Natalia V. Osipova - a Staff Video Journalist at ‘The New York Times’

The journalist was questioned about a number of topics that are highly pertinent to current media business trends.
Natalia, you are a seasoned journalist employed by The New York Times, one of the top media organizations in New York City. Would you mind providing some background on your career path?
In February 2012, I started working for the New York Times as a freelance translator and video editor after graduating from college. The very name "The New York Times" attracted me much. I really wanted to start my career from here only. Being into this business is in itself a challenge and I was always ready for it.

I did not do that much amount of work during this tenure but, I was able to build my confidence. I just translated and edited three video stories for the New York Times. This tenure lasted for a few months only but, it really boosted my self-confidence. Even the people at The New York Times liked my work and I got internship as a video journalist. The internship was very helpful for my personal as well as professional development. The people at The New York Times are amazing and very helpful. I worked under many titles - producer, shooter and editor of doc-style video stories as well as short deadline visual stories for Business Day Live and Arts sections. It was because of the role of my job that I got familiar with multimedia journalism. Later, I got a job at New York City News Service as a ‘multimedia reporter’. Later, I join ABC as Freelance reporter and translator in April, 2013. My job was to conduct background research about developing stories for Brian Ross' Investigative Unit. I also translated video clips and phone interviews according to the stories. Finally, I again joined The New York Times in July, 2013 as a well-established ‘video journalist’. I learnt new things at every place and that help me getting this job.



Professional competition is everywhere especially in media industry. Do you think one needs an edge (for example, a multi-skilled person) to be a better journalist or a media professional?

I agree with you that fierce competition is everywhere especially in the journalism field. This field comes with emerging challenges that test one’s skills and abilities at every point. I give credit to new technological advancement that created better space to market my talent and crafted a special place in today’s competitive world. Forinstance, I am quite familiar with Canon c300 and 100, 5D Mark III, Zoom h4n and h6, Sennheiser ew 112-p G3 wireless and Rode shotgun mics, Manfrotto 701HDV tripod, MacBook Pro, Final Cut Pro 7, X, Adobe Premiere. All these assets carry a technological aspect that really is a great help. Right now I work as a one-man band video journalist. I report, shoot and edit feature stories.

I always tried to acquire new skills from almost every place I worked. I learned multimedia story-telling and that helped me in attaining valuable experience and, of course, quiet nice frequent jobs. Learning new skills means enhancing your eligibility for new prospects.



Media is known as ‘the fourth estate’. How would you respond to this quote keeping in view your own responsibilities towards your audience?

Media do has a big responsibility towards the society and so do the journalists. For example, I personally feel accountable whatever I write or create on my computer. It is because at the end my content is going to be read, viewed or perceived by the audience with an inbuilt or acquired (through my developed relationship with the audience) belief.

I tell stories through diverse media with an element of trust and hope. I try to raise awareness about the world we live in and that is what the main function of the media as ‘the fourth estate’ is.