Welcome to the May issue of The Digital Journalist, the monthly magazine for visual journalism.

In his brilliant speech at the 2007 Supernova conference, former McKinsey and now Deloitte and Touche business guru John Hagel posed fourteen unanswered questions about business in the age of digital connectivity and information technology. The first was highly provocative: "What if there is no equilibrium?"

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is normally not a hospitable venue for return engagements.

Just a quick note before we begin to say that this month's edition of "Tech Tips" marks the 4th anniversary of the column here on The Digital Journalist. A hearty thanks to Dirck Halstead, Cecilia and Connie White, Mark Wilkie, and others who make this Web site possible month in and month out, and as always an especially warm thank you to all of our readers, especially those who have taken the time to send in their questions and comments.

The problem the public has had with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and still has, is that there is almost no coverage of the war. By that, I mean we rarely see any combat – what war is, after all, about. We see soldiers patrolling the streets. We see the terrible effects of roadside bombings, known in the news business as "aftermath." We mostly see the results of war, of troops under pressure but rarely under fire. Though there is little combat, importantly we see the wounded, the dying and the dead. Blame this lack of coverage on war weariness on the part of the public or smaller news budgets as the economy continues to struggle. Take your pick or both. Without having reporters witness the truth of war, we cannot really make a judgment about war and the horror it inflicts on everyone.

I start shooting a new documentary in May. The subject is mental health, but this essay is not about that film as a film but how I still will make films in what I call "the old-fashioned way." The way I know best. By film I mean any motion picture whether on acetate or video. I use the word film to define storytelling that combines words, pictures, ambient sound and music. I care about pacing, tone and narrative coherence. I care about the emotion conveyed in the way that only film can because of its many-faceted approach to storytelling.

"Until you go to Kentucky and with your own eyes behold a Derby, you ain't been nowhere and you ain't see nothing."

As my plane descended to the desert floor and the Las Vegas Convention Center came into view, I wondered what I would find at the 2009 NAB Show during these hard economic times. Even though this year's official attendance was 83,000, down from 110,000 last year, it was still a major event and once again took over the entire Las Vegas Convention Center.

A career is something that should be approached holistically. There is a value proposition of money vs. personal payoffs, such as working for NGOs or non-profits or doing personal projects.

It happens every once in a while. A cop tells a journalist to move away from the scene of a news story in progress. The journalist resists and winds up getting fined or arrested.

The April issue with its focus on video got me to thinking of the long road we journalists have traveled. I remember my first job in local television news --- there was no such thing as video. That came later. We still had film. So, although I have never been the cameraperson, always the reporter, as a reporter I have had a close-up look, from the sidelines, from before the beginning, at many a change video has wrought through the years.

Army Major Joe Claburn spiraled through a curtain of silvery bubbles. Retired Army Sgt. Shane Heath hovered motionless inches above a coral head waiting for a fish to come out of its hiding place. His one remaining hand gripped an underwater camera. Marine Sgt. Greg Edwards bounced slowly across the white sand bottom. He kicked up small plumes with the stubs of his legs. His slow-motion bounding made him look like Neil Armstrong moving across the lunar surface. Each man moved up, down, sideways, and diagonally in the water column with the grace of gravity-defying superheroes.

I have been a photographer since my junior year in high school.

I'm sure that the guys with the big lenses noticed me and said, "What a loser."

On the outskirts of Budiriro I found women washing clothes in a stream polluted by sewage from the township.

As Stretch once told me, "Riding bulls is like drugs; both get you high, both are expensive and both can kill you. So I don't do drugs."

With only a small chink of blue sky visible between the buildings overhead and what felt like a rugby scrum around me, it became more difficult to move. [C- should be '..."it became more difficult to move."]

It's almost embarrassing to admit that three weeks ago I was solidly among those most ignorant and therefore skeptical of Twitter, which is the latest and maybe greatest of the emergent online social-networking phenomena to date. It took me a while to "get it" about Facebook and even longer to be hit by the new wave of the most revolutionary Web-based, microblogging innovation ever to come along.

