Ever the outspoken Solo Video Journalism detractor, Stewart Pittman aka “Lenslinger“, has put his spin over on NewsVideographer about the difficulties that many shooters are beginning to experience working as solo video journalists.
He and I don’t see eye to eye on much and even though I respect the amount of time he has invested as a broadcast professional, I regard the closed nature of the business as something that needs to come burning down to the ground to coin Michael Rosenblum.
Stewart was pontificating his point of view on what Pete Liebengood, president of the VJ training company OnQCo said while at the RTNDA convention. Pete is quoted as saying “that the “spiraling” VJ movement has both an upside and a downside.” Stewart of course used his typical sarcastic tone to respond in a way that has become his signature trademark for those who see things differently from him on this issue.
Pete is the person I initially turned to for online training for the basics of developing my skills as a Solo Video Journalist. Of course Stuart portrays the notion of solo vj’ism as a complicated profession that requires alot of training. Although I do believe there needs to be proper training into the profession, how he equates it smacks of elitism.
From my personal experience, OnQCo provided me with the foundational elements I needed to have to begin discovering - through trial and error - what works and what doesn’t when shooting any form of short form documentary or video journalism project. Pete Liebengood not only provided constructive critiques of my first attempts, but he did so in a way that didn’t leave me feeling demoralized and dejected. I don’t buy into the idea that someone you show your work to should be given Carte Blanche at destroying your tenuous self esteem as you step into any form of creative endeavor.
I’ve had my fair share of arrogant asses who needed to feed their egos to portray themselves as someone who was greater than those who came seeking mentorship. And from the quality of work I’ve seen coming from the so called professional broadcast journalists these days, they have nothing to boast about.
Stuart stated that my “…wholesale derision for ALL broadcast news renders your message hollow. Switch to decaf.”
For the record Stewart - I haven’t had coffee in months, choosing to drink herbal tea and practice yoga.
Many times I have stated that my work is evolving - learning as I go, but having spent time with creative professionals in the realm of photojournalism and commercial/editorial photography, I have been exposed to material that is technically and visually superior to many shooters work. Once you are exposed to the real thing, you aspire to reach that level of professionalism - and know good work from inferior work. So far, nothing I have seen coming from broadcast news has given me reason to aspire to what is being produced by broadcast journalism as it now stands - instead, it has been the work of shooters like Travis Fox of The Washington Post (A newspaper video journalist), whose work has inspired me to work harder to reach that level of expertise and creative vision.
With regards to my responding to Lenslinger trying to make an inflammatory debate commence, I chose to let things not be egoically driven and as such, Stewart, I feel my response was to the point without making derogatory remarks about you personally:
“I deride ONLY what I have seen up to this point - prove me wrong. So far no one has done so.”
