Freeze-frame

A new reader corresponds:

You made me late for work this morning. I stumbled into your site through the inma newsletter and found myself staring at what I've been preaching from the first day I logged onto the internet. Unfortunately for me and the papers I've worked for, they haven't been listening. We too just built a multi million dollar press and distribution facility and have ignored the changing landscape of our current and future readers.

One area I don't see addressed in depth is the form multi media will take in the future. Most seem intent on jumping into the video bandwagon. While I believe it has a solid place, I don't think it is the altar to which all visual types should worship. Stills have the ability to freeze a moment for all to examine.

[This is something I've experimented with] to convince those running my current newspaper to take advantage of the coming change and maintain their relevance with readers. Alas, it has done little good and while our net nannies devote their time to cranking up the porn and personal use filters to the point of making the internet useless to anyone in the building, they have left the door wide open for you.

Welcome.

So, Pegasi, what say ye? I tend to agree with our new friend, particularly as we push our content out to mobile devices.

Comments

[Jeff Harrell]

Stills have the ability to freeze a moment for all to examine.

That's the greatest strength and greatest weakness of news photography. Photos have borders. Stuff that happens in front of the camera is real; stuff that takes place outside the camera's field of vision (or beyond the crop of the overworked photo editor) never happened. The old saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words; when it comes to photojournalism, this is crap. It takes at least a thousand words to explain what the photo depicts and the context in which it was taken.

I don't see that as a limitation of the medium as much as it is a challenge for the photographer and the editor. Don't frame the photos in such a way as to exclude important parts of the scene. Don't run photos that mislead the audience. Don't ever let a photo tell the story; use photos to accompany the story. That kind of thing.

Reuters has released their Pictures of the Year. If you can get around the fact that it's Reuters — and therefore that Palestinian murderers are objects of veneration and the US President is a clown — go give 'em a looky-see.