Challenging Your Comfort Zone - Ed Ou's Approach to Controversial Stories
Exploring the intersection of journalism and documentary filmmaking.
Rough Cut Podcast: Video Consortium
Ed Ou and Amanda Mustard as they reunite in this eye-opening episode about the transition from photo to video, the enduring principles of journalism ethics, and the challenges of sustaining a career in high-risk journalism. Amanda also discusses the release of her first feature-length documentary Great Photo, Lovely Life, a poignant HBO film about her journey to confront familial trauma.
Emmy Awards Acceptance Speech
The News Emmys Award for Outstanding Crime and Justice Coverage goes to "Get Away from the Target" - Rescuing Migrants from the Libyan Coast Guard. The documentary was filmed and directed by Ed Ou, produced by The Outlaw Ocean Project, edited by Will Miller and commissioned for The Guardian.
Deep Dive: “Trauma-informed Photography” with Diversify Photo
Featuring Tamara K. Knox, Ryan Christopher Jones, Ed Ou, and moderated by Salgu Wissmath
What is the space between the photographer and the person they’re photographing? How can we better acknowledge their struggles and their history? Trauma-informed photography is an opportunity to do better when working with people that have experienced trauma, and to acknowledge the emotional turmoil that can be drawn out in the photography process. In this conversation, we will cover practical approaches and aspirational practices when it comes to working better with the people we photograph.
Diversify Photo and Photoville present Deep Dive, a series of professional development workshops supported by Leica Camera! Photography and photojournalism are forever evolving, and we are here to examine and celebrate approaches that go beyond the surface. These panel discussions will cover the intricacies of long-term story creation; the strategies for working better with communities that have experienced trauma; and the methodology behind journalism that focuses on solutions, not just problems.
The Guardian wins its third Emmy for documentary ‘Get Away from the Target: Rescuing Migrants from the Libyan Coast Guard’
Get Away from the Target provides an inside view of a boat full of asylum seekers leaving Libya in search of a place to settle in Europe. It captures a high-stakes showdown between a ship, run by the non-profit organisation Doctors Without Borders, attempting to rescue and escort the migrant boat to safety, and the Libyan Coast Guard fighting to capture and send the asylum seekers to prison in Libya. It’s revealed how the European Union essentially outsources its border policy to the Libyan Coast Guard resulting in tensions and armed threats.
Flashpoint: Protests, Police, and the Press
“Flashpoint: Protests, Policing, and the Press” features first-hand accounts from journalists who were assaulted or arrested while reporting at protests. Some represent legacy media outlets. Many are freelancers building careers in an evolving media landscape. All were reporting on the conduct of demonstrators, counterdemonstrators and law enforcement when they were met with aggressive policing.
Their stories epitomize the conflict and tension experienced on the frontlines of protest, the changing look of the press, and the hardening of law enforcement’s attitudes toward journalists, especially journalists of color. “Flashpoint” sets the stage for a larger conversation about the need for reform.
“Flashpoint’s” genesis is a Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University report titled Covering Democracy: Protests, Police, and the Press, written by Joel Simon, director of the Journalism Protection Initiative at the Newmark Journalism School and a 2022-2023 visiting fellow at the Knight Institute. The report documents the police’s deliberate and aggressive targeting of journalists during demonstrations, examines the historical context and explores the challenges of determining who is a journalist in a media landscape transformed by technology.
A four-year investigation by The Outlaw Ocean Project looks at human rights and environmental crimes on Chinese fishing ships and in Chinese processing plants, and how they connect to the global seafood market. Here is a look behind the scenes of the reporting.
Seafood Superpower: Behind the Scenes
Pulitzer Center D.C. Environmental Film Festival Q&A
On March 26, 2024, the Pulitzer Center screened five short films by grantees in front of a full house at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown Washington, D.C. Since 2010, the Pulitzer Center has collaborated with the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital (DCEFF), a 10-day showcase of environmental filmmaking with screenings around the city.
