media

The Not On The Wires blog, peopled by a group of young multimedia reporters, comments on the way storytelling in a now-famous music video can inform how modern journalists do their jobs.

when I heard that Gaga’s latest video was directed by a Steven Klein, a leading photojournalist, I couldn’t wait to see how this photojournalistic approach to composition and style would translate into the moving images of a music video.

Alejandro is 8:43 of painstakingly lit shooting. It may not be to your musical tastes, but there’s no denying the magnetic appeal of this carefully composed and considered piece of video:

To start with, consider the first two minutes of the video carefully. No words are uttered, and yet as a viewer you’re still experiencing “a story”.

The post goes on to say "photojournalism is more about creating a moment, a situation, an experience inside an image. These moments can often be staged, just like a film, in order to convey the artist’s vision."

Exactly. Fiction in order to tell Fact.

Stan of News On The Line would love this idea. Yeah, let's jazz it up. Put on your M-16 bustiers, people.

The New York Times has started an innovative new daily video feature called "TimesCast". the idea is that the viewer gets to see a glimpse into the news room and meetings as the paper's staff briefly run through the big stories of the new day.

This at first seems kind of neat until you actually watch it and realize it's actually sort of boring. Newspaper journalists aren't necesarily the most interesting on-camera personalities, and most of the segments are not adding any extra information or juicy behind-the-scenes, making-of angle to the stories. Where's the staffers arguing about whether a story should really be covered? Where's the editor relegating some writer's hard work to page 23 at the last minute?

In a sense, TimesCast is like the opposite of Truth On The Line. Instead of using a fictional narrative and characters to add new interest to an issue, The NYT is taking some interesting reporting and writing and making it LESS interesting with some dull personalities.