When I first read about Blog Action Day and its goal of uniting bloggers around the web in posting about the environment, my thoughts turned to Julia Butterfly Hill. If anyone epitomizes what it is to not just rally for a cause – but to actually “walk the walk” – it’s Hill.I covered the story of Ecology Hall of Fame honoree Julia Butterfly Hill when I worked in TV in Northern California in 1998. Back in 1997, Julia climbed high into a thousand-year-old redwood in Humboldt County, California named “Luna” and set up house. Her goal: to prevent the tree from being cut down. After all, it would be impossible to destroy the tree without killing her. As the months went by, Julia’s vigil attracted international attention. Also, she broke the world record for tree-sitting, or should we say “tree-living.” I remember that celebrities and politicians came to visit Julia. In December 1999, 738 days after she climbed into Luna’s branches, she climbed down… but only after she had struck a deal with Pacific Lumber/Maxxam Corporation to spare Luna and create a three-acre buffer zone. Since stepping back onto solid ground, Julia has written two books (on 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper with soy-based ink, by the way), given talks around the country, and started a group, the Circle of Life, which she created while in the tree. Julia is a prime example of DIY activism.

How many of us would live in a 4-by-6-foot shelter high above ground, amidst storms, rain and cold… for two years? Forget your electric blanket, heater, microwave or take-out sushi. I remember reading about Julia clinging to her mattress  as violent storms crashed through the forest. Say what you will about Julia Butterfly Hill, but her efforts yielded two tremendous results: the saving of part of the forest and international environment-related awareness.  To this day, the story of “Luna” is told and re-told to children, as a new generation of environmentally-aware kids learns how to take steps to conserve and recycle.And while few of us will take our environmental efforts to the extreme Julia did, there are ways we can do our part. For example, I’m sitting here finishing some soup and just read that glass and ceramic cookware conducts and retains heat better than metal. Just one small tip (here are some more)… but it’s these small tips that can add up to a more environmentally-friendly lifestyle and ultimately, a better environment. 

Blog Action Day, Julia Butterfly Hill, Luna, redwoods

I’ve blogged before about the challenges TV journalists face when it comes to deciding what to shoot, video-wise, after arriving at a crime scene or car accident. As a former TV reporter, I remember how counterintuitive it felt to break out the camera and start shooting as medics worked tirelessly to save a father, son, or brother, all while family members stood nearby, hands clasped over their mouths. This was one of the most difficult aspects of TV reporting - getting the visual details, plus the data/facts, and presenting it all in an accurate and appropriate way.

On a similar note, you can only imagine what was going through television photojournalist Jim Foster’s mind when he was driving to work at the Oakland bureau of KNTV NBC11  and came upon an eight car pile-up on Interstate 880 in Union City, CA.  When he reached for his camera, as was second nature, he saw a young girl who was lying upside down in the roof of an overturned car. The girl looked to be 12 years old, and her right arm was severed.

At this point, a choice had to be made: focus on helping the injured girl or get the footage for the newscast.

Rather than shooting video, he sat down near the girl and held her hand. When medics took over, he stepped back. “Then I did what we do: I got my gear out and started shooting,” he said.

Fortunately, doctors were able to reattach the girl’s arm during surgery.

I should mention that I have known Jim since 1999, when he was my photog at KCBA-TV in Salinas, CA. Since I left that station, we have kept in touch, and I still talk with him regularly. When he called me this past weekend to tell me about this accident and the young girl, he told me, “I did what any person would have done.” But then I started to wonder: Would the average person help a complete stranger in an emergency situation… a situation that could involve injury, risk and possibly death (or at the very least, emotional distress)?

I know I would have done exactly what Jim did and I would hope that if I was the one who was injured that someone would stop and help me for a few minutes until medics arrived. What do you think?

You can read more about Jim’s account of the scene and the accident here.

Broadcast Journalism, Good Samaritan, KNTV NBC11, TV news

The reporter-as-multimedia-multitasker continues to gain momentum.

At Eastwick, we’ve explored this journalistic concept before. Basically, the backpack journalist is a reporter who reports, writes, shoots (video), edits, and then converts his or her story into print, online and various other formats. 

And this just in: ABC News  is now sending its digital reporters abroad (read more here). The network has announced that it will dispatch digital reporters to seven foreign cities, with the goal being to give ABC ”broader global presence” minus the cost of managing fully-staffed international bureaus.