On Assignment - From the duPont-Columbia Awards
Ed Ou is co-director of the duPont-Columbia award-winning documentary A Different Kind of Force — Policing Mental Illness. Ou joins host Lisa Cohen to talk about the process of creating a nuanced and intimate documentary that tackles two of the most fraught subjects in American life — police violence and mental illness.
Freedom of the Press Foundation and Field of Vision - Digital Security Guide
These guidelines are an effort to answer filmmakers' digital security concerns, and address the needs of different risk and skill levels.
We built this guide for people working in documentary film who need to overhaul their team’s digital security practice, or pick up advanced skills. It is not designed for sources, who encounter threats we don’t address in our recommendations and guides.
A Mental Health Symposium for Nonfiction Video Storytellers
Presented by the Video Consortium and supported by the Google News Initiative, the R.E.S.T. Summit (Resilience, Emotional and Digital Security, Trauma) is a collaborative week-long virtual symposium that explores the nature of resilience, safety, and trauma for those working in video journalism and documentary film.
The R.E.S.T. Summit will provide a safe, inclusive, and inspiring virtual space for nonfiction film and video storytellers to collectively lower their protective shields, be vulnerable, and find more balance while reporting on real-world events. Using a community-driven and grassroots approach, this summit is made by creators for creators—to dive into sensitive, often overlooked topics around mental health and safety.
The cost of covering protests after George Floyd’s death
Journalists were under attack during the protests after George Floyd’s death, including in the U.S. Canadian photojournalist Ed Ou describes his experience being in those protests using his own footage.
Teargassed, beaten up, arrested: what freedom of the press looks like in the US right now
As protests spread across the US, journalists are being attacked by police forces and even sustaining serious injuries.
Covering Democracy
Protests, Police, and the Press - Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
Police have too often attacked and harassed journalists reporting on public dissent. From the civil rights era to the present day, the right of journalists to cover protests and demonstrations in the United States has not been secure. The challenges have grown more acute in recent years as political polarization has deepened; trust between police and journalists has broken down; the public has lost faith in the media; and technology has transformed the newsgathering process.
Photo by Kerem Yücel
CJFE Speaking Truth to Power
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, in partnership with Committee to Protect Journalists, invites you to join CBC’s Adrienne Arsenault (@adriearsenault) in conversation with our panelists as they look back at the Trump era’s War on the Media and assess its lasting effects.
ACLU - Does What Happened to This Journalist at the US-Canada Border Herald a Darker Trend?
The recent abusive border search of a Canadian photojournalist should serve as a warning to everyone concerned about press freedom these days.
A Different Kind of Force - MSNBC
An NBC Left Field documentary focuses on the San Antonio Police Department’s unit of officers who are specifically trained to handle mental illness emergencies.The producer of the documentary, Ed Ou, and San Antonio Police Officer James Williams join Ali Velshi to discuss this growing problem.
The Kill List - Drug War In The Philippines OPC Awards Speech
Best international reporting in the broadcast media showing a concern for the human condition - with Aurora Almendral.
Committee to Protect Journalists - Mass Surveillance
Searches of phones, laptops, and other electronic devices without a warrant at the U.S. border more than tripled from 2015 to 2017. For journalists, this threatens sensitive information and confidential sources.
TED Talk - Giving a Voice To Young Revolutionaries
TED Fellow Ed Ou captures photographs in the heart of highly volatile political situations around the globe as a photojournalist. In this captivating talk, he discusses the generation of protesters that he aims to give a voice to.
TED Fellows
Whale Hunting: Tradition or Travesty?
Ed Ou and Elise Coker’s VICE documentary investigates the ethical and social complexities of whale hunting in the Faroe Islands.
TED Fellows
How Nunavut’s Inuit teens are dancing to endure a youth suicide epidemic
A conversation with filmmakers Ed Ou and Kitra Cahana on their film Dancing Towards the Light, documenting the resilience of a remote community in the face of post-colonial trauma.
World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass
During the Joop Swart Masterclass, Canadian participant Ed Ou discusses his photo story Dancing with the Dead and his ongoing project Escape from Somalia, which won a prize in the 2011 contest.