Knight Center for International Media

1H2O now accepting entires for online video editing contest, Water Remixer Challenge

2009-11-19T18:09:00Z

The Online Water Remixer Challenge is the second in a series of video contests as part of the 1H2O-Campaign 2009, launched on World Water Day to encourage discussion and awareness of the global water crisis.

The video contest, presented by 1H2O.org of the Knight Center for International Media at the School of Communication, University of Miami, LinkTV’s nationwide Know the News channel, NewsU, and the Independent Television Service, International, allows contestants to create their own mini-documentaries on water issues from a wide variety of footage provided on the contest site. Contestants may also add text commentary and other effects in their remixes. All editing materials and registration are available on NewsU’s website.

"The remixer challenge is designed to help young people to learn about the importance of water on the planet through experimenting with creating meaning by remixing diverse sources of media about this important global issue," said Sanjeev Chatterjee, Knight Center’s executive director.

The remixer contest, listed as a “course” on Poynter Institute’s e-learning project News University, allows the person creating the remix to shape the message they send through their edits, in turn gaining a greater understanding of how news shapes public opinion. The course takes around 2 hours to complete.

Howard Finberg, director of interactive learning at The Poynter Institute and NewsU explained the importance of LinkTV’s Remixer as a new addition to the NewsU course line-up.

“It is a great way to learn about water issues and the power of editing,” he said. “Poynter’s NewsU is excited to work with the Knight Center in this contest using the Remixer. It’s a powerful way to generate awareness of the critical issue of safe water.”

A distinguished panel of judges consisting of prominent figures in the media industry, journalism educators and communication students will review the remixes regularly. Up to three winners will be announced on a rolling basis before December 25, 2009. Each winner will be awarded a cash prize of $100.

Entries will be judged based upon flow and clarity of story, quality, accuracy of information presented and number of different sources used in the remix.

To join the challenge and view the official rules visit the 1H2O.org Water Remixer contest page at www.1h2o.org/contests/water_remixer/. {extended}

Washington DC – “A Different Story Out of Haiti”

2009-11-04T19:23:00Z

By Sam Grogg

Posted on Nov. 2, 2009

The University of Miami School of Communication's Knight Center for International Media and The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) launched today Our Global Challenges: A Series of Dialogues on the Most Pressing Global Issues of our Time. The first dialogue focused on Meeting the Challenge of the Millennium Development Goals in Haiti: A Progress Report from the Poorest Country in the Americas. Over 200 Washington insiders gathered at the K Street headquarters of CSIS to listen to a conversation among Dr. Barth Green Project Medishare Co-Founder and Chairman of The Global Institute at the University of Miami; His Excellency Raymond Joseph Haiti's Ambassador to the United States; and Johanna Mendelson Forman Senior Associate, CSIS Americas Program. Mariam Atash Nawabi of America Abroad Media, Host of PUL (A weekly broadcast in Afghanistan) moderated the discussion.

The series is dedicated to discussions framed by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals as a way to articulate the biggest problems facing our world and to explore the nexus between strategic policy and the tactics of new and developing news media. Our contemporary media technology allows us to cover news at a pace that feeds on breaking, short duration events that ebb and flow for a cycle of a few days with little impact on the global stories that demand complex coverage over long periods of time with sensitivity to cross-cultural attitudes and customs.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and, as His Excellency Raymond Joseph reminded the audience, a country that hosted the explorers of the Old World well before the future United States. This little country sits in a peaceful neighborhood of island nations an hour by air to Miami and a super nation. Yet it remains a nation of dependence on others and a microcosm of the challenges facing our developing world.

The panel hailed the efforts of former President Clinton to embrace Haiti and work to gather the resources necessary for the country to address its challenges. But the $340 million of pledges made last April connected to the former President's efforts have been slow to turn into actual dollars on the ground. Competing NGO's find it difficult to navigate the realities on the ground in Haiti leaving good intentions and millions of dollars held in abeyance while the needs are critical and immediate.

Barth Green, whose Medi-share group is focusing on building a critical care health infrastructure, observes that the situation is changing radically, however. Much needed infrastructure is expanding in a dynamic and positive manner. The image of Haiti as crime and violence ridden is simply no longer the case. The Haitian police are standing out in front of a decreasing UN peacekeeping force and the government presence is dramatically replacing gang rule throughout the urban areas.

Johanna Mendelson underscored the bottom up development of the country and the importance of the recent change in government (the Prime Minister of Haiti was ousted by a vote of the legislature a few days ago) being a peaceful change with a sense of concern for continuity and stability.

