Welcome to the March 2001 edition of The Digital Journalist.

First, a few words of apology. We1re sorry if we confused some of our readers when we sent out the publication notice for our sister site, The Digital Filmmaker, a few weeks ago. We offer both online magazines to our subscriber lists, because we feel the content in both ezines will appeal to filmmakers and photographers. We work closely with the editor of The Digital Filmmaker, Roger Richards, in presenting many of our features. This month, we have launched a joint interactive forums area, which will eventually replace the current forums area on The Digital Journalist. The new forums may be found on the front pages of either DV Network, The Digital Filmmaker, The Digital Journalist, or at http://www.digitalfilmmaker.net/forums.html

The forum area is divided into two principal arenas. One for photojournalism, which includes separate forums for Photojournalism Today, dedicated to all the issues challenging photojournalists, including copyright, day rate, and photo agency contacts. This arena also includes Digital Cameras--to discuss the technical aspects of using the new pro digital SLR1s, Digital Image Printing, and Archiving. A discussion group focused on the best ways to print and store your digital files. And, a section for the Art of Photojournalism, a forum on how the power of a still photograph remains unchallenged in the era of digital video.

The second major forum arena is devoted to DV Filmmaking, the art of using digital video cameras and equipment. There are sections for DV Audio, discussing the techniques for capturing great DV Audio, including the best mics and other gear; DV Producing, a discussion dedicated to the production side of DV Filmmaking, including pre-production, post-production, and marketing issues; DV Editing, a forum on non-linear digital video editing systems, including Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premier. Still another section will handle DV Web Streaming, in which we discuss how to prepare and post your digital video projects on the Internet. In the months ahead, we will be adding camera technical reference pages, with information from the manufacturers and the readership--questions and answers about individual pieces of still and video equipment. We hope that this forum will become one of the best resources for photographers and filmmakers on the World Wide Web.

Now back to this month's Digital Journalist.

William Claxton is without doubt the most important photographer of Jazz in the world. His body of work chronicled a whole trajectory of postwar American jazz, from its early years to bebop, West Coast Cool, and the flowering of free-form improvisation. Many of the photographs used by filmmaker Ken Burns, in his recent ten-part PBS series, Jazz, were taken by William Claxton. Less well-known is that Bill has just as assiduously photographed writers, actors, directors, composers, artists, and fashion designers in the process of creating a retrospective of our shared culture in the last half of the 20th century. This is a preview of the major book to be published later this year on his work. The project has been produced by our new West Coast senior contributing editor, Garrett White, who is also The Director of Publications for the Los Angeles Museum of Art.

It has now been three years since we conducted the first Platypus Workshop. The mission was to teach still photojournalists the language of television so they could expand their visual storytelling into the worlds of broadcast, cable and the World Wide Web. Since that first workshop at the University of Oklahoma, we have conducted six more across the country. This month, again in Norman, we will graduate our 200th video journalist.

There have been many changes in these three years. We have seen the rise and the fall of dot.coms, and the proliferation of cable channels--but at the same time consolidation of vertically integrated corporations. All of this has left many unanswered questions as far as the viability of the Platypus concept. We take a hard look at the state of this profession as it grows, with all the pains involved, first in our editorial: "Survivor Island is beginning to look pretty good"; then in two feature articles: the first by Time Magazine contributing photographer-turned-Platypus, Bill Campbell. The other, by video journalist Chris Battey, in "A Reality Check on The Platypus," Parts 1 and 2.

Contributing editor Fritz Nordengren, a judge at the National Press Photographer's POY contest, gives us an insider1s look at the judging of the interactive competition.

Our executive producer and webmaster, David Snider, contributes this month's "Camera Corner," a review of the Canon G1 digital camera.

Columnists Jim Colburn, Amy Bowers, and Bill Pierce are all on duty with some interesting, and always entertaining commentary, so be sure to drop by.

We felt our readers might like to get to know the staff better, so we have created a new masthead page which includes photographs, bios, and email addresses for all our regular contributors. Let us hear from you.

Enjoy this issue.

Dirck Halstead