Howard Owens talks about The Batavian

My spring-and-summer video tour of innovative online news organizations continues with Howard Owens, publisher of The Batavian, a for-profit news site in western New York state that he founded when he was director of digital publishing for GateHouse Media.

Owens left GateHouse earlier this year and took The Batavian with him. I visited him in late June and spent a few days interviewing him and other folks in Batavia. Owens, though, is the only one I captured on video.

Here are links to my earlier video interviews:

• Christine Stuart, editor and publisher of CT News Junkie, which covers political and governmental news from the Connecticut State House, in Hartford.
• Adil Nurmakov, Central Asia editor for Global Voices Online, whom I interviewed in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
• Solana Larsen, managing editor of Global Voices.
• Paul Bass, editor and publisher of the New Haven Independent, a non-profit news site.
• Debbie Galant, co-founder of Baristanet, a for-profit community news site in Montclair, N.J.

Keeping the local conversation alive

The next stop on my online-journalism video tour is Montclair, N.J., where I recently interviewed Debbie Galant, co-founder of Baristanet, and Mark Porter, editor of the weekly Montclair Times.

Baristanet, founded five years ago, was among the first local blogs — and certainly one of the very first to be started by professional journalists with the goal of turning a profit.

Galant and I met at a local Panera; I interviewed Porter at his office.

Earlier:

• Solana Larsen, managing editor of Global Voices Online
• Paul Bass, editor and founder of the New Haven Independent
• Adil Nurmakov, Central Asia editor for Global Voices Online
• Christine Stuart, editor and publisher of CT News Junkie
  

Global Voices and worldwide citizen media

My online-journalism video tour continues with Solana Larsen, managing editor of Global Voices Online, a project that tracks bloggers around the world. I interviewed Larsen on June 9 at her Brooklyn apartment.

On April 23 I interviewed Global Voices' Central Asia editor, Adil Nurmakov, while I was attending the Eurasian Media Forum in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Non-profit journalism in New Haven

Last month I took two reporting trips for my book-in-progress about online journalism and community participation. I took advantage of the opportunity to shoot several video interviews, which I am now editing and posting on YouTube.

My first stop was in New Haven, where I spent some time with Paul Bass, the founder and editor of the New Haven Independent. I also interviewed his managing editor, Melissa Bailey, and Mark Brackenbury, managing editor of the daily New Haven Register. If you don't see my video (above), click here. I apologize for the sound quality; I should have interviewed Bass somewhere other than a loud coffee-and-bagel shop, but he's a busy guy.

The Independent is a non-profit community news site that's similar to Voices of San Diego and MinnPost. Bass, an award-winning New Haven journalist and former editor of the alternative New Haven Advocate, tools around the city on his bicycle with a notebook and a small video camera.

In March I interviewed Christine Stuart, whose state political site, CT News Junkie, serves as the Independent's Statehouse bureau.

A visit with CT News Junkie editor Christine Stuart

Find more videos like this on Wired Journalists


I spent last Wednesday with Christine Stuart, the editor of CT News Junkie, which covers Connecticut politics. Stuart, who's based at the Statehouse in Hartford, posts two to four times a day, often covering hearings on important but secondary stories that the mainstream media ignore.

CT News Junkie is a media partner with the New Haven Independent, one of the more interesting experiments in non-profit, Web-based community journalism. Projects such as these are crucial as we seek to grope our way forward through the economic crisis that has befallen the news business. (CT News Junkie is technically a for-profit company, but Stuart is looking into ways of taking it non-profit.)

I visited Stuart as part of a long-range project. But while I was there, I shot some video and put together a six-minute documentary. I hope you'll take a few moments and have a look.

Some technical notes. After spending about an hour trying to edit my video with iMovie '08, I gave up and used iMovie 6 instead. The lack of precision for coordinating audio and B-roll with iMovie '08 is a source of constant frustration, and I've finally given up. I can't believe I subjected my students to it last semester. Maybe iMovie '09 will be a better solution.

I also was unable to post the result to YouTube, even though the format (MP4), the length (well under 10 minutes) and the file size (under 100 MB) all meet YouTube's guidlines. Vimeo didn't work, either. I finally posted it successfully to Wired Journalists, which uses the Ning platform designed by Netscape founder Marc Andreesen.

If anyone out there has some thoughts as to why this proved to be YouTube-unfriendly, please drop me a line or post a comment. I'd still like to get this up on YouTube.

A well-told story in black and white

If you didn't get a chance to see the Boston Globe video that accompanied Maria Cramer's story on the white firefighter who was reunited with the black infant he rescued 40 years ago, you owe it to yourself to have a look. Good stuff.

Student videoblogging at Northeastern

I just finished watching videos made by my students in Reinventing the News. All of them have good points; some are quite strong from beginning to end.