Image and the messages that appear in the press and stick to the media coverage of the tiny island are of great concern. The media avoid talking of Haiti as a tourist destination, said Joseph, they still have an image of the country as largely violent and unfriendly to Americans. For decades, the story reported has been negative, Joseph reminded the group. All the panelists felt that Haiti is a success story-a home-run said Green. With much ahead and without glossing over the serious problems of the country, there is movement on all fronts to address health and basic sustenance issues for Haitian people. The ongoing challenge is to build on the stability to bring the country's talented professionals back to the nation. Nearly 85% of the professionals have left the country for lives in the developed neighbors.

The conversation attracted one of the largest audiences for a CSIS forum in recent years, said CSIS executive Andrew Schwartz. There is clearly an attraction to this corner of the world-a country that once hummed with industry-for instance, Haiti was the dominant maker of baseballs for the major American leagues until government upheaval pushed the industry to Honduras. There is also a creeping feeling of great opportunity in the Caribbean as Cuba and Haiti re-position themselves among nations.

The media will play an important role in the future of this country as it continues to develop-there are new and positive stories to report from Haiti.

Click here to read the post on the "Knight on the Road" blog.

Click here to watch the sessions on the CSIS site. {extended}

Pressing global issues to be tackled by leading experts

2009-10-27T20:11:00Z

MIAMI, FL (Oct. 25, 2009) - The University of Miami Knight Center for International Media and The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) are pleased to announce the launch of a yearlong series of monthly dialogues focusing on today's most pressing strategic global challenges.

"OUR GLOBAL CHALLENGES: A Series of Dialogues on the Most Pressing Global Issues of Our Time," will be a monthly series of panel discussions to be held at CSIS in Washington. The Global Challenges Series will focus on discussions surrounding the eight United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals: Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education; Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women; Goal 4: Reduce child mortality; Goal 5: Improve maternal health; Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability; and Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development.

The series will feature political leaders, innovators, international experts, thought leaders and public figures from around the world. While the panels will be attended by the Washington-based policy community, academia and the private sector, what will make the program unique is the partnership with the University of Miami’s Knight Center for International Media. This nexus between policy and media will include dissemination of the information presented during the Global Challenges Series not just to participants, but to audiences globally via the World Wide Web.

The first session of the dialogue series will be held at CSIS on Nov. 2 from 3:00-4:00 p.m. and will feature a panel discussion titled “Meeting the challenge of the Millennium Development Goals in Haiti: A progress report from the poorest country in the Americas.” This session will be streamed live from: wmedia.csis.org.

The panel will be comprised of: Dr. Barth Green, Project Medishare Co-Founder and Chairman of The Global Institute at the University of Miami; Garry Conille, Team Leader of the Millennium Development Goals Support Cluster, United Nations Development Programme; and Haiti’s Ambassador to the United States His Excellency Raymond Joseph. Haiti’s experience will be used to inform audiences about several Millennium Development Goals.

The Global Challenges series will be moderated by Mariam Atash Nawabi, an attorney, policy expert and journalist. Nawabi is also the host of America Abroad Media TV’s PUL show- a weekly public interest program, recorded in the United States for broadcast throughout Afghanistan. Nawabi will guide an interactive and informative discussion between guests at each Global Challenges program and facilitate audience feedback.

"The University of Miami School of Communication's Knight Center is committed to developing cross-border communication on the incredible challenges faced by our world," said Sam Grogg, Dean of the University of Miami School of Communication. "These dialogues will contribute mightily to understanding, which will provide the basis for action."

"Our new partnership with the University of Miami's Knight Center for International Media will provide a unique forum to discuss critical issues of global significance," said CSIS President and CEO John Hamre. "We are proud to partner with the Knight Center, as it is ideally positioned to help us explore and shed light on some of the world's most pressing policy challenges."

For more information about this series, contact H. Andrew Schwartz, (202) 775-3242, aschwartz@csis.org. {extended}

Knight Center’s second international multimedia workshop was a success

2009-10-05T14:22:00Z

Photo by Rich Beckman

Katrin Verclas from mobileactive.org and Knight Foundation Grantee teaches her seminar on "Ethical Reporting on the World's Most Under-Reported Issues" at the multimedia workshop in Grahamstown, South Africa.

Under the direction of the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism, University of Miami School of Communication professor Rich Beckman, 18 journalists and journalism educators from across Africa converged on Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, in September to learn cutting edge multimedia journalism skills and strategies during a five-day workshop.

