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Best of Television Photojournalism 2005

TV News Photography Winners

Full coverage of the Best of Television Photojournalism 2004--including comments and streaming video of selected winners--are available from Poynter.org.

Follow the links on the category names below to read descriptions and judges' comments.

Judges' Comments

Gabriella Bruni

What an opportunity for me to judge the best among the best.

I was in a unique position, being a reporter judging the competition.

The dynamic among the judges was comfortable, so I readily offered my opinion on storytelling and content. This was a bit of a workshop for me, I hope to begin incorporating some of the principals and technique of NPPA in my own reporting.

To all the entrants, judges, and Poynter: Thanks for the inspiration!

Andre Jones

I saw a lot of the same old stories done the same old way. You don't have to approach the same story the same way. It also was sad to see that we had no Latino, Asian etc... representation on any of the hundreds of tapes I looked at. Their stories are just as important to tell. We must do a better job of going into unfamiliar territory. I'm also very concerned with staging. It's not OK to tell your subjects what to do. If Mary is not going to the store today don't tell her you need her to go for the story. Find out when she plans on going and do the story then. I saw sequences that couldn't have possible been done with one camera. I saw a book sliding underneath the camera perfectly in frame. This is TV news people we are not making movies. I think we need to watch how we use music in our stories. If you find yourself saying that you need music to help this story move then YOU are setting the mood. It is not your job to set the mood. Your job is to capture what happened NATURALLY, because it is what it is. Let the story be the story. Let the people tell their stories, because it's not our stories it's the peoples story we are just privilege to tell them. After all we are just an amplifier--a Voice for the voiceless.

Bill Masure

I just want to say how proud I am of the NPPA and the judges I worked with this past week. Keven Strehle ran a top-notch contest. He kept us focused not just on the techniques and styles of the stories but on the importance of ethics and appropriateness of the pieces as well. Bob Gould kept us organized and fed.

Andre Jones has some of the best ethics in the business. CNN should be extremely proud to have him on staff. "It is what it is."

Robert Nino has the biggest heart in the business. He really appreciates what photographers try to accomplish every day. He looks for the emotion in the stories and the effort that went into capturing it. His critiques of the spot news categories helped me remember how important it is to capture the important moments before they melt away.

Gabriella Bruni took vacation time to help us judge this week. Her fresh look at our profession from a reporter's viewpoint kept all of our egos in check. She is an up-and-coming reporter who will definitely shake things up on the east coast.

Rob Macey and Todd Parks are great shooters who have seen it all. They know what makes good daily news even though they now answer to clients in the freelance world.

Nearly every day we worked from 9:30 in the morning until just about midnight. Our debates lasted for hours, and I learned something from every one of them.

I want to thank the judges for their professionalism and friendship. I hope we keep in touch.

Lastly I want to thank everyone who entered this contest. Know that we gave each tape a fair and objective look. The quality of the winners is exceptional. You have inspired me to strive toward doing my best every day, on every story. I also appreciated the help of the Poynter Institute. Their ethical and creative standards rubbed off on all of us here. I really feel our decisions reflected those important standards.

It's been a long and wonderful week. We are all a little tired, but extremely proud of our work.

Robert Nino

Wow! This has truly been a memorable experience. I am truly proud of the panel's efforts and decisions. While we all brought different perspectives to the judging we all listened to everyone's opinions. An important consideration all week was the value and newsworthiness of the stories to different markets. The judges:

• Bill Masure chose his words carefully, making strong points with an even voice.
• Rob Macey made sure we noticed the flair in each story.
• Andre Jones is a passionate man for the truth...staging was not going to happen if he had any say.
• Todd Parks noticed the efforts and payoff, never allowing style over substance.
• Gabi Bruni reminded us all to take a fresh look at every story.

My observation and message to NPPA members is to enter the National contest as passionately as the Quarterly clip contest. Often we viewed stories a part of the team entries we wished had been in the individual categories. Especially in the spot, deadline, and general news categories. There could have been some different winners. An impression I had in the past was that features had precedent over issue stories; this is changing along with the industry.