Live Blogging from Risk and Reporting the Wildfires

thedeadliner — Thu, 31 May 2012 16:26:11 +0000

Tune in here at 6:30 p.m. for live updates from tonight’s Deadliners panel, Risk and Reporting the Wildfires

00.53

Jay Janner- Some of these pictures along with some of the work from the drought have been my most recognized pictures.

00.39

Jay Janner- If my editors new what I did I’m sure the would have told me not to… the pressure comes from myself to do good work. I’m my own worst critic.

00.36

Terry Hagerty- I was nervous, I’ve shot for dailies but nothing like this. I just remember calling our staff reporter and saying this is the biggest fire I’ve ever seen.

00.34

Jay Janner- They wouldn’t let me walk but they would let me drive through the burned area. Everyday there was a moment where I was weighing the risk.

00.32

Terry Hagerty- (during coverage) I slept with fire victims in the local church (while his own house was burning down)

00.30

Terry Hagerty- If I had to do it over I would have pushed it more (in reference to police boundaries)

00.25

Jay Janner- In an evacuation zone no one is aloud in and I had to leave.

00.23

Jay Janner- After awhile you get a feel for it.

00.20

Jay Janner- As a photojournalist I’m used to finding alternate ways into an area.

00.06

Jay Janner- Is an old saying in photography, “If your pictures aren’t good enough you’re not close enough.”

00.05

Jay Janner- I’ve bee a newspaper staff photographer for many years and this was scary.

00.03

Jay Janner- 2011 was the hottest and driest year ever recorded in Texas.

23.50

About to start over here…

23.28

Getting my glass of wine and about to listen to some great journalists talk about reporting the wildfires.

On May 31: Risk and Reporting the Wildfires

thedeadliner — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:30:40 +0000

Our next event is on the risks journalists take to get their stories. We’re focusing on the Texas wildfires which began in November 2010 and lasted until October 2011, destroying just shy of 4 million acres and 2,862 homes. Almost 50% of all the acreage burned in the U.S. in 2011 burned in Texas. Our panelists – photographers who covered fires in Bastrop and the Texas Hill Country – will talk about the risks they took to get the images that told the story of the blaze.

The discussion will be moderated by event chair Alex Hannaford. As always, questions from the audience are encouraged, and the debate will continue afterward over a glass of wine.

Panelists

Jay Janner is a staff photographer at the Austin American-Statesman and two-time NPPA Region 8 Photographer of the Year. He has been named Photographer of the Year by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors and the Headliners Foundation of Texas.

Terry Hagerty is Assistant Editor (and photographer) on the Bastrop Advertiser. He was so busy covering the fire last summer he didn’t have time to think about his own apartment that had burned down or the possessions he’d lost – including 25-years-worth of his photography. Hagerty was with firefighters when it broke out north of town.

Kodiak Greenwood was born and raised in Big Sur, California and received his degree from Brooks Institute of Photography. During the California wildfires of 2008, Kody was forced to put down his camera and help tackle the blaze.

Event Details

May 31, 6:30 p.m. at WriteByNight Headquarters (1305 E. 6th Street, Suite 4, Austin). $5 at the door (refreshments provided).

RSVP

RSVP here. Seating is first come, first served.

Can’t make it?

Live streaming of the event will be available at CultureMap Austin
Live Tweeting at #deadliners
Live blogging right here on deadlinersclub.com

Live Blogging from Lessons from Kony2012

thedeadliner — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:24:42 +0000

Tune in here at 6:30 p.m. for live updates from tonight’s Deadliners panel, Lessons from Kony2012

00.45

Audience member: We have to investigate why we are interested in one crisis and not another crisis. There are times when one crisis comes to our attention and we have to look at the motivation for feeling passionate about this crisis versus another crisis you don’t know much about.

00.35

David Krug: do you want accuracy or do you want eyeballs? This is the conundrum they are struggling with.

00.34

Reeve Hamilton: If you want to attract the younger audience, you can’t condescend to them.

00.33

Maira Garcia: They have to (attract the younger demographic) The talk about wanting it but they aren’t making (the stories) easily accessible. I have an iPad, I have an iPhone and that’s how I access media.

