Best of Photojournalism 2009: Video News Photography: Winners

Clips from the Video News Photography and Editing winners in the Best of Photojournalism 2009 are now viewable at Poynter Online.

Chat with Al Tompkins and the BOP TV judges — live each day at 12:00 EST. Ask the judges questions and hear what they love and have learned from the entries they have seen each day.

Ernie Crisp Photographer of the Year Finalists

(In alphabetical order)

Runner-Up

Jonathan Malat, KARE/Minneapolis

Ernie Crisp Photographer of the Year

Darren Durlach, WBFF/Baltimore

Judges’ Comments

Terry Bulger

Darren Durlach: The photography alone carried many of the stories in this winning entry. "Ghosts of the Civil War" and "Shane’s Story" were both powerful and at times beautiful.

"Reflect on America" was terrific, and a tribute to Darren’s talent, but I felt like I’ve seen similar showy stories like that once too often. I think it pleases fellow photographers more than the average viewer. I thought in most of these stories the photography far outshined the story-telling.

Jonathan Malat- After more than 50 hours spending time watching television stories, the last thing I want to do is see more. But I’d watch every story on this tape again, and I’d do it right now. "Freedom met its Limits" was frontline spot news coverage with enough commentary from reporter to give it context and not just mayhem. I loved in the Lawrence graduation moment how the camera set on "Lawrence" followed the rest of the hats thrown, and still came back to him to show he refused to release his hat after working so hard to achieve his goal….yet if he would have thrown his hat, he might have missed that moment, if it was a gamble it paid off.

These were all well told stories with often simple but beautiful photography that just kept moving the story along. Not a lot of quick cuts for quick cut sake, and the pacing and pictures were always perfect.

Scott Jensen

We are just like everyone else when it comes to following this contest; winners are largely unknown to us until they are chosen. We do our best to operate in a vacuum. However, we exist in a tiny community and we’re not dumb. As the results for the individual categories came out, we began to notice a trend.

Jonathan Malat is a perennial contender. I think he has something like a half-dozen POY runner-up titles in addition to his two wins. His video is flawless. His content is always compelling. He is one of the best local television photographers in the history of the NPPA. I think all of the stories he entered in the individual categories placed. Simply put, he dominated. Before the final round I thought for certain he’d be adding number Ernie Crisp number three.

But Darren Durlach was still out there. He had a few pieces that were individual finalists. He’d had one individual winner. So he’d have his chance. We played his tape first.

Darren’s first spot news story we’d seen. It was great. His second was a surprise. We hadn’t seen it. It was even better than his first. His general news story lacked. It was above average but nothing stood out except that he and the reporter focused on character. This tape was a valiant effort, but I thought that would be that.

He rebounded during “Reflect on America.” I have issues with mixing illustrative elements and reality. Darren seemingly did this when a mirror showed up in a few of the shots with his subjects. But I considered it a mild ethical infraction. The next two pieces on Darren’s tape—excellent and very good. Whether Darren’s work would prove to hold up came down to his last story. “Shane’s Story” wasn’t entered in the individual in-depth category.

If he’d chosen to enter it, I think it would’ve taken first. It was that good—superior shooting and editing, strong commitment, strong inspirational character and emotion.

When Darren’s tape was finished, and after I wiped my eyes, I think my comment was, “Malat better bring it. That was a damn fine tape.”

And he did. He did, that is until his fifth story played. I was stunned. It wasn’t a typical Malat piece—far below average.

The tape picked up from there on but in the end it wasn’t enough. The intangibles judges consider were all in Darren’s favor. Variety of style, variety of reporters, general news emphasis, daily-turn emphasis, number of natural sound stories, the list went on. I feel the Ernie Crisp Photographer of the Year should exemplify what a regular photographer does every day. This year he does.

Congrats Darren.

Jon Knorr

What a tight competition between Darren Durlach and Jonathan Malat. It was almost as if there was a photo finish and Darren won by a nose. I feel that Darren ended up winning by virtue of working with more reporters than Jonathan. Darren’s tape began with "Everybody’s Happy", a story about a school evacuation. There was plenty of action with kids being loaded up in an ambulance and parents arriving looking for there kids. "Ghosts of the Civil War" was a photog piece memorializing the dead from the civil war. "Reflect on America" was an imaginative way to shoot what essentially was an MOS. He even had a couple stories that were not entered in the individual competition that may have won an award.

