Good Reputation Sleeping

Best of Photojournalism 2008

Best of Photojournalism 2008
Originally uploaded by Burnt Pixel.

Just got back from a long week of judging the Best of Photojournalism contest. We were, again the guests of The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, and again, we hardly had opportunity to take advantage of the Florida spring.

What we did see was more wonderful online journalism, over 900 unique urls this time around!

In case any of you have been under a rock for the last two years, web video is big and about to 'blow up'. And lest anyone be confused - the best web video bears little resemblance to spot news photography - it is film making, plain and simple.

Check out the top winners at BOP.

The Cult of Leica

A Critic at Large: Candid Camera: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker.

"There have been Leica cameras since 1925, when the Leica I was introduced at a trade fair in Leipzig. From then on, as the camera has evolved over eight decades, generations of users have turned to it in their hour of need, or their millisecond of inspiration."

Wonderful article on the Cult of Leica!
Also a good trace of the history of photography in the late 20th, early 21st century.

Camjos Across Africa

Link: AfricaNews - Mobile reporters in Africa.

"The ultimate goal is to select, in each African country, a number of skilful (young) men and women (with the help of a local coordinator) and to equip these people with high-technology mobile phones (with a small foldable keyboard) where a special piece of software is installed to permit direct uploads of photos, texts and videos to the Skoeps server, from where they are transferred to the Africa Interactive website for publication. Once online, those stories and images are meant to trigger reactions from users and community members. The project's selection policy gives a bigger chance to skilful women in an effort not only to have diversified contents but above all to contribute to their emancipation efforts through media.

The Africans who take part in this project are known as ‘camjos’, a short combination of ‘camera’ and ‘journalist’. A camjo writes, takes photos and makes videos about daily life in Africa, on subjects that s/he finds newsworthy. Each camjo receives a training on the use of the phone and is coached during the first six months. With this initiative, Africans, whether in cities or in the countryside, will have the opportunity to have their voice heard all over the world.If the camjos perform well, they will generate incomes for themselves as they will be paid based on the number of visitors viewing or reading their contributions."

Eye Track, 2007

Navigating slide shows: What do people choose when every choice is possible?.

"But perhaps the most interesting observation was the very low level usage of the non-linear approach (and when it was used, how few slides were observed.) Is the linear orientation to looking through material so hard-wired into our media usage that it is, and will continue to be, the preferred way to take in media? Even when it was visual information – as this was – and did not logically need to follow a narrative thread – people preferred to move through in the order it was presented. What does this observation tell us about innovation in digital storytelling and our audience’s tolerance for new design paradigms."

Thanks Richard!

Evolution

Ever since the Tower of Babel, effective communication has been a work in progress. Communication on the web is no different. As journalists, one would think we'd have this figured out. Sadly, we don't.

Here are a couple of attempts at evolving the way we communicate with our audience from The Sunday New York Times.

- 'At Home Again in the Unknown'

Great article about my favorite Icelandic treat, bjork. Online, the article is 'spiced-up' with audio from the interview. A small, but very meaningful value-add. I love being able to hear her voice and I love being able to get some additional content I don't have to read.

- 'How YouTube Helped Lisa Nova Start Her Career'

LisaNova has been one of my YouTube subscriptions from the start. She is droll and bust a gut funny at the same time. She is also timely; able to riff off the current culture at the drop of a hat; her latest, 'LisaNova Does 300' may be her best.

Nice, short and sweet piece in the Times about her rise - and for anyone who thinks YouTube is a fad...please pay attention!

Are We There Yet?

Chronicles of NYTd.
Moving into the new space by my friend Andrew Devigal, Multimedia Director, NYTd.

The New Face of The Washington Post

Caught in the Web - washingtonpost.com promoted by Apple.
Any questions?

Pistols at Dawn

Dueling web video projects from two of the old/new media powerhouses, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Both attempt to take a fresh approach to what we call 'journalism'. Both succeed in different ways.

First, earlier in the week, was 'onBeing' from the Post. Clean, simple and personal. Short stories of Washingtonians by Washingtonians courtesy great video interviews by Jenn Crandall and great interface design by Rob Curley and crew. It has proven to be one of the most successful pieces ever posted on washingtonpost.com.

The Sunday New York Times Magazine online features director Jake Paltrow's commissioned piece, 'The First Ones', interviewing some of Hollywood's finest. The format is again, very simple - one question, "what was the first film that made an impression on you?" The answers are short and sweet and artfully filmed (almost painfully so), and it works. The interface is nice also, allowing you to watch the whole thing or pick where to enter.

These two projects are not quite YouTube, but are also a nice step away from the TV-derivative stuff we are used to seeing from MSM. Hopefully we will see more like this; video journalism that starts to feel like the web is truly its home.

Updates on a Roll

Dr. John Maeda
Originally uploaded by Burnt Pixel.

- My life-hacking experience with Dr. Maeda was wonderful. We talked for over an hour; what a fascinating artist! I hope to find some time to head north to the Media Lab for the full effect.

- I lost my godmother over the holidays. It has been hard to write about; she was one of my parents closest friends and it reminds me of their own mortality. She was also the crazy aunt I never had, helping keep me 'real' and introducing me, to among other things, girls!

Death is a reminder to make the life you have the one you want.

- Recently had this piece published on poynter.org; its a 'rant' designed to call people out. Our industry is in turmoil but it doesn't have to be that way. Journalism has been elitist for too long, time to open the gates and let the people in to look around!

The operative word is ENGAGE.
Engage your community, engage your bloggers, engage your critics; learning shouldn't stop when we get a press card, if anything, it should become part of the job.

The Perils of Multiple Media

The Perils of Multiple Media
Originally uploaded by Burnt Pixel.

A great case study of the dangers of unsupervised journalism in the multimedia age.

The Post (my employer), as part of its ongoing 'Being A Black Man' series, planned a fairly honest, 1st person account of unemployment for last Sunday's Washington Post newspaper and website. On that Friday, however, an excerpt and several photos from the story were published in one of the Post's other newspapers, Express, which is given out free at Metro stops across the D.C. area. A firestorm ensued.

In short, the excerpt and the photos were chosen with no input from either the writer or the photographer and, in their opinion, did not reflect the true nature of the story. The subject hated what he saw, and the public response went way beyond anything expected.

People tried to give the subject money on the Metro (he was on the way to work at his new job), he was ridiculed by family and friends; even his mother got into it, leaving an open copy of Express on his bed telling him this was why she did not want him talking to the reporter.

Some 13th hour tap-dancing by the reporter, photographer and their editors (of which I am one) kept the subject from pulling his consent and the story ran, in its entirety, on Sunday.

Now boys and girls, what have we learned? That the reach, in this media-hungry age, of all our content is broad and that all of it matters. Also, we must pay equal attention to our promos...if they look like content, they will be treated as such by the public - we need to do the same.

Lastly, media organizations need to think about having editors whose sole job is work 'in between the seams'; to monitor the flow of content from one platform to another, making sure it has been fully vetted no matter where it's scheduled to appear.