Kevin Cooney Comes for Coffee
Yesterday, Kevin Cooney dropped by the house for coffee. He is in NY on a brief visit from Japan. About 8 months ago we kicked off the Travel Channel Academies and Whats Your Trip?, the TV show that showcased...
Read more"Writing" for Broadcast
Fluffy must die? You are shooting a story in a veterinary hospital when suddenly, a small 5-year old girl comes in cradling her puppy. The dog has been hit by a car, and though barely alive, the little girl...
Read moreWhat I Learned from Charles Kuralt
On The Road to making better video…. When we train VJs now, we train them to work in very different ways. One of the ways we differ is that we teach them to lay in all the pictures first...
Read moreW Eugene Smith and the Video Essay
Welsh Coal Miners by W Eugene Smith 1950 I spent this afternoon at a major New Jersey newspaper with Jeff Jarvis . The paper, like many print publications in this country, is moving into video. This is inevitable. As...
Read moreAt the Heart of the Matter
I don’t normally write about personal things, but first, how much can you write about VJs? Then, I had an interesting visit to the doctors office yesterday. I tend to approach medicine as though as I were a Christian...
Read moreLA Times Goes Harry Potter (well why not)
Video ‘in’ a newspaper? Why not? In 1990, I ran a VJ training bootcamp in Chiang Mai, Thailand. One of the participants was the Voice of American Bureau Chief for Kabul, Afghanistan – Scott Anger. He had been a...
Read moreFacebook and the Face of Islam
You can be my ‘friend’ 14 years ago, I contracted with the Eritrean Liberation Army to help build their TV station, ERITV in Asmara, the capital of the newly independent nation of Eritrea. Eritrea had fought a 30 years...
Read moreMcGraw-Hill Magazines & VJs
Steve Gruskin explains ‘over-write’. This week, we ran our first ‘bootcamp’ for journalists and managers from McGraw-Hill’s magazines. Highly experienced print journalists, with years of experience, took to video as an adjunct to their story-telling and reporting skills. It...
Read moreCharacter is Destiny
Can you read the above? You better learn fast. Because in the next century we’re all going to be speaking this language. As we have moved from a print-based culture to a video-based culture, what we have failed to...
Read moreThe AP goes VJ
Job Vacancies Bowing to the inevitable, and opening the door to lots of other newsgathering agencies, AP joints NBC in moving to VJs: Video Journalist Closing Date: 7 December 2007 Ref No: APTN102 Department: News The Associated Press is...
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