images

[jaguar]

It seems to me, as times goes on that if any one thing chance affect public opinion it's pictures. Whether it be the mutilated bodies of children in warzones, the recent topic of caskets, the suffering of people, the emotion and the gravity is best portrayed by pictures. It also seems to me that most news agencies are very light on images.

What I'm wondering is is whether people here feel there would be a demand, or an interest in a news service geared towards images, lots of images, a kind of online life magazine of sorts, back in it's once-a-week heyday. Judging by the interest in photo galleries from Iraq in particular it seems to me there is such a demand, what do other people think?

It's an idea I've had floating around for a fair while but as the chance of me heading off to such places increases I'm wondering if such a service would attract much attention.

[wolf]

While I like images, still and video, I primarily go for printed news sources, whether on paper or electrons.

Unlike many of today's generation (yourself excluded) I find reading to be a pleasure rather than a chore.

The images enhance that, but do not replace it. You would still need to have a fair bit of narrative content ... after all, images without context are often pretty, but the meaning is unclear. Unless, of course, the intent is to allow the images to speak for themselves.

(The images standing alone has kind of a Fahrenheit 451 feel to it though ... banishment of the printed word makes people more easily manipulable.)

[xoxoxoBruce]

With all the print stories available, a couple of pictures puts it in perspective.

[lumberjim]

using the formula 1 image = 1000 words, i think captions would be sufficient. maybe with links to related stories....that reminds me of something.......oh yeah! the image of the day on the cellar!

if it was a site unto itself....and gauging by how many of us got here through that door, i'd say that the IOTD would survive even without the cellar to support it.

is that the kind of thing you're thinking aboot, jag? or would it be just pages of relevant photos?

[jaguar]

Extended articles, page or two of text, around 50 or so images. Context and background but if the focus more visual than most.

[lumberjim]

yeah.....sounds good

[jaguar]

Well I'm tossing up where to head at the moment, iraq is probably still the most likely, the occupied parts of Isreal are second and a tour of cambodia is third. It'll be a bit of an experiment but if it seems to do fairly well I'll see about turning it into something.

[Undertoad]

Offhand: looking at these thngs for so long for IotD

Most people still face a certain amount of bandwidth woe (60% still using modems in the US?) and won't care to go through to many large, detailed images unless there's something really compelling behind them.

What's supposed to be compelling, in journalism, is the big picture story, the insightful narrative, told in an interesting way or at least as well as possible. (What we get instead is a few lines of facts churned out of whatever rumor's going around, framed by a few lines of total conjecture about what it all means. With a stand-up done near where the actual event occurred, to suggest that maybe some actual reporting and discovery of fact was actually done, and the words weren't simply fed back to the on-site reporter from the central office.)

Can there be that many truly compelling images shot in a week? That tell us something fresh that we didn't know before? That tell a better or different story than the AP/AFP/Reuters photographers are shooting?

[jaguar]

Not so much a breaking news thing as an in depth thing, try to capture a situation, a world, in depth. Better/Different than reuters? Yea I think so. Too different for comparison, breaking headlines isn't the aim here, giving people a better idea of a situation is the aim. I think it's possible to put together a compelling photojournal of something.

Take Iraq for example, I find the DIRs of images that soldiers and their buddies have uploaded to be the most interesting and the most telling stuff I've seen about the war, bar none, does anyone else feel this way?

Bandwidth is another issue, I'm hacking up a couple of different ideas about how this kind of thing would be done at the moment, different levels of bandwidth willl be taken into account.

[wolf]

Not to appear pessimistic ... but if this were profitable, the big guys would be doing it already.

[jaguar]

profit isn't a big concern for a fair while. the other factor is that lets face it, most media isn't very innovative, I know of only one online-only media outlet, Salon, and they're surviving now.

[wolf]

You do have a entry point in that most online media outlets are just online editions of what is already done offline. If you could find some way to be truly innovative about the delivery of content, that could be VERY, very cool.

[jaguar]

If you could find some way to be truly innovative about the delivery of content, that could be VERY, very cool.

Harness the medium, put the technology to work, see what's possible. I never aim low

I feel that old media has failed to innovate and online media has had a few successes (Salon being the most noteable IMHO) but overall still feels very immature, I like those kind of gaps. In the end the cost for me to try it out isn't that much, it's mostly time and hell, I'm young.

[Undertoad]

Y'know, yeah, those are the best pictures, but taking it a step further, like the blogs, they're more compelling because they tell an unfiltered story. You KNOW they're real, not someone trying to sell you their take on it or Photoshopping for image or substance.

[jaguar]

Then the question becomes whether you can keep that feeling when you're putting a professional edge on it. I don't know the answer to that, my feeling is that it depends on the presentation.