A few technical notes:

• The videos were shot with low-end digital cameras, several of which created file compatibility problems. Two students who used Flip cameras had to edit their work on their Windows laptops using Windows Movie Maker, as iMovie '08 for Macintosh wouldn't accept their clips. I'm sure there's a converter, but I'd have to track it down.
• Another student tried two different cameras — a Sony and a Casio, if I'm not mistaken — and couldn't pull either into iMovie. She ended up having to skip the assignment.
• I have mixed feelings about iMovie '08 (also known, weirdly enough, as iMovie 7). Although it's easy to use in some respects, and I figured out how to do B-roll despite a lack of documentation, it's not as precise as iMovie 6. One student used iMovie 6 on her own Mac laptop. She and those using Windows Movie Maker seemed to have an easier time.

Video for the Web is a skill well worth teaching journalism students today. I'm glad we tried it, and I've got some ideas for how to do a better job of teaching it the next time.

The next president's first priorities

Click here for higher-quality version

Thought you might get a kick out of a news video I put together as a demonstration for my Reinventing the News class at Northeastern. Not gripping journalism, but evidence that modern media tools make it possible even for an old guy like me to make credible-looking video.

The breakthrough here is that I figured out how to add B-roll with iMovie 7 (also known as iMovie '08 under Apple's bizarre naming conventions). I used stills for the B-roll in this example, but the principle would be the same if I had used video instead.

Old ethics and new media (VI)

Howard Owens, GateHouse Media's director of digital publishing, has responded to YouTube's decision to remove the Beverly Citizen's controversial video of the "Horribles" parade.

According to Owens, YouTube acted after receiving a complaint from someone whose face was visible in the video. Apparently YouTube has a privacy policy under which it will take down a video at literally anyone's request. Owens sums it up as follows:

We simply cannot allow YouTube, or any other business partner, to subvert our editorial independence. If YouTube wants to get in the game of hosting video for established news organizations — which it is doing — then it needs to respect the editorial judgment and independence of the news professionals in those organizations. If YouTube is unwilling be a true media partner, then, at least for GateHouse, we will need to seek alternative means of distribution of our videos.

Now, it's easy enough to say that YouTube should act as a common carrier, similar to the phone company, and carry any traffic that comes its way, regardless of content. As a free-speech advocate, I would much prefer a policy like that.

But it's not that simple. YouTube is successful in part because it does a good job of keeping out pornography and graphic violence. It's the PG-13 nature of YouTube that makes it an attractive venue for media companies like GateHouse in the first place.

On the other hand, Owens is absolutely right that if the folks at YouTube are going to remove news videos arbitrarily, then there's no way a news organization can do business with them.

I haven't changed my mind about the video — I still would have edited it to remove the eight-foot-long penis and some of the more offensive signs. But that has to be the news organization's call, not that of the service hosting the video.

I realize this post is entirely one-sided, and I hope YouTube has something to say. Soon.

Wednesday morning update: An unnamed YouTube spokeswoman tells the Boston Herald that the video was "inappropriate," but leaves it at that.

Old ethics and new media (V)

Looks like GateHouse Media has taken matters into its own hands.

If you go to the Beverly Citizen's "Horribles" parade story now, you'll see that the video featuring the eight-foot-long water-spouting penis and the crude signs is back online.

The difference: The video is now hosted by Veoh Networks rather than YouTube.

Old ethics and new media (IV)

Anyone at GateHouse want to send along the reason that YouTube gave for removing the "Horribles" parade video? YouTube might be in the running for a 2009 Phoenix Muzzle Award if it took down the video because of its allegedly offensive content.

Old ethics and new media (III)

In a weird coda to the controversy over the Beverly Farms "Horribles" parade, a source has informed Media Nation that YouTube has removed the video. Have a look at the Beverly Citizen's story. When you click on the video, you'll receive a message that says, "We're sorry, this video is no longer available."

The GateHouse Media papers, like many smaller enterprises, uses YouTube as a free, easy-to-use publishing platform. Editors upload their videos to YouTube, then embed the code on their own sites. But it looks like publishers who wish to control their content are going to have to figure out a way to do it themselves.

Old ethics and new media (II)

The comments to my earlier post have transformed this into a substantive, productive conversation about journalism and standards in the new-media age. You'll find intelligent posts on all sides of the issue, from outraged readers to GateHouse Media editors and executives.

I'm humbled by how much better the quality of the discussion is compared to my original post. As Dan Gillmor likes to say, "My readers know more than I do."

Old ethics and new media

Let's say some local yahoos decide to rent a truck, bolt a giant model of a penis to the front (complete with squirting water!) and festoon the sides of the truck with messages so crude and offensive that I'm not going to quote them.

Let's say they decide to enter the truck as a float in a parade that is attended by hundreds of families and children.

Let's say, further, that the people on the float decide it would be a fun idea to throw condoms at the crowd.

Of course, you already know this is not a hypothetical.

There are many ways of looking at the fallout from the "Horribles" parade in Beverly Farms, which featured three floats — including the one I just described — that made fun of the Gloucester High School pregnancy story.

Here's another angle: the responsibility of community journalists, who are no longer armed just with a notebook and a pen but with video cameras as well.

