MEDIA ON TERRORIST

Following up on my post a couple of days back on the word "terrorist" and the unwillingness of media to use it, comes this editorsweblog.org post offering an explanation from the Chicago Tribune.

Don Wycliff, the Trib's public editor, writes:

Our eschewal of the word "terrorist" was in keeping with a stylebook policy adopted several years ago, a policy that is in keeping with the journalistic purpose of the news pages: to provide as complete, thorough and unbiased an account as possible of the important news of the day. No intellectually honest person can deny that "terrorist" is a word freighted with negative judgment and bias. So we sought terms that carried no such judgment.

11:39:01 PM    

ANOTHER GREAT STORY FROM HILLER

Geoffrey Hiller has produced another sterling piece of journalism that verges on art: Burma: Grace Under Pressue

I first saw Hiller's work with Canto do Brasil, earlier this year and was blown away by what he had accomplished. Burma: Grace Under Fire takes multimedia story-telling a step beyond.

It's obvious from the web documentary (Hiller's term for the Flash-based pieces he produces), that he is passionate about his subject, saddened and outraged by what has happened to the country, yet deeply touched by the people of Burma. After seeing his photographs &mdash augmented by Timothy Allen's excellent work from the Thai-Burmese border area &mdash you will be touched, too.

This is first-rate story-telling regardless of media, but Hiller has made it work particularly well by exploiting the strengths of this new medium. There is no narrative, no voice-over, no overt bridging of picture to picture and section to section &mdash none of the attributes needed for print or television. Yet there is an "arc" to the story, there is pace and flow. The combination of photos, music, occasional voice-overs and small blocks of text are skillfully blended and structured. The story unfolds at a viewer-driven pace, but with an urgency that drives it on. This is journalism in the finest documentary tradition.

Hiller, on the opening page of his web site has this to say:

Some people are content to sit back and watch the world change. I'm not one of them. For the past three decades, I've crossed continents and cultures in a quest to capture those ordinary moments that give life meaning. From the backstreets of Burma and Brazil, to the cracked faces of urban New York, after the fall.

Through photographs and web documentaries, I tell stories that illuminate the heart and soul of humanity &mdash focusing on the many faces of emotion that connect us all.

Indeed he does. I can't wait for his next web documentary.

10:29:45 PM    

TIMED MEDIA

The Knoxville News has a rather nice piece on the company running the carnival at the Tennessee State Fair, a combination of photos presented slide-show style while company owner Frank Zaitshik talks about the people who work the show.

The piece itself doesn't break any new storytelling ground, but it does have one nice feature: there's a countdown timer at the bottom of the screen that shows you how much time is left in the show.

SOURCE: Joe Weiss at Multimedia Story-telling.

9:14:02 PM    

WHEN THE GOING GETS WEIRD...

I may be the last of you to know this, but the only writer with the right to bear the title gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, not only writes a column for ESPN.com, but there's an archive of his work.

What can you say about a guy who writes stuff like:

... I didn't need a year with the Oakland Raiders to finally grasp the true nature of amphetamine addiction. That gig goes all the way back to Adolf Hitler.

World War II would never have happened if Hitler had never discovered speed. Once he learned how to stay wide awake and utterly dominant for 99 or 100 straight hours at a stretch, his enemies knew they were doomed.

SOURCE: dotjournalism.co.uk

9:05:16 PM    

THREE REASONS FOR EI8HT

Here are three reasons why you might want to consider plunking down $27.95 for a single issue of a magazine.

1. The magazine is ei8ht and it is chockful of great photojournalism.
2. You can visit ei8ht on the Web, but you don't get the full contents or the full impact of the photoessays.
3. Giving that much money to the publishers allows them to keep going

The magazine is worth the price. Vol. 3, No. 1, for instance, has six featured photoessays that you're not likely to see anywhere else, including Lorena Ros' incredibly touching work on Nigerian women who wind up working as prostitutes in Europe, a look at a refuge for the insane in Madagascar by Salah Benacer. Karim Ben Khelifa's work from Iraq, and a nice look at public swimming pools by Julia Baier.

Equally as interesting is an essay by Witold Krassowski on the weaknesses of photography education, reviews of a half-dozen books of photojournalism and documentary photography, and a number of shorter photo pieces.

For those who love photojournalism and it's power to tell stories, it's $27.95 well spent.

8:53:30 PM