Beginning with audio slide shows taught by Jim Seida of MSNBC and video-journalism by David Dunkley Gyimah of Westminster University in London, the students tackled new ways of storytelling in a multimedia world. They worked with new equipment and reporting problems that ranged from dealing with background noise to new ways of asking questions during interviews.

“This workshop was clearly one of the best,” said Sam Terilli, associate professor at the University of Miami School of Communication, who conducted a half-day session on journalistic ethics that led to a wide-ranging discussion about different cultural perspectives on the forces affecting the purposes of journalism. “Everyone learned from everyone else – teacher and student alike – as we shared ideas, problems, strategies and questions,” he said.

Loaded with tripods, audio recorders and cameras, the participants spent many hours in the field practicing their new storytelling skills and even more hours in the lab editing under the guidance of the instructors and Trevor Green of the Knight Center for International Media. The moment of truth for each exercise came the next session when each participant played his or her audio and then video story for the entire group, which would offer constructive critiques, ask questions and debate strategies.

Sanjeev Chatterjee, Knight Center’s executive director, said these workshops have a dual purpose – to train international journalists and journalism educators on multimedia journalism but also to help them train local students to produce underreported stories around the world.

“These workshops’ trainees and their students are committed to contributing local multimedia content to the Knight Center's world cities anchor project, a major undertaking for us,” said Chatterjee. “Their stories will be published and have a real impact,” he said, noting this was the second of a series of international multimedia workshops for journalism educators to be organized by the Knight Center in coordination with its anchor project on world cities.

The workshop ended on a Sunday with MobileActive's Katrin Verclas, a Knight grantee, who taught the participants new ways of using cellular telephones as tools for both professional and citizen journalists to gather and report news. To read more about her class, click here.

Posted on October 5, 2009 {extended}

1H2O screenings reach thousands of children in India

2009-08-27T20:09:00Z

View 1H2O Screenings, India in a larger map

In celebration of World World Water Day 2009, more than 20,000 children in 19 states in 150 locations in India viewed the documentary 1H2O, a film that explores the ever-changing relationship between human beings and water as we face a world water crisis of proportions we have never before seen. These children are part of Pratham, a citizens' group in India that works with communities across the country to ensure every child is in school and learning well.

This map shows where many of the screenings took place with photos and data collected from the children who watched it in their schools and communities.

This joint effort was done by Pratham and ASER Centre in India and the Knight Center for International Media at the School of Communication, University of Miami, in collaboration with ITVS International, in the United States.

--

http://www.pratham.org
http://www.asercentre.org
http://knight.miami.edu
http://onewater.org
http://itvs.org {extended}

Knight Center extends reach of World Press Photo

2009-07-15T14:27:00Z

A team of visual journalists at the University of Miami School of Communication has successfully launched, for the third consecutive year, a multimedia presentation of the stories behind the photographs that won the World Press Photo awards, the world’s largest and most prestigious annual contest for photojournalists.

The project involves shooting and editing video interviews with prizewinners during the annual awards ceremonies in Amsterdam. The result of these video interviews, combined with the winning photographs, is an innovative online presentation that uses a technological tool, known as “digital loupe.” The photographic loupe lets viewers observe fine details in the pictures on the screen, giving them a strong sense of interactivity and intimacy with the work.

Loup Langton, UM visual journalism program director, conducted 22 interviews this year, screening about one-third of the winners in all categories. He said World Press Photo makes the selection based on several factors, including the diversity of people from different countries, different kinds of subject matters and gender.

“These [photos and interviews] are treasures, historical archives,” Langton said. “If you go through 22 interviews with award-winning photos in any given year, you get a pretty good snapshot of what’s going on around the world across the board, whether it is culture, conflict, sports, everyday life.”

Langton said the team spent two intense days filming the interviews at the attic of a centuries-old building—and many more days back in Miami editing.

Jim Virga, visual Journalism faculty member, directed the video shooting; Lelen Bourgoignie-Robert, former UM visual journalism program director, who recently retired from the School of Communication, remained involved in the project as video editor; and Kim Grinfeder, visual journalism faculty member, created the multimedia presentation. This year, for the first time, a visual journalism student also joined the team. Lauren Whiddon, who graduated in May, collaborated as an assistant editor.

Grinfeder said he used the photographic digital loupe because he wanted users to “play” with the Web site by enlarging details at any part of the photograph while browsing through the stories behind the pictures.

“It is a minimalistic design meant to present the photographs above anything else with a touch of playfulness,” Grinfeder said.

The Knight Center for International Media, which is dedicated to the power of visual storytelling, has supported the development of the online presentation of the World Press Photo exhibit from the beginning as a way to reach millions of people who would otherwise not have access to these photographs and the stories behind them.

