Bit of a change. Hell, why not?

It’s official. I have a new job: Deputy Editor in Chief of NOS News. An amazing challenge, a great honour and it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

I will start June 2nd. Which means I will return to my native Holland after having been away for over thirteen years. But hey, New York City, Washington DC, London and now Hilversum seems like a logical move.

The boss blogged about it: Read it here. Apparently he wants me to keep blogging. So don’t go away. Neither do I.

Always learning, also from an intern

Doing a piece to camera can be, ahum, great fun. Especially when you’re filming the whole thing yourself. It doesn’t really matter sometimes whether you’ve done it a lot. Take these two examples.

The first is my attempt (as part of an exercise, don’t mind what I say, caus’ it’s made up). The second is from my intern Madelijne. My point is: Pro or beginner, we all screw up.

Tim’s gepruts:

Madelijne’s brave attempts:

But you know, it all works out in the end, the very end…

Mobile Journalism on our news floor

This short movie was filmed on a mobile phone. Put together by Remy Hersbach, intern at our brand new Digidesk. He is a student at my old school, the very superior Fontys Hogeschool Journalistiek in Tilburg. He shot this thingie as an example for the Mobile Phone Festival in Groningen.

Click on the pic for the flick

The ‘real news story’ came on the Eight O’Clock News. Reporter Robert Schinkel covered the Festival and of course did that on his mobile (Nokia N95). I think he did a marvellous job. See for yourself. He writes about his experiences (in Dutch) on the New Media Blog of the NOS Website. Funny detail, he reveals that NOS sent a satellite truck so he could upload his piece on time for the early edition. Mwah.

Click on the pic to see the flick

R.I.P Multimedia Maniac (1965-2078)

For those of you who were wondering whether I had passed away, died or just expired… Nope, I’m just resting in peace as a blogger on this site, but very much alive on other fronts. Of course, I’m referring to this interesting piece in the NYT (which I’m sure most of you have read already).

Don’t worry, I’ll be back to haunt you.

Blogging as if there’s no tomorrow

Lots of fun things happening these days. The NOS has started blogging seriously, and oh boy, it’s great to it all come alive. A wide variety of developments. Enthusiasm, rejection, contamination, misunderstanding, jumping on the bandwagon, falling off the bandwagon, writing, filming, responding, spamming, it’s great. Check for yourself by clicking on the pic, and let me know what you think.

Here’s a piece of crap for ya

Remember how I was writing about something new: Covering a news thingie by webcam? Well, we tried it again, and honestly, it sucked. It was atrocious, embarrassing and even though it appeared on the website for about three minutes, I made sure it was removed.

What it was about? Prince Harry returned from Afghanistan. His plane landed on British soil, and I talked about the ‘historical moment’, looking into the webcam of my MacBook, with the tv in the background, capturing the breaking news event.

Pathetic. That’s the word. Never to be aired, never to be shown. Except on this website, as an example how quality must always be the number one priority, as far as I’m concerned. Click on the pic to see for yourself, then forget about it, and please, don’t tell anyone.

Yes, we’re number 51. I guess

Too bad they only give the Top Fifty. Leaves me guessing where this blog would have come in. Y’all probably agree that the number 51 spot would suit me, right?

 

On top of the list, published by The Observer Magazine this morning: The Huffington Post. The Drudge Report (screw The Telegraph for recently calling him the most powerful journalist, baloney!) came in 11th. Nice to see Students for a Free Tibet land the number 21 spot. Chocolate and Zucchini did well on 38.

Ah well, see for yourself and disagree, convinced that your blog is definitely worthy of a kick-ass number 51 spot.

Multimedia Math in Utrecht

That’s Youtracked, if you want to know how not to pronounce the name of this city in The Netherlands. Don’t bother trying the Dutch if you’re a non-native speaker.

But that’s not the point.

RTV Utrecht works exclusively with camjo reporters (video journalists) nowadays. Inspired and trained by Michael (I’ve been about anywhere on the media planet) Rosenblum, this regional network decided to go all out. Editors and reporters know how to pick up a camera, shoot some stuff and prepare it for broadcast.

I can’t vouch for the quality, since I don’t watch their news programs, but I am intrigued by the numbers they came up with. Managing editor Wim Kramer in Dutch media magazine Spreek’buis: “In the old situation four people would work on one story: Producer, reporter, camera person and an editor. Adding up their work hours one item would take 15 hours. A camjo reporter would need an average of 9.3 hours. A difference of 5.7 hours, which is 38.5 hours a week.”

Again, this is just number crunching. But don’t we all look at the bottom line nowadays? Click on their logo up here to see for yourself. And also, don’t forget to take a peek at their User Generated News site Unieuws.nl. Proof that national networks sometimes don’t set the pace. A lot of exciting stuff going on at city and regional level.

A lousy parent. That’s me

Seven year old son is sick home. Stomach bug. He seems to be happy up in his room. MacBook on his lap. He keeps me updated every other couple of minutes.

“Hey, there’s this guy from Australia.”

“Wow, that kid in Singapore is really good with this tables.”

“Another guy from Australia.”

“Hey papa, I’m almost Einstein.”

“I can do better than that.”

- You’re okay, son?

“Yeah, I’m beating this dude from Arabia right now.”

For those who still have no idea. It is World Math Day. All over the world kids are solving math problems. And playing against each other online.

I used to stare at the tree in our backyard when I was sick. It never moved.

Update: I just received this email from upstairs:  “Hi pap, the Singapore guy beat me in a snap flap whap! E :-)”

Come fly with me

Trying to figure out two things before breakfast.

1. How to fold paper airplanes

Thank you, Wim, for directing us to a great site, see below

2. How to twitter. I feel stupid. Just don’t get it. Anyway, follow me, follow you, we’ll see where we crash