novel. Jason and his team made sure that every line in the mashup was authentic; an annotated lyrics list allows any viewer to find the source of each quote.
“I much enjoyed the session and encourage you and the NYT to do more! How do I find out when the next one will be?” says a viewer from Alberta, Canada.
Op-Docs’ content offers a fresh take on cultural commentary in general. Casey Neistat’s fi lms wryly remark on urban lives with “Texting While Walking,” “Bike Thief” and “Taxi Lost and Found.” Filmmaker Zina Saro-Wiwa explores the movement among black women toward “natural hair” in her film “Transition.” Her work triggered hundreds of posts from diverse women and discussions that span age, class, self-acceptance, history, emotions, and the political ramifications for women of their body shapes and hairstyles.
“The high school student had very good questions. She will go places. We need panels like this to clarify so many global situations we are facing in this day and age. Good job!” says another, from New Mexico.
Often, people speak directly about finally feeling that they are part of a conversation, like this viewer: “I’m glad this is showing up in the New York Times because I was just about to lose faith in your renegade promise. I hope you continue to be open and creative this way.” More recently, Jason’s work at the Times to promote public dialogue has expanded from documentaries to ambitious experiments in live “social video.” Last May, visitors to nytimes.com from around the world watched a live video chat between U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, columnist Nicholas Kristof, and five members of the public—unscripted and unedited. A soldier in Afghanistan was one participant asking the ambassador his own questions. Joining him on the Google+ Hangout was a high school junior from Miami, a young lawyer from New York, a physicist from Montreal and a graduate student from Ashland, Oregon.
A viewer from Pennsylvania sums up the effect: “Thanks, Nick, for continuing to bring this “constituency of the connected” to our door. Through these ongoing conversations and dialogues via social media, we all can remain a part of an open and free democracy—a superior forum. Cheers!” An ever-curious person, Jason has relished how video journalism and documentary filmmaking “gets you into situations most people don’t encounter. “This is a great setting,” he says about the New York Times. “Everyone brings different experience and skills, and we all feel passionately about what we’d like to achieve. Writing, filming, editing, publishing, provoking debate and discussion—that’s all part of the job. That’s what we spend our energy doing, and it’s a real privilege.” Cathleen D. Everett
These panelists had responded to an invitation posted on the Opinion site and throughout social media. The editors chose the five finalists from hundreds of responses. The viewer’s screen shows the panelists, moderator and ambassador on the Google+ Hangout together. The current speaker’s image appears larger than the others, and images shift as the speakers change. “The bold thing,” Jason says, “is that we put this on live, in a prime spot—the homepage—and it went off without glitches.” To execute this project, Jason collaborated with a Web editor, social media editor, and several Google specialists. “I think people were surprised and appreciative of the gesture that the New York Times carried out—inviting the public in for an extensive conversation on foreign policy with our U.N. ambassador and a renowned op-ed columnist,” Jason says. He and his colleagues produced a series of Google+ Hangouts with voters spanning the national party conventions this summer.
10 Milton Magazine
Jason directed the feature documentary Life 2.0, which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network’s Documentary Club. Jason’s films and journalism have appeared on PBS, BBC, MSNBC, Time.com and Wired News. He was a 2010–2011 MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellow and is a graduate of Brown University and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.