We Media Game Changers Awards

We Media has posted the finalists for their 2009 Game Changers Awards. These awards are given to "people, projects, ideas and organizations leading change and inspiring a better world through media."  Awards are based on seven categories: Story, Design, Social Impact, Pattern Change, Purpose, Community, Sustainability. MediaStorm is thrilled to be in the running for the finalists- both for MediaStorm.org, and for Bearing Witness, a project we collaborated on with Reuters for the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq.  There are 33 other finalists, and there are some really fantastic projects/sites in there- it's well worth spending some time going through this list. Visitors can go through and rate each of the nominees- there's no official "vote", but a Community Choice award will be given out based on the ratings along with the awards from the official judges.  Check it out.

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MediaStorm publishes Intended Consequences

Intended Consequences by Jonathan Torgovnik During the 1994 genocide, Rwandan women were subjected to massive sexual violence, perpetrated by members of the infamous Hutu militia groups known as the Interahamwe. Among the survivors, those who are most isolated are the women who have borne children as a result of being raped. Their families have rejected both them and their children, compounding their already unimaginable emotional distress. An estimated 20,000 children were conceived during the genocide in Rwanda, and many of their mothers contracted HIV during the same encounters that left them pregnant. They feel they have lost their dignity, are alone and utterly powerless. Intended Consequences chronicles the lives of these women. Their narratives are embodied in portrait photographs, interviews and oral reflections.

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MediaStorm produces ‘Crisis Guide: Climate Change’ for Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations and MediaStorm have collaborated to produce Crisis Guide: Climate Change. This new CFR.org Crisis Guide looks at the known effects of climate change, the diplomatic dilemmas, the relevant technologies and policy options, and the diverse perspectives on the problem. Crisis Guides, CFR.org’s interactive, award-winning franchise, seek to bring context and historical perspective to the world’s most complex issues. This is the fourth in a series of Crisis Guides.  Crisis Guide: Darfur recently won an Emmy Award for Current News Coverage.   

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Why it’s worth it to buy decent gear

We get questions almost daily from people interested in shooting/producing multimedia projects, wondering what they need to buy to do it well.  We have a suggested gear list on our website, but a lot of people come back with, "Wow, that all costs a lot.  What are some good, cheap options?"  MediaStorm Producer Bob Sacha offers his thoughts on why it really is worth it to go all in: Everyone wants to buy the smallest lightest video camera because we’re already carrying a lot of gear. But be careful not to short change yourself. Most of the palm-sized video cameras make it difficult or impossible to access basic controls like ISO and Gain and most do not allow an external microphone. For the still photographer, this is the equivalent of not being able to adjust your ISO (gain) and having to hunt three levels down in a menu to change the white…

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October Digital Journalist Online

The October 2008 Issue of The Digital Journalist is now online. Along with the usual columns, there are two features this month: "As we head into the final days of the American presidential election, we present two galleries by probably the best photographers who have been covering this race. Both have spent the better part of the last two years with their candidates, and offer us remarkable access to those behind-the-scenes moments. Stephen Crowley of The New York Times has been covering the John McCain campaign, while Callie Shell has been covering the Obama campaign for Time magazine. They give us remarkable "inside" images of these campaigns."

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