Pages on this site include support material for Video Journalism for the Web:  A Practical Introduction to Documentary Storytelling, published by Routledge (2012).

Here’s the table of contents and the introduction from the book (unedited draft). Use the tabs on the right for other resources.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Brian Storm

Introduction—What is Documentary Journalism?

1. Differences in Style: Documentary Journalism vs. Broadcast News—A comparative analysis of a similar story at CNN vs. The New York Times

Interlude: On Backpack Journalism—from an interview with Bill Gentile, American University

2. Finding a Story and Shaping the Structure: Starting with Character in Jigar Mehta’s The Recession Proof Artist

Interlude: Becoming a Documentary Journalist—from an interview with the Renaud Brothers

3. Shooting the Image: Composition and Lighting in Travis Fox’s Narcocorridos and Nightlife in Mexicali and Crisis in Darfur Expands

Interlude:  Short Video Documentaries—from an interview with Ann Derry, Video Director, The New York Times

4. Conducting Interviews and Writing a Script: Icarus Refried: A Pro-Creative ProcessInterlude: The Most Important Journalists—from an interview with Jimmy Orr, Managing Editor, Online, The Los Angeles Times

5. Editing for Rhythm: Travis Fox’s Redefining China’s Family: WomenInterlude: Starting out as a Multimedia Journalist—from an interview with Angela Morris, freelance video journalist

6. Getting Clean Audio and Crafting a Sound Design—an Audio Workshop with Philip Bloom, Travis Fox, and Wes Pope

Interlude:The Importance of Blogging and the Watchdog Reporter: From an interview with John Yemma, Editor, The Christian Science Monitor

7. The Blogging Journalist: Travis Fox and the Mexican Border Stories

Conclusion

Afterward “New Voices” by Bob Sacha

Introduction: What is Documentary Journalism?

This book teaches the reader how to shoot better video and tell better stories by learning from those who practice some of the best techniques in the field—whether you were trained in a conventional broadcast news style, a photographer who has been asked by an editor if she can shoot some video for the newspaper’s website, a print journalist who never imagined that they would be “writing” stories with a video camera rather than their word processor, or perhaps your paper no longer exists in print—but it’s now online and you need video to engage an audience wanting more multimedia. Or you may even be a top journalist that saw her paper fold and you went freelance—you’re a strong writer, but you have a feeling you could become entrepreneurial and set up a blog where you can write and put up video to help attract an audience. Perhaps you’re a student thinking about going into journalism or you’re already enrolled in J-school and you’re being told that you need to do multimedia if you ever hope to enter the profession.

By showing practicing journalists and journalism students how to create short, but strong, nonfiction video for the web, this book hopes to become the teacher in guiding you to craft stronger video stories. I show in Chapter 1, how a documentary style engages cinematic conventions in structuring a story and how it differs greatly from the style engaged by video journalists working for conventional broadcast news.[1] I call video journalists shooting in a cinematic style, documentary journalists.

This doesn’t mean it’s the end of broadcast news. It will keep its form for television, because it works within the given structured format, and many television news websites upload their broadcasts online. But it’s healthy in a democracy to express video news in different forms. Photojournalists and print journalist are picking up video cameras and crafting new kinds of stories with their lenses, stories more closely attuned to their documentary film cousins more so than their broadcast news siblings.

This book celebrates and closely analyzes some of the examples found at newspaper websites, revealing the differences in style between the broadcast news style and the documentary journalism style. Brian Storm, the founder and president of MediaStorm.org—one of the primary leaders in online visual journalism, today—notes how this documentary style includes the primary use of the subject’s voice, instead of the reporter’s voice we see so often in the conventional broadcast news style:

it’s just refreshing to hear the subject of a story tell you their story as opposed to some beautiful television person telling you … standing in front of the situation saying this is what you should be seeing and what you should be thinking. I don’t feel we need that.[2]

Although the conventional broadcast style is important—it is not the only style, so I tend to agree with Storm that it is refreshing to discover other forms of video journalism, and this book was written in order to closely examine some of the best works of video journalism utilizing the documentary journalism style.

Video Journalism for the Web includes analyses of videos by the Emmy Award winning Travis Fox, formerly of The Washington Post, and Dai Sugano of the San Jose Mercury News—both of them in the top of their field. It also includes work by such dynamic video journalists as Jigar Mehta, formerly of The New York Times, and Adam Ellick, a print reporter from The New York Times, who is now one of their top video journalists. In no way are my examples exhaustive. You can go to nearly any documentary story on MediaStorm.org and learn from some of the best (take a look at Danny Wilcox Frazier’s “Driftless: Stories from Iowa” for a great example of documentary journalism). It’s impossible for this book to survey much less analyze everyone’s work. I’m looking at a few examples that, to me, represent some of the best in the field, and I use them as case studies so that others can learn from master documentary journalists.

