Best of Photojournalism 2006: TV News Editing: Winners
News Feature (photographers) Finalists
(In Alphabetical Order)
- Doug Burgess, WFAA-TV, Dallas, TX
- “A Dr. of a Ticker”
- Kurt Austin, KGW-TV, Portland, OR
- “Where’s Molly”
- Brian Fiser, WHO-TV, Des Moines, IA
- “Measured By Character”
- Troy Hale, KMSP-TV, Minneapolis, MN
- “Loud Commercials”
- Jason Hanson, KSTP-TV, Minneapolis, MN
- “Kristin’s Fight”
- “Minnesota Explorers”
- Jonathan Malat, KARE-TV, Minneapolis, MN
- “Funky Town”
- Jason Morrow, WESH-TV, Orlando, FL
- “Spyware”
- Ken Mostek, KUSA-TV, Denver, CO
- “Cowboy Poet”
- Byron Reed, KUSA-TV, Denver, CO
- “Hi, Mary!”
- Steve Rhodes, WTHR-TV, Indianapolis, IN
- “I’m Not Missing Anything”
- “Parent On, Board”
- Corky Scholl, KUSA-TV, Denver, CO
- “Polygamy”
- Ron Stover, KARE-TV, Minneapolis, MN
- “K, 9 Grads”
Winners
- 1st Steve Rhodes, WTHR-TV, Indianapolis, IN “I’m Not Missing Anything”
- 2nd Ken Mostek, KUSA-TV, Denver, CO “Cowboy Poet”
- 3rd Jason Hanson, KSTP-TV, Minneapolis, MN “Kristin’s Fight”
- HM Kurt Austin, KGW-TV, Portland, OR “Where’s Molly”
- HM Doug Burgess, WFAA-TV, Dallas, TX “A Dr. of a Ticker”
Judges' comments
“Holy crap! After seeing this group of stories, I need to get my butt in gear and do some worthwhile stories. Great work, folks,” Ron Kabele said.
“With this many good stories, some of you are inevitably going to be disappointed with the results. But once you have the opportunity to watch some of the winning stories, you’ll see just how grueling the competition was.
“The story about the armless, legless wrestler was beautifully assembled. The audio mixing was perfect. There were many examples of good action-TV, reaction, especially within the gymnasium sequence where the young man is talking to the school kids. The visual effects were completely transparent, fitting into the story seamlessly. I laughed, I reacted, and I felt.
“There’s another thing this story had that I really liked. Instead of jumping around visually, the editor arranged his footage into scenes. And that’s one of the real tricks to making longer stories move well. Anything over four minutes, and you’d better have a good structure to your story. The longer a story, the more important structure is.
“Another story that I really admired was about the young lady who was fighting cancer. As a cancer survivor myself, I truly appreciated how effective this editor created such a realistic and moving story. This was not a minimalist piece. But it was so well edited, a lot of the good things the editor did could easily pass by unnoticed. I’d be willing to bet that the viewers watching this segment didn’t necessarily notice any flashy editing, but they were crying before the closing shot. Very moving, and not just because she had cancer. Hell, I had cancer, and my experience wasn’t terribly moving. It just sucked.
“As a learning exercise, watch the first, place winners and break down each story into its basic elements. You’ll see patterns start to emerge that contribute to the strong structure of each story. I can’t emphasize how important visual structure is. You have to create more than a string of shots, more even than sequences. The winning stories had SCENES that were almost like self, contained little stories within the bigger story. And that’s my somewhat simplified method on how to make stories over a couple minutes watchable for your viewers.
“If each editor broke down their story into its elements, we wouldn’t be seeing a lot of the problems that we consistently ran into: misuse of music, dead audio spots, and no breathing space (with non-stop, voice-over narration).”
Sandy Spencer said, “The News Features (Photographers) category had the most entries of all the editing categories. Consequently, the competition was fierce. There were many exceptional entries and it was very challenging to single out just three amongst all the finalists. That is why there are several stories in the honorable mention and finalist categories. Again, I feel I need to mention that music should only be used as a sound effect to enhance the storytelling, punctuate a point or to evoke an emotion. All too often in this category, too much music, the inappropriate use of music or the wrong music for the piece, was distracting and negated positive qualities it may have possessed.”
“‘I’m Not Missing Anything’ is the winner in the News Feature (Photographer) category. This story chronicled the life of a handicapped adult who was a high school wrestler turned motivational speaker. The editor did an exceptional job depicting Brett’s early years. He incorporated the sliding audio of crowd noise in his establishing shots. He used appropriate sound and film effects during the early years. He also did an excellent job of creating humor through his editing techniques. We have all seen touching stories about handicapped individuals, but this story was unique and inevitably set the bar for the rest of the entries in the category.”
“‘Cowboy Poet’ placed a very close second in this category. The editing and photography of the piece made it a very touching story. The slight use of music and simple dissolves helped the pacing and set the mood change from the harsh prison to the beautiful outdoor scenery. Varying the transition rate of the dissolves also helped to create the somber mood. A wonderful story, definitely worth watching.”
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