- Citizen Video for Journalists: A New Blog Series Citizen video takes journalists to inaccesible corners of the world, putting viewers on the scene long before news crews. In this bi-weekly series, news innovators explore tools, strategies, and ethics of using citizen video to report the news.
- Land rights violations in India meet continued resistance In the dark hours of the night, police forcefully entered two Indian villages, in the name of "development". 6 people were seriously injured; 50 were arbitrarily detained; and 1 was arrested. Here's what we can do.
- Dear Mandela: Putting a Documentary to Work Impact does not happen in a straight line: you make the film, show it, and things change. We spent four years shooting Dear Mandela, but it wasn't until we finished that we fully understood where our audience would be.
- New Laws Threaten To Restrict Filming of Police Actions Worldwide Social upheaval is surging through the world--protests against economic protests rock Europe, protests against politics boil in the Middle East. Governments are responding with new laws to suppress citizens' right to film police. Will they succeed?
- InformaCam Rises to the Knight News Challenge The same information that journalists and judges use to verify a human rights video is what repressive regimes use to identify and target activists. How can video activists stay credible and safe? ...with InformaCam.
- Using a Film to Nail a Dictator Efrain Ríos Montt is going to trial. The brutal Guatemalan dictator is the first head of state to be prosecuted for genocide in genuine proceedings in his own country. And my video evidence helped send him there. By Guest Blogger Pamela Yates
- How To Make a Trustworthy Video Video activists risk everything to film human rights violations. But unverified footage can't stand in newsrooms or courtrooms, so their efforts may be in vain. How can activists prevent that? Archivist Yvonne Ng explains a few simple steps they can take.
- Watching, Documenting, or Participating: A Documentarian’s Ethical Dilemmas When is it okay to watch? When is it okay to shout with the crowd? Filmmaker Chris Kelly explains his bright line between observing and participating. Do you agree? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
- Video Advocacy at a Crossroads: 2012’s Dangers & 2013’s Solutions Video is increasingly at the nexus of opportunity and danger for human rights activists. Video helps activists to document, confront, circumvent, and lobby against oppressive authorities—but it also allows those authorities to stalk them. Here's what we think will happen in 2013.
- Untold Stories from the Conflict in Mali As citizen video becomes a critical tool in monitoring international political and humanitarian crises, its absence is all the more striking. In northern Mali, limitations on digital communications means a virtual “black hole” for human rights violations.
- Workers’ Rights = Human Rights: Documenting the American Workforce The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) prioritizes members' voices when creating original videos that are geared toward advocacy, member engagement and communication, and awareness among potential members. Are these lessons applicable to advocacy in other areas of human rights?
- Is This For Real? How InformaCam Improves Verification of Mobile Media Files There is currently a deluge of media coming from the world’s mobile devices for potential use as evidence or trusted sources for journalists. WITNESS and the Guardian Project are working to provide a mechanism, InformaCam, to verify and authenticate this footage.
- A Big Year For WITNESS A changing world needs a changed vision: committing to support the millions who can transform the human rights landscape with video.
- Can Video Document Possible War Crimes In Syria? Amid a rising tide of citizen videos worldwide, there's a torrent of Syrian citizen journalism. Christoph Koettl, Emergency Response Manager at Amnesty International USA, discusses the potential--and the potential pitfalls. What power does a Syrian cell phone video have, for justice and deception?
- Ethical Storysharing: My Words, Not My Story If your story isn't yours, what is? Ethical storysharing advocate Aspen Baker tells how her personal abortion story was used to fit someone else's narrative. What are our obligations as advocates, as filmmakers, as editors -- as storysharers?