Category Archives: Documentary

Brian Storm on Storytelling and the Future of News

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Today, I stumbled upon a worthwhile  interview with Brian Storm, the president of MediaStorm, in Nieman Reports.

MediaStorm creates multimedia documentaries for news organizations like National Geographic, MSNBC, Slate and Reuters. They take on serious social issues like the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo,  families facing economic hardship in the rural Midwest, and posttraumatic stress of American soliders in Iraq.

Here are few unique things about MediaStorm’s approach:

  • The Web site doesn’t have an editorial focus other than to do quality social documentary storytelling.
  • Although the company’s roots are in traditional journalism, its focus is on “advocacy, not just information.”
  • It’s clients also include NGOs (Council on Foreign Relations) and for-profit companies (Starbucks).
  • The stories aren’t published on a set schedule or deadline, but when “a project is ready.”
  • The features are long for the Web (20 minutes or more), but most people who start watching a segment finish it.
  • They do not advertise  in traditional ways, but rely on word of mouth and social networking.

Here are a couple of sections of Melissa Ludtke’s interview with Brian Storm that I found especially compelling.

Brian Storm on the state of the news industry:

For years I’ve been saying it’s time for us to take journalism back. To take it out of the business development role and back into the world of why we got into journalism in the first place. We have to remember back to the time when we decided, “I want to be a journalist.” Why did we want to be a journalist? Did we wake up one day and say, “I want to make a pile of money?” I don’t think any of us did that. That’s not what drives us. We’re curious and want to learn about the world. It’s an incredible gift to enter into someone’s life and tell their story.

On digital access:

The crowd has access to these great digital cameras, to this incredible powerful publishing tool called the Web, and they have expanded the conversation. They have access to distribution that we, as professional journalists, have. This doesn’t make me fearful; it makes me excited. That’s democracy—to have more people, more input, and more access to different perspectives.

On the stories journalists should be doing:

Why are we, as professional journalists, allocating our resources for such daily, perishable stories? We should be allocating them for things that are in-depth, investigative and require the kind of expertise and professionalism that we have. We need to take a deep breath and remember all the things that we used to do, then reconsider given the new landscape and decide what is going to give us the most value over time. What is the role that we need to play? I don’t believe that is day-to-day, perishable content. I think we need to be more in-depth, more investigative, and more robust in what we do. I know that over time, that will actually pay off.

Do We Need a New Journalism Vocabulary?

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Recently, I’ve encountered some convincing arguments that we may need an entirely new language for understanding and practicing journalism.

A friend recommended I read a book called  The Little Book of Contemplative Photography by  Howard Zehr, a professor and documentary photographer who contends that the words and metaphors of photography – “taking a picture,” “shooting,” “aiming” – are predominately aggressive and predatory, but also inaccurate.

Zehr writes:

This metaphor of taking an image does not accurately reflect the photographic process itself. When we photograph, we do not actually reach out and take anything. A camera is basically a dark box with a receptor (film or digital sensor) on one side and a small opening on the other… When we do photography, we receive an image that is reflected from the subject. Instead of photography as taking, then we can envision it as receiving. Instead of a trophy that is hunted, an image is a gift.

Zehr goes on to suggest new ways of talking about photography. He sees:

  • Image as received vs. image taken
  • Image as ours vs. image as mine
  • Subject as co-creator, collaborator vs. subject as an object
  • Photography as revelation vs. photography as expose.

I found the idea compelling, but wondered if it could be translated to other forms of journalism.

For one, Zehr’s photography is deeply connected to his religious, philosophical, and personal beliefs. He is an advocate for restorative justice, a way of approaching crime that emphasizes repairing the harm done to the whole community, not just punishing the offender. This is evident in his portraits of  victims of crimes, as well as photographs of men and women serving life sentences in prison.

Many journalists, I thought, might be suspicious of such a value-laden approach and suspicious of the language shift as well.

A few days later I stumbled upon a Web site called Journalism That Matters founded by group of news editors who hope to save the industry by rethinking traditional newsroom culture, approaches, and metaphors.

Journalism That Matters argues that the news process should be defined as:

  • Conversation rather than a lecture
  • Many-to-many rather than one-to-many
  • Community connector rather than a central authority
  • Relationship-centric rather than knowledge-centric.

I find both of these vocab-lessons valuable in thinking about how journalism might be re-imagined.

In both of these paradigms, journalism education might be less about teaching students how to gather and distribute information and more about helping students engage with the people and communities they are covering.

Sports Video Documentary on the Web

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I was recently on a panel with Jena Janovy, an editor at ESPN.com, who made a compelling case for long-form sports journalism on the Web. Janovy said that visitors to the Outside the Lines section often spend seven minutes or more on a single online feature. One of the most successful video documentaries on the site is called “Getting Off The Mat,” a profile of 36-year-old college wrestler Richard Jensen and his struggle to overcome drug addiction.