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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
Not too often, but sometimes the internet scares the shit out of me. And then I realize there’s more stuff about me out there than even I would like to know. And all you need to do is fill out your first and last name…
Compadre Fidel Castro announces his resignation as Cuban president on a website.
On a website. I rest my case.
Always an easy goal to score: Using audio from long ago. In this case historical material of the Busby Babes, the eight young Manchester United players who died in Munchen. Today is the fiftieth anniversary.
You may listen back to my ‘klankbeeld’ or ‘audio palette’ about the tragedy, which aired on Dutch radio.
However, I would also appreciate if you’d glance over eight other names of colleagues who perished that day.
Sex, baby! Serious sex! We can learn a lot from porn. At least that is what Mark S. Luckie writes on his 10,000 Words-website. The header: What the journalism industry can learn from porn.
And according to this Reuters report: Size matters in pornography, except when it comes to tiny mobile phone screens, the next frontier for erotica.
So, everybody, happy surfing on Saturday night.
Are we there yet? No.
Are we there yet? No!
Are we there yet? No, damnit. Shut up.
But are we there yet?
Well, we’re on our way. I wrote a while ago about the new beta-blogs for NOS Dutch public broadcasting. We’re still live without having told nary a soul, so hardly anybody knows. That’s okay, because several nagging glitches remain. Gives us time to practice, and I think this particular entry comes close to what it should all be about.
De Prins is Koning van het Geduld
It has text. Audio. Pix. Video. Interaction. Links.
Let me know whether we’re there yet.
Vertrouwde Vreemdeling 