrix data) on the right illustrates. I'd really like them back.

• What have I done about it? Emailed them over the course of the last three weeks
• What's been done? Nothing yet, other than an email saying this is gone to second tier level, then the trail goes cold.

You could argue there are other anayltics you could bolt on, Google for example, and you'd be correct, and I might use that, but it misses the point.

When I first went online in 1995, there were only a few web hosters around. I signed up with Easyspace's predecessor. It's fair not only to say today web hosting is a lucrative business, but perhaps has produced the unwieldy situation of how businesses address volume.

When customer service becomes too much of a business
It's a dervish circle. The more popular a business comes, the more volume, customers, it handles, the more front-facing customer service it needs to meet problems that may arise.

Most web hosters have a 24/7 telephone service. With Fasthosts I have often got through fairly quickly. This morning Yesterday at six I finally decided to ring Fasthosts. The person who answered (not fair to give his name) was pleasant and I set about informing him of my issue, which is where I'm now taking another and final turn, in this piece: customer satisfaction.

"If you're not recording this, please do", I asked. And if management from Fasthosts are listening please note.

Partly just common sense, partly an acute interest in communications from a background in broadcast media (BBC, Channel 4, ABC), good communications is important.

I'm not an expert on servers and have no idea how long it takes to go underneath the bonnet of of one. It may be that indeed my issue is being investigated alongside the 1000s of others with their individual issues - a question of volume.

But what's relevant is the passage of information.

If, as a car owner, you sent your car in for repairs and failed to hear anything back from the mechanics, you'd be forgiven for being concerned.

If your mechanic, as mine does, rings or emails you at the end of the day to say, your valve injector's packed up and it's going to take them two days to order a new one and another day to fit, perhaps you'll feel more relieved. You're in possession of new information.

So the questions in my conversation became?

• Is there a problem that can be solved?
• Can you please keep me informed by the end of the day?

These answers allow me to make further informed choice. Like many, I'm a creature of habit so I don't feel put off enough to haul my custom elsewhere, but it's not just courtesy but a professional pre-requesite to talk to customers.

Customer Context
I'm not dissatisfied with my web service provider, and as such this post isn't a critique, but a chat to management or someone understanding my predicament puzzled, yet committed to "offering a satisfactory customer service".

It's important, as she or he will agree, that when you're paying for a service, it's right to have realistic expectations of what you should be afforded and resolutions and good communications is one of them.

And yesterday morning my Fasthosts advisor agreed, so the issue is being prioritised I was told and that he would email me by the end of the day with an update.

"That puts you in an invidious position", I said, "as, if there's no update you'll have nothing to report".

"No", he answered gently, "I will get back to you".

If you're reading this piece, then it's because he didn't get back and I am no more wiser at what's going on.

A footnote: Yesterday after tweeting I did receive a survey to fill in, but I declined thus far on this basis:

"Please note that we will not be able to respond to support enquiries via this survey.
If you do have a support enquiry please visit www.fasthosts.co.uk/support, where you will find a comprehensive knowledge base containing hundreds of easy-to-follow quick guides, commonly asked questions, and a facility to submit your support enquiry online".

I have but can't get any joy. I thought that's what surveys are made to address - issues.

Some days later the matter was resolved.  And an email from the service informed me of the fault. Hope this helps you. For more issues on the web and video go to my main site  http://www.viewmagazine.tv

David Dunkley Gyimah will be presenting at a number of conferences on video analytics.

The idea lab - China students

Its nearly 3 O'clock and we're 15 minutes away from presentations.

It's been another enjoyable period with Chinese undergrad students in the UK for 3 weeks.

I had them this afternoon for what I call a Matrix lecture - a multiple strand lecture involving documenting the production of ideas.

It's based on a theory that we need to be more illogical in the creation of ideas.

As a test, I usually on slide 10 of 20 have students line up a group of their friends. The line will be straight and involve some form of hiearchy.

Too logical I gently say afterwards. The next time around, someone had the students sit down on the floor in a circle. Artistic!

Wisdom of crowds and the nimbleness of a next generation illustrates we should let our young foster their ideas unfettered.

We, lecturers then curate these. It's not a hard and fast rule, but I do believe that we should give room to students to be more illogical, though not irrational.

I have got to get back to supervising the room, but hopefully we'll see the fruits of their creative ideas in a while.