Sanjeev Chatterjee, Knight Center’s executive director, said this project helps bring this world-renowned hanging photo exhibit into the digital age.

“The multimedia presentation of these interviews is a way to extend the impact of these incredible photos beyond the exhibit hall or tent,” Chatterjee said.

The Knight Center for International Media brought the World Press Photo exhibit to South Florida for the first time in 2007, which marked the beginning of this collaboration and led to the design of the online winner’s gallery at the World Press Photo Web site.

While World Press Photo has been around since 1955, the multimedia interviews’ project is only three-years old.

Langton said initially the photographers were almost hesitant to take the elevator to the fifth floor to be interviewed. But in a short time, the multimedia presentation has won major awards, such as Knight-Batten and BEA Festival of Media Arts, and become highly regarded in the World Press Photo annual award ceremonies.

“The first year that we conducted the interviews, no one knew what was going on. The photographers [and] the award winners didn’t know anything about it, “ Langton said. “Now, the people who aren’t getting interviewed want to know why and those who are getting interviewed are all excited. We had people come in this year and say, ‘I am so honored because we saw the interviews from last year’. They were great.”

To watch the interviews, click here.

To learn more about World Press Photo, click here.

To learn more about the Knight Center for International Media’s projects, click here.

Posted on July 15, 2009

{extended}

Knight Center for International Media announces new Resident Professional

2009-06-11T14:39:00Z

Photo by: Federico Zaa

Irene Herrera in Ureña, (Táchira), Venezuela, carrying out a photographic empowerment workshop with female refugee seekers who have fled Colombia's international conflict.

Photographer and documentary filmmaker Irene Carolina Herrera has been selected to become the fourth Knight Resident Professional. Herrera, 32, was born in Venezuela, raised in Miami, and now lives in Tokyo, Japan, where she is an assistant professor in film and media arts at Temple University, Japan Campus.

Herrera’s work focuses on ways media can lead to social change -- the basis of her recently approved project at the Knight Center, which will look closely at gender equity, identity and human migration.

The program, to take place in the fall, will train migrant Haitian women living in the Dominican Republic to document their lives through digital audio and still photography. The goal is to provide disenfranchised and stateless women with multimedia training that will empower them to tell their own stories.

“Instead of sending journalists over to report on these women, we are teaching these women to report on themselves,” Herrera said. “The whole idea is based on participatory media. They will have access to the technology to be able to tell their own stories and to be able to show their own reality.”

Herrera has led similar programs with female Colombian refugees in Venezuela and Palestinian children in the Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon. However, this is the first time she will add high-level multimedia skills to her repertoire through close collaboration with Knight Chair in Visual Journalism, professor Rich Beckman.

Beckman’s School of Communication students will travel to the Dominican Republic and team up with Dominican students to teach migrant Haitian women how to use multimedia tools to create narratives about their lives, with the expectation of creating visibility for these otherwise forgotten stories.

“I know that our students will learn as much as the participants on this project,” Beckman said. “It is tremendously rewarding to help empower people to communicate, to give them the tools and expertise to be able to tell their own stories. These are important untold stories, and our students will be the critical link in sharing the life experiences of these women with the rest of the world.”

According to the U.S. State Department 2008 Report on Human Rights, there are about one million people of Haitian ancestry who have been born in the Dominican Republic. However, many of them are unable to obtain any official form of identification and therefore enjoy no benefits from the state. They have little or no access to basic services and rights, such as public education, bank accounts or even birth certificates.

“Even if you are born in the Dominican Republic and your parents are Haitian, you don’t have access to citizenship,” Herrera said. “According to the law, you should, but when they go to present the papers, they get caught up in bureaucracy and are never given out. They are basically stateless.”

Sanjeev Chatterjee, Knight Center’s executive director, said he hopes this project will create a model of empowerment for groups of people who otherwise would not be able to tell their stories. “It is not necessary for participants to be literate to share their stories with the world,” Chatterjee said. “Their voices can be recorded in their own language and combined with photographs to make compelling stories.”

The “Servicio Jesuita a Refugiados y Migrantes de la República Dominicana”, an NGO established in the Dominican Republic to accompany, serve and defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people, will be coordinating the selection of the 10 women to receive the multimedia training that will empower them to tell their stories on their own terms.

These stories produced through this effort will become part of the Center's anchor project on world cities.

