Don’t Make This Mistake

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Viewers call it out of focus video — a technical problem.  Fortunately, many photojournalists are no longer taking this approach.
 

You probably know the idea:  Protect the identify of the people you’re shooting.  The old way of thinking was:  “We need video, can’t show faces, so let’s shoot backs of heads, legs, and feet — or show faces out of focus.”  

 

Even when I spoke to photojournalists, sharing viewer insights, at the NPPA workshops several years ago, the approach didn’t make sense to them.  It was a waste of their ability to tell a story.  And they were right.

 

Even though you’ll see it on the air, it’s a waste of your time, viewers’ time, and makes for bad television.

 

In this under two-minute learning Learning Video starting with part of a story by WNBC-TV’s Gabe Pressman, you’ll learn how get around this problem. 

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Multimedia Journalism, Power Tools for TV Journalists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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