The Best of Television Photojournalism 2007

Check out some of the winners of the NPPA's Best of Television Photojournalism 2007 - Poynter has video clips of all the winning entries.

I choose this as my post this week for a couple of reasons. First- it's always inspiring to look at really great work of others and to kind of figure out how they might have gone about the story. Also, this year they've added another dimension to the contest - online video and editing. But Al Tompkins of Poynter talks to some of the judges of the contest - and they say that there is still a very long way to go in online photojournalism - see here.

This bit about the online videos was fascinating: "The judges said the most common mistakes they saw were backlit interviews, sound bites that lasted far too long, jump cuts that were jarring to the eye and stories that were overwritten. The judges also said some stories used too many special effects. The best surprises were sometimes buried deep in the story, and while many of the entries were heavy on useful facts and information, they lacked memorable central characters. The judges also are put off by natural sound "pops" that constantly and unnecessarily interrupt the storytelling."

For me - that's just helpful info to remember.

Returning to my second reason for posting this - our simply amazingly talented photography/editing instructor passed on a very nice compliment to all of us this week - that others have thought our shooting to be very good this quarter. A pat on the back to all of us! It's so hard to see the forest for the trees sometimes, but I just wanted to say that we've all come such a long way in shooting, editing, reporting, putting stories together. And it's been so nice to see that develop.

I'm going to get all nostalgic - I will miss all of you very much while you're in DC! It's been a rough quarter mentally and physically, but I've learned so much from everyone and really gotten to know you better. I'm sure, though, that you're going to do some fantastic work there, and I can't wait to see it on the Medill DC website.

LA