Jonathan had just as many great stories; "Freedom Met Its Limits" told the story of the riots at the Republican Convention. Shooting that story led to him being arrested.

is, "What The Duck" had us all chuckling and his "Poor Little Town" was brilliantly shot. Congratulations to all the finalists.

Shane McEachern

We labored long into the night on this category. It was down to two tapes, to very different tapes in the end. We felt both of the entries were very high quality and upheld the standards and the tradition of NPPA POY.

POY - Darren Durlach - had a fantastic tape, a nice variety of stories, fantastic editing and alot of effort went into everything he did on this tape. He worked well with a variety of reporters, his Spot News and General News categories were solid, his photoessays were solid, and the In-depth story was one of our favorites of the week. "Shane's Story".... well some of us felt that should have been entered in In-Depth for individual entry....it very well could have won the category. Overall, we just felt his tape was the best representation of what photogs have to do day in and day out across the country. This collection of stories was well rounded ("Ghosts Of The Civil War"), well written ("Angels For Irma"), and well presented ("Reflect On America")..... He brings a nice level of ability to the table, he has a great eye, and the audio/video editing was crisp and clean. His stuff kept impressing us more and more through the week and by the time we got to POY we knew we had a very, very talented photojournalist on our hands. Congratulations Darren! Way to go!

RUNNER UP POY - Jonathan Malat - it was another phenomenal year for Jonathan and some of the stories on this tape can easily fit with the best he's ever done. Jonathan is a masterful storyteller, one of the best editors out there.... and this tape had the best writing of all the tapes in the POY arena with stories like "Freedom Met Its Limits", "What the Duck?", "Poor Little Town" and "Lawrence". Overall, some of the judges felt there was a low point with "Queen of Trees" and didn't hold up to the quality of the rest of the tape. All in all, there is nothing to really complain about on this tape... it was a superb effort and one of the best tapes I've ever seen. Thanks for getting me inspired yet again Jonathan.... it is nice to know there is still this kind of quality being put on the air in our profession.

FINALIST - Corky Scholl - another phenomenal effort from Corky.... this one was a blast to watch from beginning to end. Spot News was strong, General and Feature were also top notch. Some judges found technical issues with "HELLO!!!!" and "One Step at a Time" and felt the In-Depth category for his tape this year was a little weaker than the 1st and Runner Up. "From Barney to Barry" was one of our favorite stories all week, "Spray Can Candidates" was sharp, and "Dead Sledz" was really well done. Once again, the beautiful shots, precise editing, great pacing, storytelling and many other of Corky's abilities still showed up, it was just not enough to win first place.

FINALIST - Anthony Oliveira has a great eye, a nice editing style and a very clean tape. Very well rounded, solid in all areas, just "A New Beginning" seemed a little lower on the scale compared to the others. "Wreckless Moment" was a solid way to start out the tape... and the tape never really lost its momentum. "Finally Peace" was really amazing story as well… there wasn't a bad apple in the bunch.

Overall we had some incredible POY tapes to judge.... more strong entries from KUSA (2), and WBFF (1) and an up and comer at NEWS 12. Great job! It has been a blast to judge POY and barring any more industry craziness I hope to see the contest tradition continue next year!!!

Tom Sharkey

This years POY came down to really just two tapes, both were very strong contenders. I guess what really came down to was the winner was consistently good with different reporters and a couple of strong photo essays while the runner-up worked with just one reporter and the photo essay really tanked. There probably is no better crew in the business than Jonathan Malat and Boyd Huppert. Over the years they have carved-out some of the most memorial stories in this business. Indeed Jonathan showed very well in this contest, he's a rock solid Photojournalist.

Darren Durlach also had a weak story on his tape but his good stories were really, really good and proved he could work with anybody and still bring home the bacon. His soft treatment on the Civil War story contrasted with the sharp edge of his reflections piece, meaning he can tailor his work to the story. Using the right tools to tell the story the right way, that's the hallmark of a good Photojournalist. He also had a couple of good stories which he only entered in the POY contest, which was a nice surprise for us.

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