“The world cities project will focus on the issues relating to the tremendous growth of urban populations around the world,” said Chatterjee, noting that more than 50 percent of the world’s population now lives in cities. “People hope to better their lives in cities,” he said. “The stories from Santo Domingo will examine this assumption of betterment in the lives of poor cross-border migrant women.”

The training program, which will run through Dec. 15, will generate a Web site to display the media created by the women and a photographic exhibit in the Dominican Republic. Herrera has a master’s degree in film and television production and is finalizing her Ph.D dissertation in ethnographic visual anthropology and documentary photography, both degrees at Nihon University’s College of Art in Japan.

She is arriving in Miami in August and will be based at the Knight Center throughout the fall semester.

Posted on June 11, 2009 {extended}

1H2O.org extended video contest through Aug. 15

2009-05-01T19:12:00Z

The Knight Center for International Media and ITVS International have extended the deadline for the first in a series of video contests as part of the 1H2O-Campaign 2009, launched on World Water Day to encourage discussion and awareness of water issues around the world.

The first contest, One Take, is a video monologue, recorded in any language.

Contestants must answer in less than two minutes, “Is access to clean, safe water for drinking a basic human right? Why? Why not?”

The entire monologue should be one continuous take with no edits and/or visual or graphic overlays.

“We are trying to reach the maximum number of people around the world and urging them to articulate their thoughts about these very important issues,” said Sanjeev Chatterjee, Knight Center’s executive director.

Applicants will be required to fill in an online form with a transcript of their monologue. The video can be submitted to 1H2O.org in several standard formats.

There will be two prizes awarded by a distinguished jury, who will be selected by the 1H2O team among prominent figures in the media industry, journalism education and students of media.

The first prize for the best monologue is US $500, and the second best US $300. There will also be a third prize of US $300 for the qualifying entry that gets translated into the most number of languages using the “dotSUB” functionality.

Entries will be judged by five criteria:

1. Clarity of sound and picture – The audio and images do not need to be of broadcast quality, but are they clean and clear?
2. Quality of writing – Are the facts verifiable and written in a compelling way?
3. On-camera delivery – Is the on-camera performance effortless and convincing?
4. Passion/Conviction of ideas – Is the delivery of the ideas believable? Does it inspire the viewers?
5. Innovation – Is the video creatively executed? Are the creative risks effective?

For an example, please visit “One Take” by Anthony Wojtkowiak.

1H2O 2.O: Online Video Competition will start accepting entries on April 15, 2009. This first contest will run through August 15, and prizes will be announced on Sept. 30.

Updated on June 11, 2009 {extended}

Thousands of children in India watched “1H2O” in celebration of World Water Day

2009-05-01T18:00:00Z

Photo by: Digambar Bharao Tule

Screening of 1H2O in a primary school in a village called Binpoor in Nasik, Maharashtra, where a group of children saw the film and responded enthusiastically afterwards.

By Bhargavi Sundaramurti & Gunjan Goswami

We work with children all over India, so when we received a package with a DVD copy of “1H2O” from Miami, we wondered how we could show these kids the documentary and use the screening as an opportunity to find out what they thought about water issues.

1H2O, a film with no commentary, no words and no dialogue, explores the ever-changing relationship between people and water, especially at a time when we face a looming water crisis of proportions that we have never seen before. The documentary highlights a world where water is exquisitely abundant in some places and dangerously lacking in others. It shows how water inspires innovation and hope in different parts of the world.

We knew we could not walk away from the challenge and wanted to show it in as many places as possible, but we had no funds earmarked for this project. The question, then, became, how to make this happen, and still to make it big. We began asking ourselves, how many cities and villages, schools and communities, and children could we reach?

We started writing to all our colleagues in Pratham and ASER telling them about the film and our mission to screen it to as many children as possible in India. Soon this turned into a large-scale project involving many people in many states across the country. The prospect of showing something new and interesting to the children our friends and colleagues work with every day was one reason the responses to our request were so overwhelming.

In a short time, with everyone’s help and collaboration, thousands of children in India were having the opportunity to watch the documentary “1H2O,” screened concurrently in a total of 19 states and 150 different locations as part of this year’s World Water Day celebrations coordinated by the Knight Center for International Media at the at the School of Communication, University of Miami. The documentary was screened in a variety of terrains. Many of the places had been either drought prone or were urban areas where water is not easy to come by and clean drinking water is even more rare.

“You don't miss your water until your well runs dry.”
-An old country proverb-

“In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival,
water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference”

-Rachel Carson-

The screenings were a success, but now our second task was to see whether these children were able to understand what the movie was trying to say. To see if these young children had comprehended the documentary, we asked them, “Did you like the movie? Why?”, “What did you learn from the movie?” and “What was your favorite part in the movie?”