This is the kind of book I was looking for when asked to train print reporters for the Pulitzer Prize winning international paper, The Christian Science Monitor—one of the first to drop their print daily and go online. It is really for those who have never picked up a video camera, but are being asked to do two jobs—write a text story and produce video—as well as for those who are shooting video but are not quite sure how to make their work better.

Whatever the shooting style, the documentary form of journalism is not one necessarily designed to garner high ratings—which usually typify sensationally-crafted disaster reports, political fights with little to no analysis, celebrity news, and talk-show hosts masquerading as journalists as they are more concerned with manipulating an audience’s emotions rather than engaging in critical thinking. A “call to arms” against such “journalism,” this book is designed for video journalists who want to craft thoughtful, character-driven pieces—the documentary journalist who is given the time and gives the time to let their characters speak, who step back from personality and instead send back images of integrity and honesty about everyday citizens struggling and finding hope in a transnational, postmodern world.

More than two sides to a story
Documentary filmmaker Ellen Spiro (Body of War, 2007; Troop 1500, 2005; Atomic Ed & the Black Hole, 2003), challenges the notion of there being only two sides to a story, a construction of point and counterpoint designed to artificially build a sense of conflict to a story: “I believe there’s a kaleidoscope of perspectives on any given issue,” Spiro contends (interview with author, 2009). I feel that many video journalists are beginning to find and present these “kaleidoscopes of perspectives” and provide audiences a wider perspective to stories.

Furthermore, Spiro further argues that the quickly produced news story—with reporters dropping in for such little time due to tight deadlines often results in a side-effect of “not having empathy.” Persons shown in tragic situations, she explains, shot by someone not having empathy, “desensitizes us to real human problems and tragedies and it makes people less likely to intervene to solve the problems that we face as a society.” So the larger question this book explores includes the role of the journalist in society. Can we create better, character-centered stories that challenge its audience to be more socially aware, more politically conscious in how the world works, whether we’re shooting for online newspapers or for broadcast news?

What’s in the book
In Video Journalism for the Web, I structure the book around the general principles I teach in my video production classes at Northern Arizona University, while showing examples of some of the best video journalism pieces found on the web—so in many ways it’s a classroom in a book. It includes:

1) An exploration of the differences—and similarities—of style between documentary journalism and broadcast news. This will set the foundation for the rest of the book, as students can directly see how some video journalists approach a story from several different ways.

2) Story and character. How do you find a story? How stories should be driven from our passions.

3) Crafting images through cinematography techniques. I feel video journalism should look as good as cinema. I also include examples of lighting in natural light situations.

4) Interviewing and scriptwriting. I provide an example from one of my pieces of how I approached an interview and then how I created a script from a transcription of interviews. Those with years of experience with a honed sense of storytelling skills may not write a script, but the beginner creating a paper-edit from a transcript of interviews is an easy way to shape the rough cut of your story that you’ve already shot. It gives your work discipline.

5) Editing for rhythm. The edit is not only how the story gets told in video, but it also determines the pacing and rhythm of a story—it could actually determine a poor story lacking energy to a good one expressing verve.

6) Sound design. Sound isn’t just an add-on. It’s not just the dialogue of your characters. It’s the underpinning atmosphere of your story, designed to shape the emotional tone of your story.

7) The place of blogging in telling a multi-piece video journalism story.

8. As interludes between chapters, I provide interviews with some of the top video and multimedia journalists, and editors, today.

In Chapter 1, Differences in Style: Documentary Journalism versus Broadcast News—A comparative analysis of similar stories at CNN vs. The New York Times, I explore the differences in style between documentary journalism and broadcast news. In CNN’s “Girl poet takes on the Taliban with her pen” and The New York Times’ “Class Dismissed in Swat Valley”, I examine how both stories profile two different 11-year-old girls in Pakistan—both of whom struggle against the Taliban desire to force the girls out of schools. In the CBS story, “India Blends Old With New” and “Left Behind”, published in San Jose Mercury News, we see two radically different stories about poverty in India during an age of globalization. The chapter examines the structure of each story, including a summary of each, how the subject is presented, the place of the journalist in the work, how visuals are used to engage the story (including the kinds of shots used), and how narration is used.

With this basic understanding covered, the rest of the book will provide the tools necessary for the video journalist to engage in documentary style journalism.

In Chapter 2, Finding a Story and Shaping the Structure: Starting with Character in Jigar Mehta’s The Recession Proof Artist. I examine the classic story structure and how it relates to character by using Mehta’s work he shot and edited for The New York Times. It includes a set of basic questions to ask before pursuing a story, and a shot analysis of how he structured his story around character.

