Send us that amazing shot you took, we may publish it on Salem-News.com, a news Website staffed by living people seven days a week. We're opening our doors to photos from our visitors.
(SALEM) - Sometimes people are in the right place at the right time with a camera, and they shoot a photograph or a clip of video that would just make your hair stand on end. Once this happens a few times, people start to get the hang of what works and what doesn't work in the wonderful world of image based reality.
When we created this Internet News Website, we knew that the possibilities were endless. As a lifetime journalist, I saw amazing opportunities for storytelling. That is after all, what it's all about. But we knew the committment had to be different. It needed to be less automated, and that's when we found a term that describes Salem-News.com very well; "High-Tech Simplicity."
Isn't that what technology should bring us, ease of operation? I'm not talking about dumbing something down, I'm saying use it for the betterment of people. Create it in a way that allows them to get where they want to go without any hassles.
Salem-News.com is designed by Site Creator Matt Lintz to be functional and comfortable. Every story can be found in our archives easily. You never ever need a credit card to look at a story, unlike our competition in town that never knows when to quit charging people for things, including news that is more than one week old.
Photo by: Tim KingMaybe I have been doing it for too long, but I see major importance in the quality of reporting and photography.
As corporate media wraps itself around their obsession with the ever important dollar, we keep getting better and better because we care about the right things. Practice does make perfect, and our team that never rests keeps gaining visitors, improving skills, and at the same time discovering the vast untapped new media field that we have more than joined up with, and are even defining on many levels.
The secret behind the success of it is the fact that we don't have a newspaper, TV or radio station that we skim some material from, while leaving other stories behind so they are "fresh" when the paper comes out. Sure guys, didn't help much when people already knew the story from Salem-News.com, the group that gets it out as fast as it comes in.
In the print and still photography arenas and the TV news world, we produce "Photo Essays". A more inside term for a television news photo essay is "natural sound package." A "Nat Sound Pack" is a fully produced story, usually a couple of minutes long, that has no narration.
This doesn't mean "slide show." That's when your grandpa gets out the projector and shows you "slides." It isn't a term used very frequently by journalists.
For a photojournalist, the photo essay is the most rewarding and challenging assignment, and the best opportunity for a personal delivery of their craft, with no reporter in the mix, only the person who shot the video and personally experienced the story.
The challenge is to gather not only the images that reflect the story, but also to conduct the interviews that will become the "Sound Bites" within the story, guiding the viewer along.
Lincoln City, Oregon '05- Photo by: Tim King
As a news photojournalist/reporter, I almost always write narration or "track" to guide the viewer, but I still love the nat sound pack as a delivery tool for the right story.
That's because a picture really can be worth a thousand words.
Here on the Internet, we find ourselves in between the electronic media and print worlds when it comes to telling stories and sharing visual information. The truth is, we can do both, and then some. Even better, we don't have the time or space constraints that traditional media deals with constantly; :08 sound bites, 1:00 stories, column inches, etc.
That's why Salem-News.com is taking Oregon by storm, and it also explains why the opportunities for people are broader here. We look forward to our interactions with the public, and we are interested in anything we can do to help people gain exposure. We have big plans, a lot of successes already under our belts, and we are proud to wear the title of New Media, the multi-media interactive answer to all of the world's news needs.
The truth is, Salem-News.com is already starting to pass the Statesman Journal in Web rankings. We understand some of their people have been spreading other information in the community, but the proof is in the pudding. There are Internet analyzer sites that tabulate rankings, and the paper can't totally hide its real data.
Don't get me wrong, they're still ahead of us on most days, the organization has existed for a century and a half, and us all of two years, but we are gaining serious momentum each month.
At this time on a Sunday night, September 17th at 11:00 PM, we have had 5188 unique visitors come to our site, 13231 stories were opened, and more than 152,000 hits were generated. Not bad for 23-hours.
Unlike most of our Internet competition, we are a live site, constantly staffed by a team of professionals. When a person leaves a comment, a real person approves it. When the editor responds to a comment, it is not machine generated.
And we don't make you register to leave a comment. Our stories are all posted on Google, and they stay on the Web forever.
Heceta Head Lighthouse- Photo by Kevin HaysOn Salem-News.com, a person can select the stories they want. With "On-Demand News" people again have choice. We also are heavily experienced TV producers, and the video stories we put out are on a level with anything produced in a large market TV newsroom.
Sadly, the newspaper is losing money increasingly, and adding a heavy load to their reporters, forcing them to shoot video with no experience behind them or proper training. It makes really good newspaper people look bad, and it could be the corporate mistake that breaks the camel's back.
The worst thing is that they are lowering the bar so far for their community. So if you hear a Statesman person put us down, know that they do it out of fear, and because the "small operation" that they like to apparently call us is coming up the track and like the Beach Boys used to say, the only thing they're going to see is our frenched tailights.
There are probably more people in Oregon today packing cameras than at any point in history. They have them in all shapes and sizes, and they even come in telephones.
South Oregon coast- Photo by: Tim KingWhich leads to the next point; that the ability to instantly view and email pictures has never been so broad, and it is growing by the day. Almost everybody has a digital camera, so the next time you use it and grab something really good, send it to us.
It could be an accident tying up the freeway that people need to know about, it could be a shot of a demonstration that we didn't have time to get to, or it might just be an image that will warm people's hearts.
We see many possible ideas related to this, including prize giveaways, contests, awards, maybe someday even scholarships to help young people become proficient in the art of photography.
Please email our newsroom with your ideas, or if you have photos that you would already like to see published: newsroom@salem-news.com
Please always include a name and a caption. Of course we don't publish nudity or obscenity, but we encourage creativity and beauty in photography. Once enough photos have arrived, we will start doing weekend photo spreads from the people of Oregon and beyond, who want their work to be seen by more than friends and family members. Too many good photographs go unseen by too many people, and we would like to have a hand in changing that dynamic.
The cover shot by the way, is my son Christian, photographed by Lela Taylor Sunday at Silver Falls State Park here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Apparently the conditions were just right with the plastic, weather, etcetera, to produce the perfect amount of static for his hair to rise in a way that could bring envy from Sid Vicious to the Bride of Frankenstein. Here comes Tim's media bias... "What a beautiful boy!"
This is an example of a photograph that we just had to show you, as well as the other photos included here. The information also seems essential to share, since we feel like anyone who comes to Salem-News.com regularly would also feel offended to learn that false things were being stated about us in the community.
There is a book that has been written about the Statesman's parent company Gannett, and their underhanded business practices. The book is called "The Chain Gang- One Newspaper versus the Gannett Empire" by author Richard McCord. It's about them taking out a small newspaper that they apparently felt was in the way. A large percentage of the story takes place right here in Salem. It is a good read, check this link: http://www.umsystem.edu/upress/fall2001/mccord.htm
What we are, is the only exclusively electronic news media in Salem, Oregon's capitol city, that pounds out the news and sports information for you seven days a week, sometimes non-stop, with real video stories, a fresh perspective, and technical simplicity. I had to say it again, it just sounds so good.
Salem-News.com is AliveSalem-News.com