These reporters will be their own producers, bookers and assistants. Two people will be posted in India, and one each in South Korea, Indonesia, Brazil, United Arab Emirates and Kenya.

Is this the end of the “bricks and mortar” newsroom bureau? Are four-person network news crews a thing of the past? Apparently, one reporter will cover the entire continent of Africa. As a side note, can you imagine one person covering North America from a bureau in Chicago? But then again, perhaps if budgets benefit, the network bosses will deploy more reporters armed with laptops to MORE cities around the globe. Or is the reporter wearing 10 hats just another way to rationalize more cost-cutting, layoffs and downsizing, as fewer producers, editors and photogs are needed. I have mixed feelings about all of this.

I consider myself an EARLY version of the backpack journalist (Backpack Journalist 1.0), as I was a reporter-photographer-anchor-writer-producer at my first station, KHSL-TV in Chico-Redding, CA. This was back in 1997, and I worked in a two-person bureau in Redding with another reporter named Lisa Amin. She and I both were responsible for covering breaking news in multiple counties, as we took turns being on call. I’d get paged at 3 A.M., put my camera in my car trunk, and drive out to the scene of a murder, car accident or fire, shoot video, write a script, edit tape and feed the video and text down to our main station in Chico. Lisa was a hard worker and we made a great team. We’d produce, between the two of us, about 8-9 stories a day - some short Vo/SOTs, others larger package pieces. And did I mention, we also shot high school football for the sports department on Fridays? To get some extra help (keep in mind, these were 3/4 cameras… a huge audio deck I carried over my shoulder connected by a long cord to the actual camera…. and don’t forget the 20-pound metal tripod), I recruited a couple of interns from the local junior college, who worked countless hours with us (but got some great hands-on experience along with class credit).

When I got to a larger station (next stop: Salinas - Monterey, CA) and worked as weekend anchor, I had an assigned photog. No longer did I need to split my attention among looking for the best camera angle, loading the tape, worrying about my audio levels, etc. - and somewhere in here managing to come up with some intelligent interview questions. In looking at my old stories, those that were shot and edited by a professional staff photog just looked stronger, as I was working with folks who had been shooting video for decades. I was also able to take a more active, focused role in my reporting, grabbing additional sources, angles, etc. I remember doing interviews, writing stories on the back of napkins and handing a script to my photog (and to this day, one of my best friends, Jim Foster), who could edit a 1:30 piece in 12 minutes while I made some last minute phone calls… all before we went live from Santa Cruz at 10.

That said, I think there is something to be said for letting people FOCUS on what they do well - let reporters report, photogs shoot, editors edit, etc. However, with news department cost cuts, this may not be realistic.

I know that today’s lighter cameras and laptops make it so much easier to point, shoot and upload video than the equipment I was dealing with. This new breed of TV reporter will need to learn how to do it all, do it well and do it fast… and hopefully the quality of reports will not be diluted.

ABC, backpack journalism, Broadcast Journalism, TV news

Video may have killed the radio star, but video - Internet video to be exact - is creating its own breed of stars.

The latest example is  vlogger Chris Crocker, aka the “Leave Britney Alone” guy. The 19-year-old Britney Spears Superfan’s tearful-bordering-on-hysterical YouTube defense of Spears’ “Gimme More” performance at the MTV Video Music Awards has generated more than 8 million views. In the video, Crocker screams, “She’s a human… leave Britney alone! Leave her alone now… I mean it! She is not well right now!” 

So far, he’s made the rounds on Maury, been mentioned on Jimmy Kimmel and is now set to star in his own reality TV show. There is even a Chris Crocker “Leave Britney Alone” remix, his plea set to a musical beat. Check out this AP article also.

Crocker has been posting videos from his room in his grandparents’ Tennessee home for quite a while. While it used to be that getting your foot in the door in Hollywood involved actually GOING to Hollywood, the self-posting nature of YouTube and MySpace has changed that. Now, anyone can post a video from anywhere and have it be seen by millions in a matter of hours… and then Hollywood comes calling, apparently.

How will the grassroots nature of YouTube and MySpace change the concept of celebrity? Since anyone can post a video, anyone can gain a following… and if that following is large (and loud) enough, can that same anyone become a celebrity? I wonder what Andy Warhol would have to say about this Internet brand of  “15 minutes of fame.”

Britney Spears, Chris Crocker, MTV VMAs, Uncategorized, vlogging

We’ve all seen the headlines about online video eroding traditional TV viewing habits…and I must confess that recently, I have become an official online TV addict.

