Agency Video: ‘Spectacular’, in the shadow of the solar eclipse | Reuters News Agency

Agency Video: ‘Spectacular’, in the shadow of the solar eclipse

Newsroom and frontline view

By Yann Tessier | Jul 10, 2019

SOLAR SPECTACULAR

‘Spectacular’ is how a major customer described our coverage of the total eclipse of the sun in Argentina, the main ‘picture’ story of the week that was run by over 1,000 channels. We had huge amounts of live, and lots of edits.

GRAB YOUR GAS MASK

The past few weeks have been fraught with frenzied activity in Hong Kong, where unrest over the territory’s controversial extradition laws continue to bubble away, and mass protests show little sign of abating.

Take two and a half minutes to watch how our visual journalists cover this massive story. Produced by Chief Producer in China, Mark Chisholm and Asia Editor Ahmed Assar, it’s worth the watch. Customer feedback reflects just how appreciated our around the clock to feed them video of a dramatic, fast moving news story.

ANOTHER TANKER STORY

The seizure of an Iranian supertanker by the British authorities in Gibraltar was one of the big stories of the week, adding to tensions between the West and Iran, and coming after a month of tanker trouble in the Gulf. We were hours ahead with coverage of the vessel, which ran on several hundred channels.

LIBYA AND ITALY

News broke overnight, when it was simply too dangerous to move people around. We had recent footage of the centre, which was moved immediately, and our specialised UGC team were able to source some first pictures. This was how coverage of a suspected air strike on a Libyan migrant centre was covered and broken by first light.

The standoff between the Italian government and the young German captain of the Seawatch 3, whose vessel had picked up migrants in the Mediterranean and was trying to dock in Italy, was watched with fascination by many around the world.

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Rome videographer Antonio Denti (above) kicked off our coverage of the story. Antonio was on the boat, shooting outstanding footage of developments, getting the captain and migrants to tell their story of what it’s like to cross the Med in a rubber dinghy in fear of your life.

TRUMP <3 PUTIN

The single most-used piece of video last week was the exchange between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, during which both joked about fake news and made light of allegations of Russian interference in the US elections.