Journalism has always been a profession which requires practical experience.

No matter the medium, certain skill sets are paramount. These do not develop overnight, or in a university library: an ability to relate to a variety of people, an ability to make deadline, consistent production of professional work, gut instincts and a wicked work ethic.

These abilities are the little black dresses of journalism; they won’t ever go out of style. But with video for the web increasingly en vogue, there are some new trends to master.

One of the best style guides for video on the web is the News Videographer blog.

Angela Grant, a multimedia producer at the San Antonio News-Express in Texas, started the News Videographer site in April, 2007. It is a spinoff of an earlier site, InTheCircle , which she began in 2005, a year before matriculating from The University of Texas at Austin. That site’s archives are still available and just as useful as the posts at News Videographer.

The latter site boasts nine additional contributors. All are practicing multimedia journalists.

There are a lot of reasons to subscribe to News Videographer, but one of the best is its spirit of community, a focus on learning and openness. Anyone is welcome to submit a video they’ve created for the web, and Grant or another contributor will offer a critique. Nearly all of the recent critiques also generated comments from readers at large, and nearly all of the comments are constructive.

About half of the posts are critiques, others are commentaries about various aspects of videography for the web. Especially helpful are the blow-by-blows of how to go about video coverage: Grant, for example, posted a play-by-play of how she produced video coverage of a Hillary Clinton campaign rally in February. There was a follow-up post when Grant covered an Obama rally a few weeks later.

Everything from story planning to technical quandaries and experiences is up for discussion: Bob Hammerstrom recently blogged about his experiences trying to record audio of local birds.

There is also a monthly posting of Grant’s picks for the monthly multimedia contest of the National Press Photographers Association (which does offer international memberships). It’s a great place to get ideas and see best practice.

The site also features a section recommending various types of equipment and guidebooks for video training (liked to Amazon.com).

 

Published: March 11, 2008