Oh yes, it started slowly. There were the searches on YouTube for CNN interview clips. Then came a search for an episode of Melrose Place I remembered watching in college. And this weekend, I watched at least three episodes of one of the greatest TV series of all time, Moonlighting, featuring one of the greatest characters of all time, David Addison (Bruce Willis, a childhood crush of mine).  I located countless shows, marked by season, episode number and name, each episode “chunk” lasting anywhere from three to nine minutes in length.

I’ve also discovered MySpaceTV, where I found “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” episodes (the show airs on the FX! network). Interestingly, I’ve never seen the show (or previews about it) on my actual TV set - only online. I’ve also viewed several episodes online and have become hooked on this smart, engaging comedy co-starring Danny DeVito.

While many people find these social media outlets ideal for posting and/or viewing original short films (LisaNova is one that comes to mind), I’ve found myself using these sites to view “regular” TV shows online at my convenience from anywhere (often via my laptop at a nearby cafe).  This is certainly a far cry from my childhood days of watching TV, when I would actually (gasp!) sit through entire episodes (and commercials) without changing the channel (without a remote, that required getting off the couch). Now, the TV - or should I say online video viewing experience - has become even more personalized and mobile.

If I had only had these options 20 years ago, when I watched Cybill Shepherd struggle to choose between Bruce Willis and Mark Harmon. Choices, choices…

Broadcast Journalism, LisaNova, Moonlighting, MySpaceTV, TV viewing habits, YouTube

Perhaps you have read about the Chicago TV reporter who shifted from covering the news to becoming the news. WMAQ-TV reporter Amy Jacobson was caught on video in a swimsuit at the home of a man whose wife disappeared two months ago (and it was a story she was assigned to cover). Jacobson (no longer at the station), who had been described by staffers as having “hustle and passion for news,” was assigned to cover the disappearance of Craig Stebic’s wife, Lisa. Lisa still lived with her husband while the two went through a divorce. The mother of two disappeared April 30.

Apparently, Jacobson was on her way with her kids to go swimming at a local club when Craig Stebic’s sister asked her over to his house to talk about the case during a pool party.

Now, a reporter in a swimsuit at a possible/potential suspect’s pool party sounds like a lack of judgment to me. What’s more, it has been reported that Jacobson, without telling her bosses, had been briefing police on her conversations with Stebic, who has since been named a “person of interest” in his wife’s case.Add Mirthala Salinas to the “reporters getting too close to sources” file. The L.A.-based Telemundo anchor and reporter had been having an affair with the city’s mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa.
Salinas, who had covered the mayor and the political beat, actually read a story on-air announcing the mayor’s break-up with his wife (leaving out some key facts).

Both of these stories really blur the lines between reporter and source, journalist and objectivity. If the reporter’s role is to report the news (rather than influence or BECOME the news), then some distance needs to be maintained. As a former reporter, I remember covering several homicide and missing persons cases. Sometimes gaining that edge/competitive advantage isn’t worth putting yourself in a dangerous situation… or one that will ultimately disrupt the investigation… or ruin your credibility as a reporter.

Another question I had: Why would a man whose wife has recently disappeared be throwing a big pool party?

Amy Jacobson, Antonio Villaraigosa, Broadcast Journalism, Craig Stebic, journalistic ethics, Lisa Stebic, Mirthala Salinas, Telemundo, TV reporters

She has been admired, mocked, embroiled in scandal, and even featured in a documentary… Tammy Faye Messner. 

When I read about her passing today, I began to think about the concept of celebrity – especially as it relates to the broadcast realm.  

I had watched her final appearance on “Larry King Live” on Thursday and even at 65 pounds, unable to eat and facing death, she was smiling, joking and, of course, wearing her trademark piled-on make-up and thick eyelashes.

 When I was a child, I remember my mom would sometimes flip the channel for a few moments to the Christian PTL Network. Even though we were not particularly religious (as far as watching televangelists goes), my mom said she found this woman oddly fascinating… the way she would laugh one moment, sing another moment, then burst into tears a fraction of a second later, mascara running down her face. 

Since the late 1980s when Jim and Tammy Bakker’s PTL reign ended and Jim Bakker went to jail, Tammy has bounced back and developed a cult following that transcends her previous Christian-only base. I read about one Tammy Faye standing-room-only appearance in
Atlanta… and about how she has earned many gay fans due to her support of the gay community. She also at one time co-hosted the “Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show,” starred in the documentary “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” and appeared on the reality show “The Surreal Life.” 

