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.

Large Market Station of the Year Finalists

(In Alphabetical Order)

Large Market Station of the Year Runner Up

WTVF/Nashville

Large Market Station of the Year

KUSA/Denver

Judges’ Comments

Terry Bulger

The judges did not conclude that any of the station entries had stories from top to bottom that were excellent….lots of great ones, but each had a few mediocre stories as well.

KUSA- This tape started with a great spot story that really captured the fear and uncertainty happening during the “Green Mountain Fire”, maybe it had multiple photographers but I wondered why that piece wasn’t entered in the spot news category. “Old Faithful” was easy to watch, and the 2nd half of the tape made it the winner. “Barney to Barney” was one of the best stories I saw all week, great reactions and just great moments, some of the best non-violent courtroom video I can remember. “Oxman Returneth” was nicely done, same goes for the rest, great pictures in “Colfax”, although by the end of it I was ready for the 1-800 number asking me to buy a condo on it….and “Sophia’s Sister” was a just right piece of pie dessert finish that made everything that came before just feel better.

WTVF- The conclusion of the judges here was that while this tape may not have had the very best stories, none of the stories dropped below a certain level of quality and that was appreciated and applauded. From purely a photography stand-point this tape contained some of the prettiest and most stunning pictures of all the Station of the Year entries. I thought the effort to be excellent was clearly shown in the “Food Bank” story, the photographer here was everywhere and turned what could have been everyday mundane into memorable. “Old Prison” and “Miracles” were beautiful.

One last thing, if the writing here lacks clarity or even coherence please consider it is 10:30 at night and I’ve been looking at television stories now for the last five days for at least twelve hours every day….in total that’s more than 60 hours of television news stories in less than a week. More than anything, and perhaps I should say sadly for me, it was fun.

Scott Jensen

The best photography station should be solid all around. KUSA stood out from the beginning to the end. We hadn’t seen “Green Mountain Fire” in the individual categories. It was a nice surprise. Next to Malat’s riot piece this was the easily the best spot story of the entire contest. However, I wished they had let the moment between the police officer and the homeowner roll. And I loved the tornado live shot. Congratulations! Very nice tape overall.

Jon Knorr

The station of year wasn’t even close. KUSA won the award again this year. From top to bottom they had a much stronger tape than any other station. For the most part no stations had a great tape. KUSA was the most consistent, leading off with a good spot news story Green Mountain Fire. This story had some great moments with the residents, it was a story that wasn’t entered in any category. It had other good stories, From Barney to Barry, Tom and Tiffany and Sophia’s Sisters.

The runner-up WTVF also had a very consistent tape. The Old Prison story was a highlight of their tape as was Miracles. We also thought WXIA had a very solid tape but there were no highs or lows.

Tom Sharkey

After watching and picking the four finalists I think it came down not only to who had the better stories and storytelling but who had the least marginal stories. This award seems to bounce between the Twin Cities and Denver every other year, and KUSA proved it knows how to put a winning tape together. They did have a superior tape this year but no story was really outstanding, KARE also had a good tape with some memorable stories but they also had some marginal ones. Ditto for WBFF. The runner up I think was well deserved. WTVF had a lot of well crafted stories on their tape from a variety of reporters but their weaker stories pulled them into second place like the Kentucky Tornado story was either aftermath or spent time at the local EOC while KUSA actually had the real thing moving across the landscape. KUSA can put another plaque on the wall this year but in the future I think they are going to get more competition than from just KARE.

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