Also, in almost every location, a few children were asked additional questions that could help us look at their families’ relationship to water: “How many people live in your household?”, “Where does your drinking water come from?, “How far do you have to go to get drinking water?”, “Who makes sure there is drinking water in the house and who goes to get it?”, “How is drinking water stored in your house?, and “Does anyone do anything to make sure the water is clean?”

The answers indicated that the children might not have been able to fully comprehend the more theoretical questions like whether water is a natural human right or a commodity, but from their responses, we could see that they understood how water should be kept clean and used judiciously, how important water is to different people around the world and even how water can be collected from clouds.

In fact, these children understand the real value of water more than anyone else could. Their answers were startling. We learned that many who watched “1H2O” walk every day to collect water for their household. Some walk down the street while others walk much further. Some need to fight for water, a scarce commodity in so many places. Many children said that nothing is done in their home to make water purer and cleaner, so they could safely drink it. Many do not even have a lid for the vessel in which they store drinking water. In some slums in urban India, there is no water in the taps, and water tankers entering their community lead to fights as people struggle to get a little water to drink and cook.

These facts are a grim sign that these issues will keep haunting us in the future if we don’t find real solutions. We would like to hope that, though a drop in the ocean compared to what needs to be done to make people more aware of the alarming water situation in the world, our effort in India on World Water Day 2009 has made a ripple somewhere in the hearts and minds of children.

Posted on May 1, 2009 {extended}

Knight Center’s spring workshops end on a high note

2009-05-01T00:14:00Z

Photo by: Deborah Acosta

Kristin Volk and Ben Harper speak with students at a special video journalism workshop hosted by the Knight Center for International Media.

The Knight Center for International Media’s spring series of workshops for faculty, staff and students at the University of Miami concluded with a special session about social media.

Social network guru, Alex de Carvalho, led the last of six workshops the Knight Center hosted this semester.

"More and more people are engaging in the conversation online,” said de Carvalho. “Social media has grown so quickly that for continued effective communication, using these tools is no longer optional. It is required."

Trevor Green, Knight Center’s video editor and operations assistant, also contributed to the training.

“It was great to get a chance to share my experiences as a video editor with top people in the field of journalism and media relations,” he said.

Green led all lessons for faculty and staff, which were cumulative and focused this semester on Web news video production, an essential skill for anyone in the communications’ field.

The training included basic video shooting techniques – using both mini-DV and Flip Video cameras – and video editing with Final Cut Pro. In the last session with de Carvalho, Green taught participants how to properly export their video for the Web.

All sessions were hands-on, personalized and designed to address specific questions pertinent to each participant’s skill level and needs.

Participants ranged from members of the University Communication’s Office of Media Relations to Ph.D students and faculty members who are teaching journalism classes at the School of Communication.

“I am starting to feel comfortable with the equipment, and that will help me make the students more comfortable with it, too,” said School of Communication journalism faculty member Yves Colon.

Margot Winick, assistant vice president for Media Relations, said she appreciated the small size of classes of about five people, which allowed for personalized lessons. She had only one complaint. “Offer options more frequently,” she said, suggesting the need for more time to work on projects and possibly even assignments in between lessons.

All sessions lasted three hours and were held on Fridays, 2 pm to 5 pm, except for a video journalism workshop for students, which started at 1 pm.

At the beginning of the semester, coinciding with the 2009 WeMedia conference held annually at the University of Miami, the Knight Center brought two top professionals from Washington, D.C., to host this special training session, where students were shown examples of good video journalism on the Web and had an opportunity to shoot and edit their own news stories that ended up posted on UPI.

Kristin Volk, the director of UPI.com's online video news department, and Ben Harper, a State Department’s video producer and editor, spent four hours working with 10 students, both undergraduate and graduate. The student-reporters were exposed to new media reporting concepts and learned hands-on video shooting and editing techniques.

“It was very informative because it showed how to make a video from start to finish,” said Virginia Gil, print journalism graduate student, who like many other had only one negative comment. “No Fridays, please.” Three videos from this workshop were published on UPI’s Public Health Feature section:

Should parents have access to student health records?

Stress management: How do students unwind?

Skin cancer: Are students worried?