And in each of these appearances, she is someone you literally can’t take your eyes off of – and it’s hard to explain why her bizarre celebrity status has endured through the years. Whatever the case, in those interviews I have seen, she appeared to be sincere in her faith – and brave in battling cancer – and told viewers: “I want you to find peace. I want you to find joy.”

Broadcast Journalism, cancer, evangelist, PTL, Tammy Faye Bakker

Everyone has been gearing up for our big move to Mountain View and as I write this… the move is in progress. I am actually tracking it via UStream TV, catching the LIVE action as it unfolds (or, more accurately, as movers walk by freshly-painted offices carrying boxes and such).

Since I am here in Sacramento, I’m relying on this streaming live broadcast to allow me to experience the move vicariously. Since our servers are shut down during the relocation process (and since I can’t be down there to lend a hand to my fellow Eastwickers), I thought I would share how I, BQ, am marking this momentous move day.

Becky’s task list:

- Print out client coverage and file hard copies in file cabinet - in process

- Change printer paper - done

- Stop to watch very attractive UPS delivery man walk to neighbor’s door - done

- Taco Bell drive-thru run - moved to late afternoon

- Vacuum office - in process

- Turn on A/C (it IS Sacramento!) - done

- Stop to briefly pet new Siamese cat, Claude - done

- Check personal email (since work email and servers down), retrieve message from one “King Obuboo” asking me to help him transfer $15 million into the US via my bank account. But only if I give him my personal information and bank account info can I get a cut of the $15 mil.  Ponder. Delete. 

I’ve been at Eastwick for seven years and I know this move is a major milestone, marking the agency’s commitment to clients and employees… And the fact that the office is that much closer to Shoreline for concerts - that doesn’t hurt at all! Happy moving, all!

Broadcast Journalism, Eastwick, Mountain View, move

I just read an article detailing how a documentary containing images of Princess Diana’s fatal car crash is causing a great deal of controversy. Apparently, the Channel 4 (UK) program, ”Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel,” will show pictures of the aftermath of the 1997 Paris accident in which Diana was killed. Some have said the program should be canceled, calling it ”insensitive” to Diana’s sons (especially since the documentary reportedly includes images of her last moments).

This controversy over broadcasting such “sensitive” images reminds me of my days starting out in TV in Redding, CA. My station required reporters to shoot and edit their own footage and, in addition, we were on call certain days of the week. While on call (and monitoring a police scanner), I would often be dispatched to an accident or murder scene to shoot video and gather as much info as I could for the next newscast. Often, I would arrive on scene right after law enforcement got there and see tragic images first-hand (a shooting fatality, person who had been struck by a train, etc). I would carefully try to shoot video of the scene from far-away angles, avoiding shots of the victim(s) and instead would gather footage of police crime tape, a general shot of the scene, squad cars, etc. I would also get interviews from investigators on scene (if they could comment) and would never force my camera on a family member  (if any were at the scene).

This was one of the most difficult aspects of my job - trying to “get” the visual details of a story, plus the data/facts, and present it in the most accurate (yet appropriate) way. Of course with Princess Diana, we are talking about a whole other level of exposure.  We’ve all seen photos of the general scene, the wrecked car, etc. Are showing up-close shots of Princess Diana in her final moments really going to teach us/tell us anything we don’t already know? What journalistically is to be gained from this?

Broadcast Journalism

I remember reading that the percentage of users over 35 on popular social networking sites such as MySpace is increasing… But I have wondered about YouTube, where recently I’ve randomly come across everything from a group of teens ordering lunch at the Taco Bell drive-thru in Redding, CA to a day in the life of “Uni the Hedgehog.” What’s the age-related demographic of people uploading content to YouTube? Well, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal, the age range is a little higher than you might expect. Grandparents and seniors are taking to posting videos, including New York’s Paul Gordon, a 92-year-old who gives a demo and performance of the piano he built. Video and content-sharing sites also serve as an ideal medium for grandparents, for example, to record and share family stories and recipes for younger family members.

Also note: 15 million seniors, or 39 percent of all seniors in the United States, will regularly access the Internet by the end of 2007, according to Jupiter Research. This may, of course, pave the way for more social networking sites for seniors (think MySpace for grandma). And considering that many elderly folks are homebound or living miles away from family members, technology may serve to foster friendships and reduce loneliness.

Broadcast Journalism, grandparents, seniors, social networking, YouTube