Both Doug Fisher and Howard Owen Owens have some thoughts about the decision of the NPPA not to award first place prizes in the best web video category in its Best of Television photojournalist contest.
In his post, Doug lays out the reasons given by the judges (basically, this is the first year for the award and they didn’t want to set the bar too low). That and some of the discussions he came across on the ‘net have him asking three questions that he says we need to think more about.
These are in many cases newspaper people, not trained broadcasters. Should their delivery be held against them? (Probably, because you can’t alienate your audience, but at what level do we cut some slack?)
TV and video on the Web are not the same thing, the argument goes, so should they be judged by what seem to be similar standards? What differences, if any, should there be?
It’s clear that “print,” to loosely use the term, is shifting more toward the broadcast model, which relies more on emotion to tell stories. How far should that shift go? (Sort of a corollary to the previous question.)
The first two questions seem to me to boil down to the question of what newspaper video is or could be. Is it remade broadcast, or is it something new that’s informed not only by broadcast, but by documentaries, single-image photojournalism, the slower, deeper pace of newspaper writing and other factors?
The questions are good ones, but I’m a little uneasy at the possibility that we will answer them based on the results of a photojournalism contest category that was judged (if what I’ve been able to pick out of all this is true) by TV folk. Doing journalism with eyes on the prizes has been a bugaboo of the profession for too long.
While Doug has questions, Howard Owens is more certain about what’s going on. In New standards needed for judging online video, he writes:
It’s hard to believe that all the entries in a national contest were so fatally flawed by basic shooting and editing mistakes that they weren’t worthy of honor. I suspect, more to the point, is that the judges were unwilling or unable to come to terms with the changing face of video news.
Howard may be right, but I can hardly blame the judges: even those producing video for newspapers haven’t yet figured out what this new thing is.
TAGS: JOURNALISM, NEWSPAPERS, VIDEO, NPPA
Thanks for the link … for the record it’s Owens with an S.
And for the record, I’m not defending poorly produced video (contrary to some assertions). I’m saying I can’t believe everything submitted was technically bad. That’s all.
Maybe it will help those who want to be judged by some different standard to look at the winners in the NPPA contest when the winners are posted by the end of the week. I think some eyes will be opened by what they see.
It isn’t all Anna Nichole and perp walks.
I’m sure, for the most part, any news organization would have been proud to have them on their air or their website.