Big Thanks to you and Apple folks
On Monday March 9th we presented at Apple (Regent Street, London) conceptual and empirical evidence about the rise of a new form of video journalism that is winning over audiences and leveraging corporate comms.
We had a blast and the feedback from the audience to the talk with Glen from RTE has been intoxicating and fuzzy.
Thank you. The folks at Apple were great too at making the event look seamless.
What I showed in the pressie, accompanied by RTE’s Innovation head Glen Mulcahy, was evidence about how a more affective, immersive, socially agreeable form of videojournalism was gradually overtaking conventional forms of journalism.
I played an interview I had with Deborah Turness, formerly at ITN, now NBC’s president of News. She says, she’s looking for the next holy grail and that her one wish would be that she finds the next package.
It’s here, but it has blindsided the industry, just as a group of impressionist painters Monet, Manet and Cezzane confounded the French artistic plutocrats in the 19th century
The Academy de Baux called impressionism, puerile, juvenile and the rest. Paints usually available in vats were now being sold in small mobile tubes. Painting took off. 150 years later video finds itself in similar surroundings and the new breed of professional videoist are creating different forms of cinema journalism.
The evidence stemmed from showing various attempts at cinema journalism. Robert Drew and friends, such as Albert Maysles in this picture below were the first of the western new wave.
The news industry ignored Drew. In an interview I conducted with him in 2011, which I have never aired in public [ It was part of my doctorate thesis], Drew paints a prescient picture of the future.
In 1990 in the UK, a second movement emerged in the US and UK — airing on cable and a burgeoning Internet. The film I showed with the UK’s first videojournalists- many of whom are respected in the broadcast industry — showed a new style to cinematic videojournalism.
And, then the incontrovertible evidence, as I travelled across the US from Chicago, to Cairo to China.
From the second wave, Dimitri Doganis’ Oscar nomination The Imposter is a good example. Doganis was originally one of the first 30 videojournalists in the UK, and as he said in the film, what he does now stems from Channel One.
Interviewees with the third wave of cinema journalists included, Danfung Dennis. A trailer of his film is below.
I’ll write up the talk in greater detail, but a few back links may assist in strengthening this premise.
The interest in our findings, suggest that, if as I showed the audience accepts what we’ve uncovered ( which was part of a six year PhD) then story form will change irreovocably. This time, unlike the two previous attempts, the broadcast industry has little power to stem these changes.
I have not said cinema journalism is better than traditional video journalism, but a number of senior broadcast figures express the idea they are looking for the next journalism film style.
Here’s the links:
Cine-videojournalism II — David’s designed site
What if Stephen Soberbergh did journalism?
And the winner is…Citizen Four.
Why the news, once innovative, is now, er, so bad. How to make it interesting again
Rebooting news making and videojournalism and how creativity is forcing change
How VICE Magazine has become the voice of a generation
David Dunkley Gyimah started his career in the broadcasting in 1988. He has worked for Newsnight, ABC News, Channel 4 News, WTN and Channel One. He was one of the UK’s first videojournalists. His PhD completed at University College Dublin examines new forms of videojournalism. David consults worldwide and has previously consulted for the Press Association, Financial Times and Institute of War and Peace.
