Nokia Project

When we think of ‘citizen journalists’ we think of the shocking video out of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, or the cell phone video from Saddam Hussein’s execution. We do not think of someone shooting video of pot holes on local streets (See above video!). The brilliance of ‘citizen journalism’ is that it catches the unexpected. The downfall of it is that it isn’t sufficient for reliable coverage.

Television stations can not be everywhere at a moments notice, which is what makes ‘citizen journalism’ so valuable in some situations. One thing I have learned in the news business is to “expect the unexpected.” The problem is that we can not always be at the unexpected by simply snapping our fingers. “Citizen journalists’ can be anywhere at a given moment, like at a local fire last year, which provides us with astonishing pictures that would otherwise never be seen.

Although ‘citizen journalists’ can sometimes bring us the most compelling footage, it is always associated with a compelling or historic story. When it comes to telling the story of sub-par streets in Lawrence, people will not accept the above footage on the news. ‘Citizen Journalism’ is only as good as the phenomenon that it covers.

After my news shift this Friday I met with Patrick who set me up with a sweet $500 Nokia N73 to film my citizen journalism assignment. I asked for little instruction with the device and encountered my first bit of trouble when I couldn't even figure out how to turn it on. (A quick phone call remedied that situation.) After I finally got the thing turned on, I experimented with it by filming my dog, fish, and roommates. Having a firm grasp on the capabilities of this gadget I proceeded to carry it with me the entire weekend waiting for inspiration to strike.

Inspiration didn't strike until Sunday when I realized I needed to record SOMETHING in order to get the project done. Then I remembered something in Lawrence that really irked me. Traffic signals. More specifically the traffic signals at the intersections of 9th and Vermont St. and 8th and Vermont St. The two are never synchronized, and the first driver in line can never make the green light at 8th St. when heading north and going the 20mph speed limit.

I had the idea to highlight this problem for my first vlog, but quickly realized the large GL camera were not designed to be operated while driving. But the Nokia N73 on the other hand...

The camera phone worked out exactly how I had hoped. It was easy for me to operate while driving, and was portable enough for me to do everything "on the spot" without the need of a tripod or microphone. You can judge the quality of the film yourself.

The only problem I have with the phone was the difficulty of downloading the media. The video files are saved at a tiny aspect ratio, and when I imported them into FInal Cut I couldn't increase the size. I ended up having to use iMovie, a program I had touched before.

It is possible that these phones will have a place in the future of journalism. I think I have proved they can be used by real people to bring light to a problem, no matter how small, that effects citizens. The only downside is the compatibility of the phone with current technology, something I'm sure will give newsroom directors many headaches.

It's easy to dismiss the camera phone if you focus on the visual quality of the image. This is very often the argument against their use in the newsroom, as you know if you've been reading the posts on this page (and you should be). But quality is a nebulous term. The footage to the left is not what I would call good "quality", but what it captures is priceless to me.

You see, I have pursued the "paper car" seen in the video for months and, until today, it eluded my photographic grasp. The car would be there, but I didn't have a camera phone. A friend would see the car, but again, no camera. Once, it was spotted in the computer center lot and and a call came to the newsroom to run out with a camera. By the time we got there, it was too late. "Moby blue" scooted away, just out of my grasp.

What made the difference today? My new Motorola SLVR. No, this isn't an ad for the SLVR. In fact, looking at the image quality it provides might make you run into the open arms of Nokia's N-series phones (full disclosure: we are working with Nokia on uses for the N-series, in case you missed that). Nevertheless, because my new phone has a VGA (ugh!) camera in it, I can now share the glory that is the "paper car" with the rest of the world. That is what I call a "quality" catch!

The white whale, from behind.
View from the front
Photo: Patrick Lafferty, with a Motorola SLVR

Who drives this vehicle? Why do they keep so much paper in it? Is it, in fact, hard to drive over speed bumps due to the low-riderish, compressed suspension?

These are all questions that a citizen journalist could answer by staking out the car and talking with the owner. Let's face it, a reporter isn't going to cover this story. Me? I had to get back to the newsroom to show off my catch to all of you. This must be that pesky lack of time so many have written about interfering with the citizen journalist.

So let me ask you, the viewer, is it worth-while to see this absurd vehicle in the diminished visual quality I have provided or would you prefer that I just verbally describe such a sight to you? Let me know in the comments.

The video to the right is one of three source videos I used to create this train wreck. I was trying to cover/review a new video game, Supreme Commander. The idea needed three separate shots. I might have set myself up for failure though, as I decided that I was only going to allow myself one shot at everything, no re-dos. The plan was to:

• Shoot 30 second clip of buying Supreme Commander (filming with a Samsung A920 phone – maximum 30 second clips)
• Shoot 10 second interview with another customer also buying SC
• Shoot 30 seconds worth of action scenes from game while talking over them with a short review
• Convert from phone video format (.3g2) to .wmv to edit in Windows Movie Maker
• Glue the shots together in WMM (crude but good description in link)
• Convert from .wmv to .mov for the blog
• End up with 1 minute 10 second clip

Lessons learned:

1. Use better conversion/editing tools.
2. .3g2 format seems to play just fine unconverted, but it's small at 176x144.
3. Faces look better than computer screenshots with my phone camera (video doesn’t show this, but I learned it).
4. I pity the fool who would have to manage content like this.