KNIGHT CENTER WORKSHOPS - SPRING 2009 FULL SCHEDULE

For SoC faculty and staff

Friday, February 20, 2009 2:00 pm - 5 pm @ room 3032 Instructor: Trevor Green Video production and shooting: sound, lights and action – (Mini-DV)

Friday, March 6, 2009 2:00 pm - 5 pm @ room 3032 Instructor: Trevor Green How to get the best of Flip Videos cameras and import the clips into Final Cut

Friday, March 27, 2009 2:00 pm - 5 pm @ room 3032 Instructor: Trevor Green Introduction to video editing - Final Cut (Flip and mini-DV)

Friday, April 10, 2009 2:00 pm - 5 pm @ room 3032 Instructor: Trevor Green Advanced video editing - Final Cut

Friday, April 24, 2009 2:00 pm - 5 pm @ room 3032 Instructors: Trevor Green & Alex de Carvalho Exporting on different formats and posting video online

Video journalism workshop for SoC students Friday, February 27, 2009 @1 pm – 5 pm, room 3032

Special Guests: Kristin Volk, a graduate of Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, is in the business of storytelling. She is currently the director of UPI.com's online video news department, a department she established in 2006. In addition to overseeing the production of video content, she also produces news packages for UPI.com, researching, writing, shooting and editing each piece. Prior to UPI.com, Volk Harper worked for Potomac Television in Washington, D.C., as a field producer and reporter. With a microphone in hand, she often interviewed notables like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama. She has also worked for ABC 20/20 and Primetime in New York and WTVG 13 ABC as an investigative producer in her hometown of Toledo, OH. Ben Harper, State Department video producer and editor, has been shooting and editing video for the better part of the last decade. He has shot for television stations, documentary productions and everything in between -- on both sides of the camera and in the edit room. He has been working as a videographer and editor in Washington, D.C., for the past four years covering the events and the decision-makers that help shape this country. Along the way, he has developed a sense of what really matters at the heart of a story and how best to engage the intended audience.

Posted on April 30, 2009 {extended}

Joseph B. Treaster Discusses 1h2o.org

2009-04-30T17:57:00Z

The stories on 1H2O.org have local voices in a worldwide context, says Joseph B. Treaster. "The challenge is to find a way to tell a local story in a way that the world can understand." {extended}

Rich Beckman Discusses World Cities Project

2009-04-30T17:38:00Z

An important part of the World Cities project is to be able to tell stories from different cities in the world through multimedia storytelling, says Rich Beckman. "Multimedia is such a powerful tool that affects people greater than any other media had." {extended}

Multimedia journalism workshops focus on telling the world’s most underreported stories

2009-04-22T19:51:00Z

Photo by: Rich Beckman

Deng Jianguo and Lu Liu, two participants from Fudan University, China, were looking at each other's video footage in an editing session of the workshop.

By Shell Jun Zhu

An international multimedia workshop sponsored by the Knight Center for International Media was held at Hong Kong Baptist University from April 13-17, 2009. The International Multimedia Workshops for Ethical Reporting on the World’s Most Underreported Issues attracted journalism professors from all over the Asia, including China, Singapore, India, the Philippines, Thailand, Mongolia and Taiwan.

Directed by Rich Beckman, professor and Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami School of Communication, the workshop was designed to inspire educators across Asia to begin teaching multimedia skills in class to improve their journalistic storytelling.

“The goal is to work with them on developing assignments and content related to the mission of the Knight Center and to empower them to begin the necessary curriculum changes in their journalism and communication programs,” Beckman said.

Using skills acquired at the workshop, participants will now begin working with their own students to create stories focusing on the world’s most underreported issues, such as poverty, urban migration, environmental sustainability and gender equality.

Participants were taught hands-on multimedia reporting techniques by professionals and practitioners in the field.

Jim Seida, senior multimedia producer at MSNBC, started the first day of the workshop by covering audio content gathering and editing skills. This was followed by a workshop on video reporting, taught by Ben de La Cruz, producer at The Washington Post. Kim Grinfeder, assistant professor at the UM School of Communication, taught an all-day session on Web production.

“Multimedia has the potential to produce better journalism by giving subjects an active voice,” said Beckman during a lecture on multimedia teaching and curriculum design on the last day of the five-day workshop. “Through audio, video and data visualization, we now have the ability to personalize stories, provide additional depth and involve our readers.”

Beckman also said that participatory learning motivates students to excel and empowers them to work on meaningful projects that can make a difference.

Workshop participants are expected to return to their classrooms and begin developing multimedia stories on underreported issues in their cities. These stories will become part of the Knight Center’s World Cities anchor project. Based on underreported and underrepresented stories in the media, the World Cities project will draw attention to some of the most urgent issues of the time through research, multimedia training and the production of compelling media products over significant blocks of time.