In this month's issue of The Digital Journalist, the monthly online magazine for visual journalism, we are making a radical departure from the norm. As longtime readers know, TDJ has been on the front lines of reinventing photojournalism since its first issue 11 years ago. This month, we are turning over the entire magazine to our friend and colleague Ken Kobré, professor of photojournalism at San Francisco State University and author of "Photojournalism: The Professionals' Approach," and his deputy, Jerry Lazar. Ken, who runs his own site, The KobreGuide.com, aggregates the best of newspaper video. For this issue, he has reached out some to some of the top people in this emerging world to show and discuss how they are changing the face of photojournalism.

After spending the past few years scrutinizing short non-fiction feature videos on journalism Web sites to determine if they're worthy of inclusion on KobreGuide.com, we've reached this conclusion:

Video assignment: Profile a professional sandcastle builder. Yes, they exist. For fun, they enter crazy contests and create larger-than-life-sized Disney sand characters on the beach. For money, they build gigantic sand fortresses for festive celebrations ranging from kids' birthday parties to beach weddings. And somehow live with the fact that a day's worth of hard labor will be washed away by the evening tide. But the construction process is fascinating, visually sensational, and a natural story with a beginning, middle, and end. Because of the ephemeral nature of their handiwork, they should be all the more delighted that you want to immortalize it on video!

AARP Bulletin Today launched online in May 2008 as the daily-news counterpart to the AARP Bulletin, a monthly print newspaper sent to all 24 million AARP member households. In an era when newspaper circulation is nose-diving and the very existence of print newspapers seems imperiled, organizations such as AARP – a nonprofit association dedicated to helping people 50+ improve the quality of their lives – are discovering that the best way to serve their members is to approach core issues journalistically.

Lucy Nicholson is the award-winning senior staff photographer for Reuters. She was born in London, is based in Los Angeles, and has also worked in Mexico City, Chile and Northern Ireland. She has photographed major sporting events, including the Olympics, Superbowl, NBA Finals, Stanley Cup, World Series and U.S. Open. Her photos frequently appear in such publications as Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, Sports Illustrated and MSNBC. She is in the vanguard of photojournalists who are successfully making the transition to multimedia and videojournalism.

On the surface, it might appear that the Detroit Free Press specializes in projects -- massive, time- and resource-consuming projects. We have won national and local Emmys for those projects, so that is what people tend to see and remember.

Here are the qualities we consider when selecting videojournalism for inclusion in KobreGuide

Wow. Where to begin. Well, it's been just over two months now that I've been working as a freelancer after leaving my staff job as a visual journalist at the Los Angeles Times. So far it's been like the elevator business...it has its ups and downs. 

When I am out on a story and I tell someone I'm from The New York Times, the immediate response is usually a certain respectful recognition. People know the name; they know it stands for good journalism. But when they see my video camera, sometimes a wave of confusion washes over them and they inevitably ask: The New York Times does video?

Most online publications paid lip service to "digital convergence" and "multimedia" (terms that have since lost all significance) by halfheartedly committing a small amount of resources and manpower to videojournalism over the past few years. They purchased cameras and software, and forced already overburdened reporters and photographers to add shooting/editing/producing video to their daily chores. Post your print stories and stills by 3 p.m., they mandated – and upload your finished video by 6 p.m. Don't like it? Plenty of freshly minted college grads who will be glad to do it – for half your salary!

At first, nobody quite knew what to call it, this new hybrid form of communications. It was a weird blend of TV news story, mini-documentary, narrated slideshow, and folksy home movie. About all you could say for sure was that it mixed audio with still photos and/or video. Sometimes that audio included the subject talking, sometimes it included voiceover narration of the reporter and/or videographer, sometimes it incorporated both.

Find an interesting personality to drive your video stories. The strongest stories almost all have a central character that you care about by the video's end. The best way to look at a larger issue is to start with one individual's personal story. Begin with a unique or compelling person whose life tells a larger tale. Remember, people make the stories. Once viewers develop an attachment to the individual, they'll watch your video with much greater interest.

Last month brought yet another round of layoffs – the third in 18 months. The layoff demons, having picked away the flesh, are now gnawing at the bone. In the 21 years I have worked as a visual journalist for The Spokesman-Review, never have I felt more unnerved about my job security.