Chapter 3, Shooting the Image: Composition and Cinematography in Travis Fox’s Narco-corridos and Nightlife in Mexicali and Crisis in Darfur Expands, covers the foundation of visual storytelling, providing an examination of the cinematic techniques required to shoot good documentary journalism. In Fox’s first example, I’ll provide an overview of such cinematic techniques as shot sizes, camera angles, and camera movement. In the Darfur piece, I’ll look at how Fox’s cinematography, including three-point lighting techniques with natural lighting is utilized to create a visually compelling work.

In Chapter 4, Conducting Interviews and Writing a Script: Icarus Refried: A Pro-Creative Process, I include a transcript of one of the interviews I conducted with a performer in order to show my process in conducting interviews. I then show how I crafted a script from the interviews of the two performers, and how I weaved these interviews into the visual material I shot of the performance art piece. This will provide ways to think about how the video journalist can draft a script as a step—a paper edit—before engaging in a rough cut of their material.

Chapter 5, Travis Fox’s Redefining China’s Family: Women, is an exploration of how Fox crafted a dramatic story revolving around a central character through editing. I examine the styles of editing Fox engages when shaping the rhythm and pacing of his work, particularly how he shapes the ebb and flow of energy in his edit.

In Chapter 6, Getting Clean Audio and Crafting a Sound Design—an Audio Workshop with Philip Bloom, Travis Fox, and Wes Pope, I lay out some of the general principles in getting clean audio and the importance of shaping a sound design for your work. Without audio, half the project is missing. The visuals should be strong, but as much attention should be applied to recording clean audio and shaping a compelling sound design. Ultimately, the sound design helps shape the tone of a video journalism piece for an audience. Although I include a couple of brief case studies with Travis Fox and Philip Bloom, the main focus on this chapter comes from video journalist Wes Pope and how he not only gathers audio in the field, but how he thinks about sound design in the edit.

In Chapter 7, The Blogging Journalist: Travis Fox and the Mexican Border Stories, I cover how he and journalist William Booth traveled along the Mexican border in the summer of 2009 to examine the impact of the drug war as told through a series of written and video blogs for The Washington Post. I also take the reader through the steps for creating their own blog.

What about equipment?
As a backpack journalist in the digital age, the options for getting equipment is stupendous—almost too many to even decipher. With the release of DSLRs that shoot high definition video—such as Canon’s Rebel T3i for around $900—you can not only take good photos, but you can shoot cinematic quality video. Indeed, the image quality is better than most prosumer-level video cameras costing thousands more. Spend another $500-600, and you can record professional audio with a good microphone and digital audio recorder. Or should you use a consumer video camera or a high end $6000 camera?

See the following website, located here: Tab: Equipment, for the author’s recommendation of equipment by budget category.

The equipment listed in each category is not exhaustive, and is chosen based on budget and portability—I will not be recommending any large broadcast journalism cameras that sit on your shoulder, for example, which is designed for a reporter-camera operator team. Documentary journalism is about traveling light and shooting solo. Furthermore, I cover other equipment needs, such as microphones, audio recorders, and tripods.

Go online to package out the best equipment for your needs. However, no matter what equipment you get—whether the least expensive or no-holds-barred—storytelling is the most important tool you’ll ever command. As video journalist Travis Fox notes, it’s not about equipment, but story. “The film-like DSLR cameras and lenses mixed with new lightweight cinematic tools such as the pocket dolly and mini-jib” may allow for cinematic camera movement—but that doesn’t change the fundamentals of journalism, he explains. “For me, it’s simple. The journalism part of videojournalism or documentary film is about the story. The story is made up of several aspects: the visuals, the writing, the characters, the editing, etc. So if the visuals change—let’s say improve—how does that alone change the story, the journalism?”[3]

An audience will watch a compelling story shot with mediocre equipment more so than the best looking shots failing to deliver a solid story.

Purpose of the book
By reading this book, I hope you will grasp a stronger sense of storytelling structure as well as learning how to shoot good looking shots. Fundamentally, I wrote this book so students and professionals can engage better story techniques by looking at some of the best work produced by video journalists, and, from their work, others can learn how to engage such techniques to improve their stories and shots. The foundational qualities of the journalist does not change by “writing” in different media. As John Yemma, the editor of the Monitor, notes: “reporting, curiosity, courage in trying to find something, documenting the evidence, and then telling the story in a compelling way—those are really the fundamentals …”. This book will focus on these qualities in the documentary journalist and how those fundamentals are practiced by them.

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