The Department of Defense recognized its top photographers, journalists, videographers and broadcasters at Fort Meade, MD on Friday, May 11th.
The annual DoD Communicators of Excellence Awards ceremony was appropriately held at the Defense Information School (DINFOS), where each of the award winners began their careers as military communicators.
TSgt Gary W. Burdett was named Military Videographer of the Year. Burdett is a combat videographer with 1st Combat Camera Squadron, 21st Expeditionary Mobility Task Force, Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina.
Burdett not only received the military's top honor for a videographer, he also scooped up 2nd and 3rd place awards in the Combat Documentary category, a 3rd place Documentary award, and a 1st place Field Production award.
Senior Airman Richard Gonzales received the Defense Department's top honor for a broadcaster, the Thomas Jefferson Broadcast Journalist of the Year award. Gonzales is the assignments editor at Detachment 9, Air Force News Agency, Bitburg Annex, Germany.
Both Gonzales and Burdett received award statuettes, as well as gifts from commercial vendors. Each of them received a copy of Media Composer software from Avid. They use Avid software at work - now they can use it at home too.
Air Force Broadcasting took home quite a few of the top honors in the broadcast category, including Radio Entertainment Program, Radio Spot Production, Radio Information Program, Television News Report, Television Sports Report, Local Television Newscast and Regional Television Newscast. "Today's Air Force", produced by the Air Force News Agency in San Antonio, TX was recognized as the Outstanding Flagship Television Program.
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and former military journalist Clarence Page delivered the keynote address at the ceremony. He talked about the advent of technology over the 30+ years since he became a journalist, stating that these days everyone seems to be a citizen journalist with their own blog. He emphasized however, that
"all this new technology is nothing…
without somebody to provide the content: the words, the pictures, the
voice, the story.”
That's precisely what the winners of this competition, and the hundreds of other military photographers, journalists, videographers and broadcasters do every day.
Defense Link has posted a news story about the awards ceremony. The Defense Information School has posted complete lists of winners for the Military Videographer, Graphic Artist and Photographer of the Year competitions. They have a separate site listing the journalists who received Thomas Jefferson Awards.
I haven't been able to find any streaming video clips of the award winning videos online. If they show up, I'll post an update.