Innovative Individuals

Innovative Individuals: Deborah Bonello

This post is also available in: Spanish

Back in the summer of 2007 when I was first being introduced to blogging at the Poynter Summer Fellowship, Deborah Bonello set off to Mexico with the plans of using blogging software as her sole means of publishing journalistic content to the world. No overhead, no financial support, no team.

This small initiative – MexicoReporter.com – turned into “one of the top ten most innovative journalism sites on the internet” according to Press Gazette, and garnered her a full-time gig producing videos for LA Times as their Mexico correspondent.

Now at Financial Times in London, Deborah has launched her second blogging initiative known as The Video Reporter. We are pleased to feature Deborah as this week’s “Innovative Individual” for her creative and entrepreneurial stance to multimedia storytelling.

To keep up with Deborah, check out her videos on Blip.tv, follow her on Twitter, and check her out on LinkedIn.

Q) How do you drive innovation in your work?

A) A lot of my work involves old, traditional journalistic skills such as interviewing and documenting, so there was nothing very innovative about that. I guess what WAS innovative about MexicoReporter.com at the time that I started it back in 2007 (but no longer is as now lots of people do it) was the fact that I used blogging software to publish original journalistic content, and treated it like an online newspaper – for me, the concept of ‘blogging’ was a means of content delivery, not an editorial tone.

I wanted to experiment using free tools such as online video sharing sites, social networks and blogging software to create quality content from abroad for an English speaking audience, and try and push the foreign correspondent model further. I wanted to see how using free means of distribution, cutting out overheads and other costs, could dramatically reduce the cost of running an editorial operation. As I saw more and more newspapers and broadcasters cutting their foreign reporters, I wanted to create an editorial product that could service all of those outlets, so MR.com had to be multimedia. In a way I succeeded, and the blog caught the eye of one of the Mexico-based correspondents in Mexico at the time. Reed Johnson, a wonderful man, took me on to help with video and the bureau chief at the time, Hector Tobar, eventually gave me a fulltime job.

At the time, making some steady money was a priority, but the longer I worked on MexicoReporter.com, the more I recognized its potential as a standalone model that doesn’t necessarily need the backing of an existing media giant. What it does need is more resources, and that is where I hit an obstacle. But I still sincerely believe that models like MR.com is what at least some of the future of foreign reporting will look like.

Q) What piece in your portfolio are you most proud of and why?

A) Although I covered a lot of arts and culture stories when I was in Mexico, the pieces I am proudest of was this piece about the plight of Central American migrants in Mexico, and this one about the dangers that a lot of Mexico journalists face reporting on organized crime and drug violence there.

I was proud of the first because I think there is a deep hypocrisy in the way that Mexican’s protest the treatment of their undocumented nationals in the US, contrasted with how they treat Central American migrants passing through Mexico on their way to the US, and although I have seen significant lobbying from the Amnesty Internationals of this world, I think it’s people like Paty Camarena, who I focus on in the film, who really make a difference to these people’s lives.

I was proud of the second piece because I felt the coverage of violence against journalists in Mexico was repetitive, and I liked this angle on the story, with journalists being put through their survival paces.

At heart, I am more of a journalist than a multimedia innovator, but always try to innovate in the ways I tell stories.

Q) Please provide a brief educational and professional history.

A) I studied sociology at the University of Bristol and did a lot of writing for my student newspaper. Then I went straight to London after getting offered a job reporting on an online media news website called Mediatel. Then I got Mike Butcher, the then editor of New Media Age in the UK and a co-founder of MexicoReporter.com, to give me a job as a print reporter where I covered the dot com goldrush. From NMA I went to Campaign, and after a year went freelance and wrote for the media trade press until 2005, during which time I was covering the development of new media and how traditional media owners were coping with the arrival of the internet.

But I longed to be a foreign reporter, so went off to Buenos Aires for a year, without a website, and wrote some pieces for the BBC and the Guardian, but I came back frustrated to London. Buenos Aires was all sewn up in terms of reporters – there wasn’t that much work going.