Assistant professor from Fudan University, China, Deng Jianguo, one of the 17 participants of the workshop, said he had a first rate learning experience. “It fulfilled my expectations very well by showing us the best multimedia examples and getting us involved in real practice with forerunners of the industry,” Jianguo said.

Professor Sanjeev Chatterjee, vice dean of the UM School of Communication and executive director of the Knight Center for International Media, led a discussion with all participants about the world’s most underreported issues. Using the United Nations Millennium Development Goals as a framework, he involved the audience in thinking about developing multimedia stories that can help bring better understanding of these important but underreported issues across national borders.

“We are interested in developing relationships with colleges and universities that are preparing the next generation of journalists and communicators for success in their lives and careers,” said Chatterjee.

A lively discussion about setting ethical standards for the practice of journalism across borders was the highlight of the workshop’s closing session.

The Knight Center for International Media expects to create a connected network of 100 universities and colleges around the world through a series of multimedia workshops over the next five years.

Multimedia content developed through this network over the next few years will create a valuable body of journalism focused on global issues that affect us all but fail to find consistent coverage in the media.

The next workshop will be held at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, for teachers and trainers from across Africa in September 2009.

Posted on April 22, 2009 {extended}

New partnership brings judging of major online journalism awards to UM

2009-04-10T21:23:00Z

The Online News Association, the world’s largest association of online journalists, has announced a partnership with the School of Communication at the University of Miami to host the Online Journalism Awards (OJA), one of the most respected international online media competitions, now in its 10th year.

Rich Beckman, the Knight Center for International Media’s chair in Visual Journalism, will coordinate the judging process, which will take place in August at the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus.

“This partnership will bring the annual judging to UM and allow our students to participate in the process,” Beckman said. “We will generate multimedia coverage of the judging that will be used at the award’s ceremony, such as video features and possibly some podcasts of the judging. Our students will assist throughout the judging and will have the opportunity to interact with more than a dozen industry leaders throughout the process,” he said.

The OJA has grown this year to further reflect the important role emerging technology and community reporting place in the quality of digital journalism. There will be 13 categories with a total of $30,000 in prizes, co-sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Gannett Foundation.

Applicants can enter submissions for the 2009 OJA at journalist.org through June 30, 2009.

The winners will be announced on the final night of the Online News Association Conference and Awards Banquet, Oct. 1-3 in San Francisco.

For more information about the awards and specific categories, click here.

Posted on April 10, 2009 {extended}

Pablo Corral Vega celebrates World Water Day with Knight Center’s friends

2009-03-27T18:37:00Z

Photo by: Pablo Corral Vega

Wedding of Geovanny Aguilar Carlozama and Cristina Churuchumbi in Zuleta. The community is so closely tied to the Hacienda, that guests are always invited to participate in the events and fiestas that take place in the town.

Former Knight Center for International Media’s Resident Professional, Ecuadorian Pablo Corral Vega, was back at the University of Miami to join in the celebration of World Water Day and discuss the next steps for Nuestramirada, a social and professional network for Latin American photographers and photojournalists.

The network, part of Corral Vega’s tenure with the Knight Center at the School of Communication, has taken a life of its own. In six months, it has grown to almost 1000 members.

“We are now thinking about the future of Nuestramirada, “ Corral Vega said, adding that he is looking to expand the network beyond its current format. “We want to create a platform that is specifically designed for photographers and journalists, just for Nuestramirada,” he said.

The Knight Center celebrated World Water Day at the University of Miami with the screening of “One Water,” an award-winning documentary produced by UM faculty. The film, co-directed by Sanjeev Chatterjee and Ali Habashi and filmed in 14 countries over a period of six years, focuses on the scarcity of potable water and ways people throughout the world deal with it.

Chatterjee, Knight Center’s executive director and SoC vice dean, was pleased Corral Vega could be part of this special celebration to build awareness of the world water crisis. "I am thrilled at the possibility of a long term relationship of the Center with professionals of Pablo's stature," he said.

Corral Vega’s latest photographs have just been published at the April issue of National Geographic Traveler. He captured through his lenses the transformation of traditional “haciendas,” old farms, into small countryside hotels in Ecuador.

“National Geographic had an interesting idea,” Corral Vega said. “They wanted to show places that are completely sustainable and closely connected to the community.”

Corral Vega said the work was about a sense of belonging and meant a change of pace for him, too, who is often working abroad and does not get a chance to photograph his own country.

“It is sometimes wonderful just to be close to home and see my people, my mountains,” Corral Vega said.

Posted on March 26, 2009 {extended}