00.28

Maira Garcia: For us our reputation is everything. We would rather be fair and acurate (than get substantial hits on youtube)

00.19

David Krug: They made this an event… journalism can learn from this. Make your video an event. If you want to have success like Invisible children did, make it an event.

00.14

Reeve Hamilton: Instead of the journalists coming and complaining about (the video) it’s their job to come in and provide context to it.

00.12

David Krug: People are willing to overlook minor inaccuracies if they agree with the overall message.

00.11

Reeve Hamilton: As a campaign video it was very good… if its goals are to tell the situation in Uganda, its not very effective. But is is effective to get people to plaster posters all over.

00.08

Reeve Hamilton: (what creates a viral video) A very clear easily understandable villain and a graspable story. People are much more willing to watch something nice instead of the local news.

00.04

David Krug: Someone outside of journalism told a story and created a brand that everyone wanted to share.

On April 17: Lessons from KONY2012

thedeadliner — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:29:14 +0000

Our next panel is on the phenomenon that was Kony2012 and what journalism can learn from it. The viral video by California-based activist group Invisible Children proved to be incredibly polarizing. In one camp there were the students and Facebook addicts who shared the link and donated to the cause of capturing Ugandan guerilla leader Joseph Kony; in the other were those who thought the video over-simplified an incredibly complex problem that the mainstream press had been chronicling for years. But one thing was certain: Kony2012 got a lot of viewers, 85 million at the last count.

So did journalism do something wrong in its duty to inform the public about the LRA’s activities in Uganda? If so, what was it? And what, if anything, can it learn from Invisible Children’s slick film-making and social media know-how to better get the message about this and other important issues across in the future?

The discussion will be moderated by event chair Alex Hannaford. As always, questions from the audience are encouraged, and the debate will continue afterward over a glass of wine.

Panelists

Maira Garcia is the social media editor at the Austin American-Statesman where she monitors the latest trends in tech and online communication. She is a blogger, video producer and web and graphic designer.

Reeve Hamilton is a reporter on the Texas Tribune. A Houston native, he was a desk assistant at The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and has a bachelor’s degree in English from Vanderbilt University.

David Krug has worked in internet technology for over a decade and currently coaches entrepreneurs on online marketing and social media for SearchGarden. davidkrug.org

Event Details

April 17, 6:30 p.m. at WriteByNight Headquarters. $5 at the door (refreshments provided).

RSVP

RSVP here. Seating is first come, first served.

Can’t Make It?

Live streaming of the event will be available at CultureMap Austin
Live Tweeting at #deadliners
Live blogging right here on deadlinersclub.com

Live Blogging from Reporting the Border

thedeadliner — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 21:12:16 +0000

Tune in here at 6:30 p.m. for live updates from tonight’s Deadliners panel, Reporting the Border.

01.55

Jeremy Schwartz, “You can’t paint the boarder with one brush and say- this is what’s happening everywhere.”

01.33

Jeremy Schwartz, “If you write a story about spill over violence people come out of the woodwork if you (don’t print) what they already believe.”

01.29

Cecilia Balli, “Drug use is killing entire democracies and countries.”

01.28

Jeremy Schwartz, “It’s going to be interesting as the Iraq war winds down, as these American defense contractors (look for work) have looked to the US-Mexico border and narco terrorists as the next frontier.”

01.25

Melissa del Bosque, “It‘s clear from a policy perspective that the wart on drugs doesn’t work.”

01.17

Cecilia Balli, “The more you break up the cartels, the more violent the become. You are winning on the surface but losing in the long run.”

01.15

Cecilia Balli, We like this discourse of good guys and bad guys and we don’t want to think about these inequalities and markets… so its a very hard story to tell to Americans and to Mexicans also.”

01.09

Melissa del Bosque, “If you can’t cross the border to cover a story, its hard to say he (Phelipe Calderon) is winning (the drug war).

01.02

Cecilia Balli, “Ultimately the price you pay now (as reporters) is death, not loss of income.”

