Project: Report screening and reception in Washington D.C.

For all of you in the DC area next week, we invite you to join YouTube and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting for a special Project: Report film screening and reception at George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs.

The five grand prize finalists of Project: Report, YouTube's contest for aspiring journalists, will be in attendance to show their winning videos and talk about their work.

For any student journalists, this is a great opportunity to talk with YouTube and Pulitzer Center representatives, and learn more about upcoming Pulitzer Center opportunities.

Here are the details:

Telling the Untold Stories

Monday, May 10

6:00 pm (reception to follow) 

Free admission

The George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs

Jack Morton Auditorium

805 21st Street NW  Washington, DC

Nearest Metro: Foggy Bottom/Orange or Blue Lines

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RSVP is appreciated: rsvp@pulitzercenter.org

Five YouTube Reporters win $10,000 journalism grants from Project: Report

They documented college dining hall workers, teens struggling with cancer, and doctors treating the poor. Through Project: Report, a journalism contest produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, aspiring journalists from around the country had the chance to tell stories that might not otherwise be told. And after months of reporting, shooting, and editing, the five grand prize winning reporters impressed the panel of judges and the voting community, and we’re showcasing their videos on the YouTube homepage today. Each winner will receive a $10,000 grant from the Pulitzer Center to report on an under-reported story outside of the United States. Mark Jeevaratnam chose to tell the story of a group addressing prescription drug abuse in an Appalachian coal-mining town in southeast Kentucky: 

 


Paul Franz follows the story of Joseph Dieune, a Haitian migrant worker who sends money to his family back home:  


 


Samantha Danis explored the challenges facing the deaf community in America:  


 


Alex Rozier reported on an organization in Missouri trying to help the world’s immobile people: 


 


And Elan Gepner documented how the Philadelphia Student Union is trying to combat violence through community-building efforts:  


 


The Pulitzer Center also selected "Friends of Mago" as the winner of the Round 2 “Open Submission” Award, and the Project: Report community chose A Day in the Life -- the story of Lauren Edens -- to win the Community Award. Both receive a Sony VAIO notebook with the all new Intel Core Processor and promotion on the YouTube homepage today. Visit the Project: Report channel (http://youtube.com/projectreport) to watch all of the submissions as well as the video blogs posted by each of the semi-finalists. We hope their work inspires you to think about ways you can use your video camera and YouTube to share important stories with the rest of the world.

Project: Report Round 2 Begins, Semi-Finalists Announced

All of the entries for Round 1 of Project: Report are in, and a panel of judges from the Pulitzer Center have chosen the top 10 semi-finalists. We saw terrific submissions from around the country, each telling a powerful story of an individual through a day in his or her life. Now you can vote for which Round 1 submission you think should win the Community Award.

Below is a list (in no particular order) of the 10 Round 1 winners who will proceed to the second and final round of Project:Report. The grand prize? One of five $10,000 travel fellowships to work with the Pulitzer Center on an international reporting project.

• Patrick Aviles, California - Santos Camacho
• Richgail Enriquez, California - A day in the life of Lolita Kintanar
• Takayuki Ono, Illinois - Pilot volunteers his wings to help patients in financial distress
  
• Paul Franz, Florida - Dr. Pedro Jose Greer
  
• Alex Rozier, Missouri - The Story of Amanda McDaniel
  
• Felix Ramirez, New York - Mr.Zulu.mov
• Jack Ballo, New York - ELIO
  
• Samatha Ann Danis, Maine - Project Report: A Day in the Life of Alice Fogg
• Mark Jeevaratnam, North Carolina - Sharon Hill: The Smile of Commons
• Emmanuel Elan Gepner, Pennsylvania - The People's Painter

Each of these 10 semi-finalists also received a Sony VAIO notebook with the new 2010 Intel Core i7 processor and a Sony HD video camera, which they will use these to produce their videos for Round 2.

But don't worry, even if you're not one of the 10 semi-finalists there's still an opportunity to win a prize. At the end of Round 2, the Pulitzer Center will look at all of the videos submissions that came in for Round 2 and select one additional contestant to receive a Sony VAIO notebook.

If you're game, here's the assignment for Round 2:

Report on a compelling topic or subject of any nature which you believe has not been sufficiently and/or accurately covered by the national media. All entries must be less than five minutes long and shot in High Definition.

Submissions are due by 12 p.m. ET on April 4, 2010.

Congratulations to the 10 semi-finalists, and good luck to everyone in Round 2!

Olivia Ma, YouTube News & Politics, recently watched "Jersualem: War in My Land"

Jerusalem: A War in My Land

Last summer, Arturo Perez Jr., a filmmaker from San Francisco, California, traveled to Jersualem with a mission -- to come back with a story. Art won last year's Project: Report, YouTube's first journalism contest done in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, for his short documentary, "Abilities," which explores Camphill California, a community of adults with disabilities who work and live together. As the grand prize winner, he won a $10,000 travel grant to work with the Pulitzer Center on an international reporting project and chose to go to Jerusalem. He wrote a guest blog for CitizenTube about his journey there and what his project is all about. Be sure to watch his final video, which is embedded below.

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Jerusalem is a complicated place.

Trying to sum up the story of this city or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in one 10-minute film, or even in this blog post, would be disingenuous and wrong. So let me just say -- right off the bat -- that this film isn’t trying to do that.

The aim of this piece is to give context to a side of the story that doesn’t get the attention of the international media. With all the despair, distrust and anger around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, few journalists or news outlets see the benefit of highlighting peace organizations. Many people living in the area see the “peace effort” in Jerusalem as nothing more than that -- “effort” -- an effort that will never evolve into anything more.

I first arrived in Jerusalem in the summer of 2009 with only my HD camera, two mics, a still camera, a reservation at a hotel, and a contact at IEA (The Interfaith Encounter Association). I had no crew (and never got one), and I had little idea of what kind of film this would turn out to be.

Ten days later, I left more hopeful than when I arrived. Everywhere I went, everyone I talked to; the taxi drivers, the people selling flat bread, the businessmen, the students, they all wanted peace. More than that, they were all desperate for it.

This is the story of two of them.

Hope you enjoy it.

- Arturo Perez Jr.