We present a wide range of dispatches in April. Louie Palu writes one of the best descriptions of being under fire in Afghanistan. His written dispatch is accompanied by video. Luiz Maximiano went into Burma (called Myanmar by the military junta), which is always dangerous, and reports on a group of courageous individuals attempting to help their Burmese neighbors – no matter how far away. On March 15 there was an upset in the presidential election in El Salvador and Brian Harkin was there to see the former rebel group FMLN win its first election in 16 years. In India, Danish photographers Klavs Bo Christensen and Carsten Snejbjerg covered the Holi Festival – and came away encrusted with the brightly colored powder thrown to celebrate spring.

Over the last year, reports have been that the situation in Afghanistan was getting worse. When I hear that I say to myself, "…getting? It already was worse." From my first visit to Afghanistan in 2006, I felt that the situation had already started its downward spiral; however, all eyes and most journalistic resources were elsewhere.

January 2009 marked the 60th anniversary of a conflict in Burma (Myanmar) that has been going on almost unchecked by the international community throughout. Hundreds of thousands of Karen farmers have fled their homes to seek refuge from the madness of the military junta that controls the country; others have lost their lives as victims of the government's campaign of brutality.

FMLN supporters (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) had started kicking the burning effigy of Rodrigo Avila, and I spun around to shield myself from the flying embers. This was my first rally in El Salvador covering the March 15 presidential election and the predictions of electoral violence took on a new meaning. What would happen with this energy if Avila and the ruling ARENA party tried to tamper with the election as some feared?

It was morning. The sun was still low and the light very good. It was remarkably quiet outside our hotel and the gate to the street was locked with a big chain. What was that about! We looked at each other quizzically and didn't quite get the meaning of what was happening. All shops were closed and everybody on the street walked around frowning at each other. Looking for victims.

Welcome to the March issue of The Digital Journalist, the monthly online publication for visual journalism.

My two brothers and I played in a bluegrass band as teenagers in the early 1960s (that's me on the right with the banjo). We played at various coffeehouses, hootenannies, and gatherings around the state of Michigan. I loved the stage, and, rather than fearing the audience, I connected with them on many levels. We also played on the morning show on WZZM-TV every Friday, which is where I first tasted local television. I was a fortunate young man.

You are invited to submit questions about photo equipment, imaging technology, or photo industry trends that may have a bearing on your work or interests. I cannot promise to answer all inquiries, but I pledge to do my best to address the issues that concern you. (Please use the e-mail link provided at the end of this article.)

You may wonder how the following column about privacy impacts journalism. If you take too much time thinking about it, you had better start asking yourself questions concerning the profession we are in. I believe we must serve as a watchdog. If we do not, the liberty and freedom we profess to worship might be lost in the future. Sounds high toned? It is because that is how it should be.

Back when newspapers were first climbing out of the primordial analog soup, they used to advertise for people with "VDT skills." When offset presses started replacing letterpress, all of a sudden, photographers had to "know color." Do your colleagues still have to know how to operate a Wing-Lynch? Do you know anybody in the business who doesn't know Photoshop? Asking a photographer about Photoshop is like asking a carpenter if he or she has "circular saw skills."

A producer for the ABC News program "Good Morning America" reportedly put Caylee Anthony's grandparents up in an expensive hotel in December 2008, about the time that the child's remains were discovered and the search for the missing child turned into a murder investigation. Caylee's grandmother, Cindy Anthony, was the one who reported her granddaughter missing last summer. The little girl's mother now sits in an Orange County, Fla., jail on suspicion of murder.

It's about time to update the "bookmarks" column. In addition to several news sites, I usually start the day by checking into The Online Photographer, or TOP http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com, perhaps the most eclectic photo site on the Web.

Time is a curious thing. Sometimes when writing the date and year my first impulse is to put 1997 or 1999. It strikes me immediately as ridiculous and wrong, but 10 years have zipped by so fast the '90s seem like last week. Wasn't the year 2000 only yesterday?—yet almost a whole decade of the new millennium has gone by in the blink of an eye. In my mind, 10 years ago was the last time anything seemed to move at a reasonable pace. I don't see anything slowing down, so it seems that we have to grab our reflection on the run.

Jan. 22, 2009 - There is a lot of lip service paid to the idea of the American peaceful turnover of presidential administrations.