After watching Lindsey Hilsum give a talk at the Frontline Club in London’s Paddington, I decided to give the foreign reporting another go. I chose Mexico this time, and with the help and backing of Mike Butcher, now editor of TechCrunch Europe, who tooled me up with lots of gadgets and helped me launch newcorrespondent.com, which eventually became MexicoReporter.com, off I went again, armed with a crappy laptop, video camera, digital voice recorder, dslr and so on. As I mentioned above, I started filing to the website as soon as I got to Mexico, creating a portfolio of work and treating it as a daily deadline. After six months in Mexico City I started freelancing for the Los Angeles Times bureau, and eventually got taken on fulltime. At the time, the LAT were going big on video and I got lucky – they flew me to LA twice for some great video training with the then director of video Scott Anger and his training aid Tim French. After a year or so though, the LAT took its foot off the pedal with video and a job came up in London with the FT. I applied to see if I’d get an interview based on my work – I got two, then a flight to London and a job offer, which is where I’m at now.

Q) Where do you believe multimedia fits into today’s society and how will that role change over time?

A) I can only really talk about journalism, but I think multimedia gives us a plethora of new and compelling ways to tell stories, and offers us the chance to do so with a very low cost of distribution thanks to the web. I don’t know where foreign reporting is heading as budgets continue to be slashed and we all continue to scratch our heads for a new business model, but I do know that multimedia models will be central to it.

Q) Whose work do you admire?

A) I admire lots of the traditional old greats – Martha Gellhorn, Henri Cartier Bresson, Michael Herr as well as today’s greats – Robert Fisk, Jon Snow, Alma Guillermo Prieto and Lindsey Hilsum.

But I have plenty of contemporaries who I also admire – Mike Butcher, for having made a success out of niche publishing, Scott Anger from the Los Angeles Times, for having made the jump from TV to video, which is really brave, Tim French for teaching me how to shoot and being such a wonderful film geek, Graham Holliday, founder of KigaliWire.com, for just getting out there and getting on with it, Adam Westbrook, for being such an evangelist of new media, as well as Philip Bloom and his DSLR filmmaker massive, which I think is going to be very big. I also really admire the people at the Frontline Club London, who keep finding and making great journalism and continuing to keep the conversation growing and moving despite the doom and gloom atmosphere in the industry. I think anyone who’s forward thinking, entrepreneurial, hardworking and persistent has a bright future in journalism, no matter what the doomsayers say.

Q) Where do you find inspiration for your ideas?

A) From every walk of life – film, novels, conversations with friends, and observations of interactions between people, sad and joyful events, the media…… MR.com was a combination of old principles with new delivery systems – but it wasn’t reinventing the wheel.

Q) What specific resources do you recommend for A) beginners, B) novices and C) experts to improve their skills in multimedia production?

A) Beginners: If you don’t have a website yet, you should do. WordPress is in, my opinion, the best free blogging software. And don’t call it your name – call it something innovative and editorial. Learn how to shoot video and photos as well as write, and don’t be afraid to fail. Read and watch and listen to great journalism, because no matter the media, the story-telling skills are the same. Being able to use the gear is useless if you’ve no idea of journalistic skills and practices and ethics.

Novices: Same as above. But you can never know enough so don’t be too confident. Humility is key, and with it, you never end up looking stupid. But don’t be afraid to fail – you still learn along the way and won’t make the same mistake twice.

Experts: Watch as much journalism as you can, in all media, as well as watch your favorite films again to see what camera angles you like and why and to give you production ideas. Network whenever you can and always touch base with people after you meet them. Use the free new and old media tools at your disposal, and there’s not limit.

And to people at all levels, having an entrepreneurial streak is key – it’s not enough to make journalism, you have to watch how its being distributed, what and how people are paying for it, and what models people are developing out there.

Q) What is one thing on your “To-Do” list?

A) Make independent foreign reporting, the likes of MR.com, into a functioning, self-sustaining, global operation. Not much then….

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Want to nominate a deserving colleague, friend or inspirational figure to be highlighted in this series? Confidential nominations can be emailed to innovativeinteractivity@gmail.com on an ongoing basis. Self nominations are also welcome. A person will be featured every Friday, so look for the next “innovative individual” Friday, June 11th!

Other posts that might interest you:

• Innovative Individuals: Gustavo Sierra
• Innovative Individuals: Ehrin Macksey
• Innovative Individuals: Richard Koci Hernandez

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