The Beverly Citizen, a GateHouse Media paper, is in the spotlight because of a video that it posted showing all the highlights and lowlights, including some close-ups of the aforementioned penis and the signs.

Does the video go too far? I'll take a cue from the Citizen itself. The news story, by Bobby Gates, is almost prissy in its description of the controversy. Not a single offensive sign is quoted from. As for the float, the story rather clinically refers to a "large, realistically shaped phallic symbol spraying water from the front of a truck."

Even more out of sync with the video is a post on the Citizen's blog that asserts the floats "went over the line" by mocking teenage girls. The signs? "And I won't even go into the signs on the floats, which were lewd at best." Well, OK. But the blog post was written by "dmacalpine." And the video was shot by Dan Mac Alpine, whose camera hovered so seductively over the very signs that he (or maybe it was his doppelgänger?) didn't think he could quote in his newspaper's blog.

I'm not sure what the lesson is here. I do know that quick-and-cheap video is posing a challenge to community journalists, who are finding themselves embroiled in controversy for shooting footage of subjects that wouldn't raise an eyebrow if they merely described them in writing. That was the case at another GateHouse paper, the Somerville Journal, a few months ago, when its video of the Naked Quad Run at Tufts University sparked discussion and even outrage.

The current, situation, though, is different, as the Citizen is traveling much further in its video than it dares go in its written description. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Let me go back to my original question: Does the video go too far? I think it does. I haven't checked, but I am confident that neither the squirting penis nor the worst of the signs made it on to any of the local television newscasts. I know that both were left on the cutting-room floor in a news video I watched at the Fox 25 Web site, and it's probably safe to say that no one is going to go beyond our friends at Fox.

Except, it seems, the Beverly Citizen.

Look, it happened. Hundreds of people saw it. Hundreds more heard about it. There's no sense in pretending otherwise. But if they didn't think they should quote from the signs, then they shouldn't have showed them in the video. As for the penis — well, let just say I think the written description was sufficient.

The folks at GateHouse are not bad people. They're hard-working journalists trying to find their way in a news landscape that's changing by the day. I'd rather see them taking too many chances than too few. I'm neither horrified nor offended by what they did. But I do think they made the wrong call in this case.

Update: The Salem News runs a front-page photo of the penis-bearing truck in its print edition. But unless you've seen the video, it's impossible to figure out what you're looking at. Here's the News' story.

Happy Fourth from the North Shore

No great claims for this video, but there are more fireworks here than you're likely to see in the rain tonight. Danvers traditionally has the most spectacular fireworks display on the North Shore, and last night was no exception.

Fair use: The video (II)

I've re-uploaded my fair-use video to fix the whopper of a typo that Donna Halper found. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of Steve Garfield and John Farrell, the quality is the same.

I did apply some custom settings when creating a QuickTime file, and it looked terrific on my MacBook. But YouTube didn't like the file, playing the audio without any trouble but presenting the video as a series of stills.

Fair use: The video

Check out my first news video — a discussion of the copyright dispute between the Associated Press and the Drudge Retort, featuring Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, and Rob Bertsche, a First Amendment lawyer with the Boston firm of Prince, Lobel, Glovsky & Tye. Cox's blog post on the subject is very different from what you may have read elsewhere. As he was a close participant in the dust-up, you should read it.

Cox and Bertsche engaged in a wide-ranging overview at Saturday's New England News Forum "Sharing the News" symposium at UMass Lowell, but I thought it would be interesting to try to boil their talking points down to a video. Cox and Bertsche are both well worth listening to, so I'll leave it at that. My purpose here is to offer some technical observations with an eye toward improving.

1. In case you were wondering, I took this with my new Canon PowerShot SD890 IS Digital Elph. I've had it for a few weeks, and I'm pretty happy with it so far. It was overcast, so the lighting is exceptionally good in this particular video.

2. Yes, yes, I know I need to pay closer attention to background noise. I probably should have started over when the Laconia-style motorcycle rally (actually, it was one guy) nearly drowned out Cox. What I hadn't anticipated were the bird noises sounding like something out of Alfred Hitchcock.

3. I edited the video with Apple's iMovie 6. I'd like to try iMovie 7, but it keeps quitting out on me — even after I installed an update yesterday. In poking around the Web, I see that I'm not even close to being alone in finding iMovie 7 impossible to work with. Has anyone else had acceptable results? (And are iMovie 7 and iMovie '08 one and the same? I think they are.)

4. I don't like the titling options provided in iMovie, so I did the title slides in Photoshop Elements and saved them as JPEGs. I couldn't figure out how to do them in color, so, as you'll see, they're in vivid black and white — or, as they translate to YouTube, vivid dark gray and light gray.

5. Steve Garfield tried to offer me some pointers on how best to export it for uploading to YouTube, but the dialogue box I got was different from what he showed me. The video looks really nice in iMovie. It degrades a lot when I save it as a CD-quality QuickTime .mov file. The title screens, in particular, look really bad.

Thoughts, comments and suggestions are welcome.