There’s a classic scene in Swingers: Mikey (Jon Favreau), after careful drunken consideration, calls up a girl he just met at the bar that night. He leaves a perfectly acceptable message on her answering machine with one problem – he wasn’t able to give the last number of his phone number before getting cut off. He calls back to give the last digit, then falls into the same trap again. Over the next few minutes, he hilariously and painfully descends into a downward spiral of incoherent babble, frustrated by the limitations of the technology at hand.

Eleven years later and the basic storyline remains the same. I have a RAZR phone, which had generally satisfied my expectations. Then I tried using it to play “citizen journalist” this week, and it was an absolute train wreck.

The quality of the video is strikingly poor with limited zoom capabilities. The worst part is that it only shoots in fifteen second increments. You want to interview someone? Good luck trying to fit a complete question and answer in fifteen seconds. And then you are prompted to “save” or “delete” the clip before you can record another one, which disrupts any natural flow to the interview.

“Gee thanks for those eight gorgeous seconds of insight, sir…hang on just a sec while I save this file to the video gallery, select a file name, get back to the main menu and then choose to create a new ‘flix”--

The Swingers scenario is 11 years old now, and nifty advances like Caller ID have sort of solved the problem. In a few more years, it’s a pretty safe bet that prices will go down and technology will improve for video phones, and citizen journalists around the globe will begin to reap the benefits. Until then--for the vast majority of people who don’t feel like dropping half a dozen C Notes on a mobile phone—we’ll just have to settle for abysmal production value, fifteen grainy seconds at a time.

Click to enlarge.
Photo by: Beth Breitenstein

Lightning always looks cool on tape, especially when shown in slow motion. So, umbrella in hand, I sat outside and waited for that lightining strike to occur, hoping its destination wouldn't be on my head. I held the phone up to record right as a PERFECT strike came. As I pulled my phone down to try to save what I recorded, my RAZR showed a fuzzy screen and said it could not store the footage. Noooooooooooooooooo! Right as the PERFECT storm came, my phone decided it was the PERFECT time to no longer shoot video.

Now, in the real news world, this wouldn't happen. Instead of relying on a 3 inch long Motorola RAZR to shoot something amazing in 15 second intervals, the reporter would have an expensive hi tech, GOOD QUALITY, camcorder.

While my venture in the citizen journalism realm was unsuccesful due to a "technical difficulty", I still do not know how I would have gotten my video off of my cell phone, and onto a computer. According to the Motorola RAZR manual, I hit "copy", and then hook up a "Device" to transfer it. While I consider myself to be somewhat technically saavy, this is unknown territory to me. I can export a video from a DV camera, but not from a cell phone.

What this venture into the citizen journalism world has taught me is that we can't rely on citizen journalists alone. We can't rely on cell phones, and we certainly cannot just hand out dv cameras to everyone to catch the news. Who knows, there may be people out there with great video, but they just don't know how to transfer it to a computer. There also may be citizen journalists out there that missed a key news moment because of a faulty phone.

So, hopefully, lightning will strike for some other citizen journalist out there, but it just isn't gonna happen for me.

I am a college student, which means I am broke. I buy the cheapest items, and when I can get something free, I do.

So, when I went to get a new phone, I naturally wanted the cheapest one. As of right now cheap cell phones don’t equal video camera capabilities. Shucks. How am I going to become a talented citizen journalist without one, though?

Wait, people aren’t thinking about citizen journalism when they purchase their cell phones. They are thinking about how cool it will be to get incriminating video of their drunken friends. In non-college student cases, they might be excited about video of their kids or grandkids.

Why aren’t they thinking about citizen journalism? Because news doesn’t gather itself up and drop at your feet.

I can walk around all week looking for news and end up with the same video shown here.

If I am lucky, I can catch one of the million false fire alarms on campus to report – like anyone cares to watch several of those on a daily basis.

Citizen journalism takes place during emergencies, natural or otherwise, that affect mass amount of people. Citizen journalists add to the rich, personal view point of mass media news.

But, last time I checked, massive disasters don’t happen on a regular daily basis, at least not in Lawrence, Kan.

When a microburst hit the town in the spring of 2006, The Lawrence Journal-World posted citizen journalists' photos online. People wanted to see the extent of the destruction. The amount of photos by a variety of people rolled in to display just how extensive the damage was around town.

Citizen journalism helped enrich the coverage, but it didn't replace it. Citizen journalism alone wouldn't have done justice.

Good citizen journalism equals large scale destruction. Not the day to day life.

After all, I tried finding news on a simple day-to-day time frame.

Until Armageddon hits, citizen journalists can stick to helping erich coverage of large scale disasters.

Be sure to check out a smattering of coverage by Nick Nelson, master of technical difficulties, shot with the Nokia N73.