Farmers Guardian has fun with video - and wins an award

Journalism has never been solely about hard news so it's always good to see examples of B2B titles having a bit of fun.

Farmer's Guardian's Tractor Factor is a great example of this and it deservedly won the AOP Cross-Media Project award on Thursday night.

The brand produced 'Nothing Compares to Ewe' to encourage agricultural-types to enter the Tractor Factor competition by recording their own song and video promoting UK farming.

It's a fun idea, which created loads of community involvement and engagement.

Video: Watch sports journalists in action

Hat-tip to Martin Green for tweeting this link to a video of a group of football reporters raiding a fridge full of free beer at the Euro 2012 championships.

Reportedly, it took just three minutes to empty the fridge, demonstrating that years of hard journalistic training have certainly paid-off.

Citizen journalists - or just people?

I must admit I've never been that happy with the term 'citizen journalist', so I was interested to read what Steve Yelvington had to say on the topic:

What many meant when they said or heard "citizen journalism" was a lay practice resembling professional journalism ... where "citizens" "covered" "news."

But what I meant when I said "people's journalism" is not that at all. I meant something more organic, more natural, more spontaneous, more personal, less organized, less structured, less "newsworthy" and less ... well, less reliable.

I prefer Yelvington's thought that inevitably 'people's journalism', as he calls it, is more 'natural'. People talk about, write about, report on, and produce other types of content on, topics they find interesting. Journalists might define some of it as 'news' but some if will be just 'interesting stuff', but still important.

Students at Solent will soon be debating what 'citizen journalists' do that helps, improves on, or is better than, the work of professional journalists.

Their start point is a series of links, new and old, plus a couple of books- all listed below. Feel free to contribute to the debate.

How “citizen journalism” aided two major Guardian scoops, Online Journalism Blog                     

2011: The year of citizen journalism, Blotrr.com

Citizen journalism and investigative reporting, Online Journalism Blog

Citizen journalism and the 2009 Mumbai terrorist attacks - Video

Richard Sambrook on four types of citizen journalism - Video

Books

Online Journalism: principles & practices of news for the web 2^nd edition, James C Foust.  Pages 180-185.

Online news: journalism and the internet, Stuart Allen.  Introduction and Ch 4, 5, 8.

Participatory Journalism: guarding open gates at online newspapers, Jane B Singer. Ch 5.

Shit journalists say - on video

Hat-tip to 10,000 words for this bit of video fun from Stuff Journalists Like.

Discussing the future of print media

I'll be discussing the future of print media soon with some first year journalism students at Solent University. I came across these videos from US editors/publishers, which are worth a look if you haven't seen them before.

The Future of Magazines

The Future of Print Media

The Power of Citizen Journalism

I was trawling around scoop.it and I've just stumbled across this BBC documentary from 2010. It focuses on how aspects of citizen journalism - video in particular - are affecting the ability of those in power to control their messages. It also looks its impact on the media.

If, like me, you missed it at the time it's a useful bit of background for anyone taking look at the impact of what's been dubbed citizen journalism.

On a day when my son is looking at video clips as part of his exam revision, it's also a powerful reminder of the role Youtube plays in education, information and entertainment.

News of the World phonehacking - Downfall-style

Downfall, the film depicting the last days in Hitler's bunker, has been mashed-up and put to all manner of uses in the past. But perhaps never has it been used more appropriately.

Great scenes include the one where Hitler/Murdoch suggests that Brooks should go freelance and maybe give blogging a go. Even he has a blog it seems...

Thanks to @jonathan haynes @fieldproducer and @SamiraAhmedUK for tweeting it.

Using simple video

I did some work with communitycare.co.uk recently, aided by RBI web guru Adam Tinworth, looking at how to get the best out of simple video .

Here's a few conclusions we came up with about video:

• Is it visual? There's no point in shooting video if there's nothing to look at.
• It's not TV. Don't try to be the BBC News, it won't work
• Keep it brief. Community Care users are interested in seeing and hearing the interviewee speaking in the video at the top of this post, but not the whole video.
• What's in the background?  'Talking head' videos aren't ideal but if you do use them, interview your subject in front of an interesting background - as long as it's not distracting.
• Don't get hung-up on technology. You can get decent HD from fairly simple kit these days. But don't try to shoot Panorama on a flip camera
• Chunk it up.  It's better to play a short chunk of video - or a series of chunks. 
• Show it off. Don’t bury videos at the bottom of the article page.
• What if the video goes wrong? Maybe you can just the audio track instead.
• Get feedback. Look at your metrics to see what’s working.