The Digital Journalist January 2009 Issue

January 2009, Issue 135


Dispatches: Notes from the field - Supported by Canon Dispatches: Notes from the Field 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 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. . more>> by Marianne Fulton E-Bits E-Bits: Available Light 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. more>> by Beverly Spicer Commentary Crossing the Line 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. more >> by Ron Steinman Neither Nor Think of Madison Avenue. Mad men for real. more >> by Ron Steinman Photo Journalism Contest Mania 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... more >> by Joshua Wolfe Nuts & Bolts: Much to Do With Digital and Little to Do With Journalist? 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. more >> by Bill Pierce Tech Tips Is there any reason I should consider reducing the quality level of Large JPEGs from 10 on my EOS-1D Mark II? more >> by Chuck Westfall Ethics: A New Year But an Old Lighting Trick 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. more >> by Karen Slattery and Mark Doremus		Letter from the Publisher Welcome to the January 2009 issue of The Digital Journalist, the monthly online magazine for visual journalism. Editorial Don't Blame the Platypus 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. more >> Camera Corner The New Canon 5D Mark II and Installation of a Professional Video Finder 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. more >> by Dirk Fletcher Slide Show How Many Christmases Slideshow 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. more >> by Chris Walker Links Former Stripes chief photographer, war correspondent Sandy Colton dies at 83 William J. "Sandy" Colton, a Stars and Stripes Korean War correspondent and later the chief photographer of the paper's Pacific edition, died Christmas Day after a long battle with cancer. link >> stripes.com Blog The Digital Journalist Image Galleries Blog more >> Announcements *Announcing the New* 2009 Platypus^TM Workshops These workshops are acknowledged as the gold standard of Digital Video training. We teach high definition digital shooting and editing, with an emphasis on story telling. It is unique in the industry. more >> Local Media in a Postmodern World Local Media in a Postmodern World** David Weinberger 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. more >> by Terry Heaton Assignment Sheet Through a Lens Dimly: The Last Dinosaur's Brunch While I really wasn't looking forward to this gathering, I didn't want to be late. Knowledgeable people would be there and I desperately wanted to know what was going on. more>> by Dick Kraus A Reporter’s Life: Obamamania Meets Cousin Max Late January, we inaugurate Barack Obama as our new president. My eyes fall as I write this on a photograph my Cousin Max emailed me the day before the election. As a journalist, I find this photo remarkable. more>> by Eileen Douglas