Demand is high for documentaries both in video and podcast form. Long-form programming presents a chance for newsrooms to follow-up on big stories of the past and highlight our communities with in-depth, character-based storytelling. Learn from documentary filmmakers and investigative reporters about how to produce independent documentaries and how to create opportunities in your newsroom for this increasingly popular storytelling style.
Speakers: David Begnaud, Shane O’Neill, Khaled Sayed, Alex Schuman
DAVID BEGNAUD is the lead national correspondent for “CBS This Morning” based in New York. He joined the network in 2015 and his reporting, featured across all CBS News broadcasts and platforms including “CBS This Morning,” the “CBS Evening News,” “48 Hours,” CBS Sunday Morning” and CBSN, has earned him some of journalism’s most prestigious awards. He often uses long-form storytelling in longer pieces for regular broadcasts as well as original documentaries.
SHANE O’NEILL is a senior video editor at The New York Times. During his tenure at The Times, he has produced the short documentary “Who Threw The First Brick at Stonewall?,” produced and edited the internet culture series “Internetting With Amanda Hess,” edited the geopolitics series “The Interpreter” and covered the 2016 U.S. presidential election. O’Neill’s work has won a Silver Medal for Society for News Design, honors from the Deadline Club, a RIAS award for his work on the documentary “Land of Good” and an Emmy nomination for The Times’ collaboration with POV, “Who, Me? Biased?”
KHALED SAYED is an investigative producer with the I-Team at ABC7 Bay Area, San Francisco, as well as a photojournalist, a video reporter and an award-winning documentary director with a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. His work has been published by many news outlets, including ABC 7 Bay Area, UPI, NBC Nightly News, NBC Bay Area, PBS NewsHour, The New York Times, the Huffington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Bay Area Reporter. Sayed has directed and produced commercials, documentaries, online campaigns, promos and short films for a wide range of industries. He brings a strong background in editing and storytelling to his work. In addition to his commercial experience, he has worked on multiple documentary projects supporting causes ranging from environmentalism to human rights.
ALEX SCHUMAN is an investigative reporter for Hearst Television. He has produced two feature documentaries available on Hulu, Amazon Prime and Starz. Prior to his current work producing long-form investigations, Schuman covered Congress and The White House for Nexstar Media Group’s Washington, D.C., bureau. He is currently finishing his third feature documentary.