In Dispatches for March we have Nick Moir's account of covering the deadly Australian wildfires with still images and video. Bernardo De Niz has sent a dispatch from China about that country's rapidly rising unemployment and its effects on the migrant population from the countryside, and Ilker Gurer writes about the return of exiled Tartars to the Crimea.

At least a month before the devastating fires that tore through the southeast of Australia in February, it was possible to see something dangerous was building

But I also liked the Tartars' astounding energy in spite of everything -- they were trying to survive despite the local bureaucracy. They were not giving up anything.

There was a sense of desperation in the air.

Getty Images recently signed Lauri Lyons as its first black female photographer. Though there are black photojournalists and women photojournalists who work for major photo agencies, Lauri Lyons is the first black female under contract to a major agency. This is an important move and hopefully a harbinger of things to come.

An employee hired by mortgage companies to protect foreclosed homes around the country told me that Cleveland was on the fast track to becoming a Detroit. After my first three-day trip to the city I felt certain he was right. It is a city spiraling into an economic nightmare. I'd seen so many boarded up homes that I could not imagine how it would pull out from the tailspin without national funding. It was too big for the city to save and too big for the state. So I returned for a second three-day trip to take a closer look.

Welcome to the February issue of The Digital Journalist, the monthly online magazine for visual journalism.

"Some of the worst things in my life never happened" is the lament of those whose imagination often leads to the elevation of life's molehills into mountains. Some people were born with the innate ability to get ahead of themselves, and while this has fueled creative advancement, it's also led to much human suffering. Anxiety is the flip side of creativity's coin.

I have a question about the way exposure works with the newer EOS cameras in the Live View mode. I understand that for Live View to work, the mirror must flip up and the shutter must open and remain open. My question is, what happens when you make the exposure? I suspect that the exposure is completely electronic and that once it's complete, the (mechanical) shutter closes. Or does closing the shutter end the exposure? And what happens at higher speeds where the mechanical shutter would normally be only a traveling slit?

After almost two years of relentless campaigning, on January 20th Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. As a nation we waited for his speech, one that would help further define his vision for America.

Sometimes a pundit is so blatantly provocative that they can't be taken seriously. So rather than assist in the pandering for blog traffic, I will let David Hobby in The Strobist remain anonymous.

Elsewhere in this issue, you will see much about the Inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama on the front steps of the nation's Capitol on January 20th. Our editor/publisher Dirck Halstead nearly froze his toes off in D.C. while those of us who didn't go put our feet up and watched the ceremony from our homes. Not being there to see it live didn't stop me or anyone else from getting in on the fun. I talked to a couple of friends in Washington who walked toward the Capitol, but decided instead to find a TV for a better view. No matter where people were, the mood was jubilant and infectious and it resounded the world over.

I knew this day would come. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois is President of the United States.

For February Dispatches presents four pieces concerning the recent conflict between Israel and Gaza. The dispatches present different views by photographers Jim Hollander, Ilan Mizrahi, Ahmad Khateib and Stefania Mizara.

Everything is scary in this crazy war. Even journalists are targeted.

You just learn to get back to sleep even though anything can happen anywhere and there is no safe place to hide.

Why again? Why now? I hate wars! Is it a part of our lives forever? Those were the questions I had in mind on my way south to Kibbutz Tequma where a rocket sent from the Gaza Strip had landed in Aryeh Lazar's living room.

As Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip ended, Barack Obama was taking the oath of office and became the 44th president of the United States. The last Israeli tank rolled across one of the gates from the Gaza Strip back into Israel, but no one knew when or where. That was a moment no media captured because the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) did not want the media to see the event, or anything else in the three-week conflict.

The passing of the most powerful position in the world to a new president is always momentous. I learned early on that documenting the White House means standing at the door of history. For good or bad, the actions of the president of the United States affect not only its citizens but also people and events around the world.

I only ever shot one Inaugural – Ronald Reagan's first in 1981. My recollection of it was being cold and bored. As with all political photography your images are only as good as your access, and mine, a Washington outsider working for a French press agency, sucked.

Welcome to the January 2009 issue of The Digital Journalist.

