I’ll be directing a team of German journalism students who will be documenting in video reports and social media from the floor of the 17th World Editors Forum to be held in Hamburg, Germany, from 6 to 8 October 2010.
I have been working with WAN at these events since 2005 where I presented on tabloid design to editors-in-chief and then joined their live blogging desk to file updates from other speakers.
This 2010 version in Hamburg is a must-attend. WAN-IFRA has a fascinating program which focuses on “why mobile distribution will change the news business.”
Cologne: Visit the twin-steepled Dom, the street cafes and a lover’s bridge over the Rhine River.
It is summer holiday season and I am sharing a series of mini travelogues.
These little side projects were filmed as I travelled to Sweden, Germany, Russia, Egypt, Canada and Scotland producing the documentary film, “Breaking The News.”
This is my trekking bike outfitted with Ortleib classic bike roller bags (Waterproof) tent, and mattress pad. Note the improvised “Stella” handlebar bag.
Prerow, DE: I went camping recently at the Baltic Sea. The campgrounds in this region are typically only a minute’s walk to the strand (beach). And, unless you made your reservation back in January, don’t bother driving.
This string of little beach villages is packed with local tourists and many of the locals I met here grew up in East Germany. Hard to imagine standing here in a tranquil seascape that these vast natural resources were used by GDR frontier guards to keep East Germans from escaping to the West. Before the fall of the wall in 1989, these same shores and camping places were patrolled by troops in high-speed boats and armed soldiers with high-power search lights.
Cologne: Germany defeats England 4-1 in the World Cup and the next morning the front page sales display of the Bild, Germany’s top-selling newspaper screams the news. Most German papers had boring fronts. Interesting, I thought, to judge this cover design in the proper context - a point of sale box.
Se below for a close-up and the full broadsheet view.
MONACO: Mathias Döpfner opened his interview segment at the Monaco Media Forum with the stunning news that the German media giant’s newspaper division is showing a 25.4% profit.
“If print is a dead business, then this kind of death feels pretty comfortable for me.”
No kidding. Springer is riding in the opposite direction of almost every other western media house. Yes, Arianna Huffington is also on stage but is clearly outclassed in this discussion.
New video reporting and editing workshop for September.
While working in small groups and using their cameras and editing tools, like Final Cut Studio, students will get hands-on experience gathering the elements to put together a news video for the Web.
Come to to learn:
– Fundamentals of camera usage
– Shooting and editing sequences
– How to gather audio
– Elements of visual stories
– Writing scripts, recording voice overs and editing scenes
– Final Cut shortcuts and workflows
– Compressing, uploading and filing videos for Web
Leading a video editing class at KircherBurkardt in Berlin, Germany.
A quick update about the three-day video class I will be producing for Camp Video Journalism in Berlin, Germany next month. If you are thinking of attending this video editing workshop in Europe, please register soon. The response for this event has been strong and past video training workshops have sold out.
The event will take place at the world-class KircherBurkhardt publishing house in central Berlin and I will be joined by German video journalist Kristin Jankowsi who produces news films for Der Tagesspiegel.
My family and friends have asked me to tell them my impressions from the last 30 days spent training journalists overseas. I was out of country for the entire month of February with stops in Germany, Denmark, Italy, Croatia, and Egypt. I could start this start this story by deglamorizing it and recalling that the last time I saw my luggage was when I boarded this wee Alitalia turboprop at seven a.m. for a flight from Zagreb to Milan.
Flying over the Adriatic Sea
Perhaps it was while we were buzzing low over the Adriatic, the airline decided I would be be better off wearing the same clothes for four days in Italy. In the end, it took 13 days and dozens of calls (And lost time) to have my bag shipped home to Chicago. Every call to Alitalia led to a new promise of delivery and so I kept waiting. They lied - every time. That’s another blog item for another day.
McPaper is a bookstore chain in Germany. I am in Cairo, Egypt preparing for a week of work with my clients and was cleaning out the photos from my iPhone. This was shot a couple days ago in Potsdam, Germany where the journalists I talked to had never heard that “McPaper” was the snooty term some journalists use to label USA Today - the largest circulation paper in the U.S.
Robb Montgomery produces new media workshops to train journalists and media professionals in more than 20 countries in writing for the Web, multimedia reporting, and Web video journalism.
His hands-on seminars include interactive learning techniques, live demonstrations and expertise in teaching new media concepts to professionals.
