I've got an exciting announcement to make, about a project that you’ll love and will want to participate in. But first a little background.

A curious thing is happening in the world of online news photography, precipitated by three converging trends:

1) More Web users have access to high-speed broadband;

2) Digital technology and easy-to-use software is enabling more people to shoot and edit slideshows (with audio!), and upload them to Websites;

3) Similarly, more people can now shoot and edit videos — quickly and inexpensively — and upload them to Websites.
Popular user-generated sites such as Flickr and YouTube are proving how fast, cheap and simple it is to create moving pictures that dance and sing.

But as we’ve seen with most blogs, just because someone can write does not mean they can write well. And now we’re finding, no surprise, that just because someone can create a video and show it to the entire world doesn’t mean it’s going to be any good.

So where are the true professionals when you need them?

Excellent question.

The first place you’d think to look would be on the Websites of daily newspapers, where seasoned photojournalists ply their trade.

However, most newspapers dived into the deep end of the pool of Web videojournalism without filling it properly, and ended up hurting themselves pretty badly. Specifically, in an effort to save money in these budget-crunching times, instead of hiring trained video crews and editors, newspapers handed digital videocameras to their reporters and told them to shoot their stories as they were reporting them – and then edit and upload the resulting video themselves.  Heck, any teenager can use YouTube, they reasoned; how hard could this be?

For starters, not many of those writers possessed any sense of visual aesthetics – why should they? And even among those lucky few that did, not many were up to the task of processing, editing, and producing multimedia packages. After all, they had a daily print deadline to meet, and there are only so many hours in a day!

Reporters became frustrated that their editors were essentially asking them to take on these monumentally time-consuming extra tasks, which required an entire different set of skills and talents. Consequently, their resulting slideshows and videos were less than stellar.

Photojournalists to the rescue! Well, almost. Again, just because someone has a good eye for taking pictures, and capturing newsmaking moments, doesn’t necessarily translate to being able to shoot, edit and produce a digital movie (or even audio slideshow) that meets the dual high standards of powerful journalism and compelling storytelling.

Traditionally, print reporters conduct interviews and photographers accompany them to visually document events. By arming photographers with videocameras, they were being asked to do everything themselves – reporting, writing, shooting, editing.

So the first round of Web videojournalism was basically a moving version of still photographs. Accompanying a text story about a garbage collector you’d find a short video of him dragging and lifting cans. Not exactly riveting – and no wonder that viewers didn’t want to invest the time watching these boring vignettes. Media outlets were desperately counting on big viewership so they could sell video ads to precede these stories, but because the product was so inferior, nobody was watching! The future of Web multimedia did not seem bright.

But little by little, a few newspapers started figuring it out. They paired up print journalists with photographers, and invested in hiring (and training) talented videojournalists.  Some still photographers took it upon themselves to learn new techniques and technology, so that they could be in the vanguard of a whole new medium.  Slowly the cream started rising. Gradually we started to see the emergence of high quality multimedia journalism.

Well, not all of us. In fact, most people will tell you that they hardly ever see multimedia journalism of any quality! It wasn't until I began revising my photojournalism textbook last year and started searching — REALLY searching — for the good stuff, that I started to see the high quality, exciting stuff that so few people know about.

There are two inter-related reasons for this. One, most people don’t realize it’s out there; two, the stories are well hidden. It’s a Catch-22.

The publishers can’t sell ads on or around multimedia until a lot of people see it, but at the same time they don’t want to invest a lot of money promoting it (or take up a lot of valuable Web real estate with it) because they aren’t making money on it – because nobody’s watching it.

Consequently, most people can’t even find it to look at it, even if they wanted to.  (And, let’s face it, when you’re cruising the Web for news and information, you’re unlikely to spend a lot of time exploring or taking a chance on watching a 5-minute video, especially if there’s nothing explaining what it’s about or why you might enjoy it.)  So it’s a vicious circle.

That’s where we come in. I decided to create a TV Guide, if you will,  to the best video and multimedia journalism on the Web, so that you can find the good stuff fast. We’ll find it for you, we’ll show you where it’s hiding, we’ll explain why you’ll want to see it, and we’ll lead you there with one click.

When you go to KobreGuide in a few weeks, you’ll be able to see, at a glance, the best the medium has to offer. Unlike YouTube and its ilk, KobreGuide is professionally curated, meaning that our seasoned editors and photographers are actively searching for and hand-selecting what we think you’ll most appreciate. 

There are plenty of sites that will offer you everything out there – go to Blinkx, for example, if you want to wade through a swamp of “18 million hours of video.” But if your time is precious, then let us point you to one or two truly prize-worthy video stories that will inform, entertain, and possibly even alter your perceptions. Stories you’ll love so much, you’ll want to tell your friends about them.

Here’s an example of an L.A. Times project that got a lot of attention in its print editions – and the story was even picked up by Rolling Stone magazine – but the original audio slideshow was buried so deep on latimes.com that hardly anybody saw or heard it. Titled “Marlboro Marine,” it’s a tale told by L.A. Times photographer Luis Sanco, whose closeup image of  Marine Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller, cigarette dangling from his lips, became an emblem of the Iraq war.

In a series of emotionally charged audio-slideshows, we learn the dramatic story of what happened AFTER that famous photo was published. When Sanco found out that, after returning stateside, Miller was suffering severe post-traumatic stress disorder, the photographer himself set out to help the soldier – and documented their tandem “rescue” mission, not only with photos but also with accompanying audio narration by both men.

That’s  the kind of powerful multimedia journalism you’ll have a hard time finding on your own, but you’ll  see prominently spotlighted on KobreGuide. (And here’s the link to the story, if you can’t wait for our official debut: www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-marlboro11nov11,0,4380908.story)

So. We’re just a few weeks away from launch. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve got. Meanwhile, if you’ve personally created or encountered multimedia journalism you’d like to share, please let us know. We welcome your savvy eyes and ears.

For our mission statement, and more details on our criteria of exactly what we’re looking for, please go to our placeholder blog at KobreGuide.com. And give us your feedback: kenkobre (at) gmail (dot) com.

We always enjoy hearing from you.