01.01

Jeremy Schwartz, “The locals know the stories, but they can’t tell the stories.”

01.00

Jeremy Schwartz, “Its kind of an unfortunate thing with this where you have Mexican news rooms that have been infiltrated by the cartels.”

00.56

00.54

Melissa del Bosque, “This isn’t a traditonal war like we would see in Iraq or Afghanistan”

00.50

Here we go… one more time, if you aren’t logged in you can with this web address… http://austin.culturemap.com/newsdetail/02-28-12-09-09-reporting-from-the-border/

00.32

Make sure you tap into the live stream starting at 7… http://austin.culturemap.com/newsdetail/02-28-12-09-09-reporting-from-the-border/

00.25

T minus 30 min until this gets going.

On February 28: Reporting the Border

thedeadliner — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:09:58 +0000

Our second panel is on reporting the Texas/Mexico border. We’ll discuss the risks involved in reporting the border; the disconnect between what journalists see and what politicians tell us, particularly with regard to whether violence is, in fact, “spilling over the border”; and the controversial border wall.

The discussion will be moderated by event chair Alex Hannaford. As always, questions from the audience are encouraged, and the debate will continue afterward over a glass of wine (details below).

Panelists

Cecilia Balli, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Texas has written magazine articles on border issues, illegal immigration and Mexico’s fight against drugs for Texas Monthly and Harper’s magazine and is currently working on a book about the murder of women in Juarez.

Melissa del Bosque spent five years in the Texas Senate as a communications director before joining the Texas Observer as a staff writer where she has tackled, among other things, the drug war, immigration and border violence.

Jeremy Schwartz was the south Texas reporter at the Corpus Christi Caller Times before spending four years as the Austin American-Statesman‘s Mexico correspondent based in Mexico City. He now lives in Austin.

Networking Reception

Following the panel, attendees are encouraged to mingle with panelists, event organizers, and PWA members gathered for the organization’s monthly networking event. If you are not currently a PWA member and would like to be, click here.

Event Details

February 28 at WriteByNight Headquarters. Panel at 6:30 p.m. Networking reception 8-9:30 p.m. $5 at the door (refreshments provided).

RSVP

RSVP to the panel, networking reception or both here. Seating is first come, first served.

Can’t Make It?

Live streaming of the event will be available here
Live Tweeting at #deadliners
Live blogging right here on deadlinersclub.com

Photojournalism and legal rights

thedeadliner — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:37:55 +0000

Deadliners on journalism and legal rights: At last, a safe place for writers to tackle hot-topic issues. CultureMap Austin. January 2012.

http://austin.culturemap.com/newsdetail/01-25-12-16-19-deadliners/

Event Summary

Our first panel, “No Photography: Dealing with Obstruction,” is on photojournalists and the obstacles they face trying to do their job, often in the form of heavy handed security or a misunderstanding (or complete ignorance) of the First Amendment.

Panelists Lance Rosenfield and Matt Rainwaters

In 2010, Lance Rosenfield, an Austin-based freelance photographer, was in Texas City taking pictures of the BP refinery for online investigative journalism portal ProPublica when he was detained by police, a local security officer employed by the company and a man identifying himself as an agent of the Department of Homeland Security. Police demanded to review all the pictures Rosenfield had taken and would only let him go on his way after recording his date of birth, social security number and other personal information.

Matt Rainwaters was on assignment the same year in Guantanamo Bay with Alex Hannaford for British Esquire. He agreed ahead of time to undergo “operational security” procedures (Op Sec) each afternoon, which entailed military censors going through every image he had taken and deleting any that didn’t meet with their strict security requirements. But Rainwaters says many were deleted simply because they didn’t like or agree with the image and what it represented.

In this, the first Deadliners panel discussion, Rosenfield and Rainwaters will show pictures from their respective assignments, talking through what happened and explaining why they felt “security,” in these instances, was far too onerous.

The discussion will be moderated by Alex Hannaford and the panelists will take questions from the audience.

Details

January 24, 6:30 p.m. at WriteByNight Headquarters. $3 at the door (refreshments provided).