In David Weinberger's fascinating book, Everything Is Miscellaneous, he writes that the ability to sort information "on the way out" of a website beats sorting "on the way in," and that this is a core competency of the Web. This back door approach to organization isn't what it appears to the casual observer.

Is there any reason I should consider reducing the quality level of Large JPEGs from 10 on my EOS-1D Mark II? I'm surprised the SI Photo Web site recommends a quality level of 6. My newspaper doesn't want RAW files shot, so a maxed-out JPEG quality setting seems to make sense unless I'm missing something.

Think of Madison Avenue. Mad men for real. Imagine all those creative minds at work trying to get inside our heads as they produce advertisements for all media they hope will move us to purchase the products they want us to buy now more than ever in this severely depressed economy. Step back for a moment. Then get in touch with reality, if that is possible.

Does anyone who listens to or who watches television know the difference between news and the faux shows that dominate prime time for MSNBC? Does anyone care but me? The simple answer is, probably not. This is not a good sign for the health of the republic. I know that sounds portentous but the presentation of news is more important than ever and to have MSNBC do what it does five nights a week and pass off its programs as news makes a mockery of what news should be. Simply put, MSNBC has violated my trust in news programming, especially given that its parent is NBC News.

Before we close the book on the old year, we'd like to address a comment posted by photographer Karen Lenz on her blog, because it is a reminder of the fact that, as professionals, what we each do as an individual matters. It matters a lot.

The Digital Journalist has been maintaining nearly since its inception that the rules were about to change in television news. Ten years ago, television news was an insatiable beast with an unlimited amount of money to spend, as it devoured the news landscape. In those halcyon days, advertisers flocked to network news, and the most profitable television segments of all were local news. Like newspapers, the money just kept rolling in.

The pairing of the song "How Many Christmases" and a slideshow of Chicago Tribune photos from 2008 is meant to jar the senses a bit. The viewer is set for an inspirational ride with Christmas bells, but is suddenly confronted with scenes of despair. Slowly, the images become more positive and the piece ends with a message of hope. The inspiration for this Soundslides piece came when I first heard the song at a Christmas recital at my son's school, where his fourth-grade class sang the chorus. The composer of the song, Jim Papoulis, was a visiting artist at the school, and gave the Tribune permission to use the song.

Having been lucky enough to see an early sample of the new Canon 5D Mark II, I, like others, am only beginning to realize the potential and meaning of this remarkable camera. As the lines between the still and motion world have long been converging, this camera is the single step that may blur the lines beyond recognition.

Before we get on to the "professional" stuff, David Pogue recently wrote in The New York Times about the five tips he considered to be most important to the users of small (not DSLRs) digital cameras. Perhaps it doesn't speak well of us professionals with our big DSLRs, but I think there are a lot of us who would benefit from Mr. Pogue's advice. Check it out at

World Press Photo, Photo District News' Photo Annual, POYi, NPPA's Best of Photojournalism, American Photography 25, White House New Photographers Association' "The Eyes of History 2009," Santa Fe Project/Singular Image Competition, SportsShooter Annual Contest, Magenta Foundation Flash Forward, Art Director's Club Annual Awards – all have deadlines in January and February.

In January we present three dispatches: Klavs Bo Christensen went into Haiti to see firsthand the devastation caused by two tropical storms and two hurricanes. Katharina Hesse was on her way to Cambodia and became one of thousands of travelers caught in the demonstrations at the Bangkok airport, while Paul Taggart reports on the gorilla population and park rangers in Congo's war zone.

After a month in Congo I finally met up with some rangers who were unfortunately living in an IDP site with their families rather than on patrol in the park.

One leader sang slogans while playing his guitar; the masses cheered and waved their flags and yellow plastic hands in support.

"Two tropical storms and two hurricanes hit the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere in the first eight months of 2008."

As visual journalists, photographers and filmmakers are concerned primarily with light. Technical image-making evolved from the revelation that light could somehow be captured and recorded in its variations by a device analogous to the light-gathering capacity of the human eye.

Much has been made of the perils undocumented workers face crossing the southern border of the United States in search of work and a better life. For Central Americans, the U.S. border marks the end of one of the longest, most treacherous migrations on the planet. Still there has been a rise of 50 percent of undocumented Central Americans from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras living in the U.S. since 2000.