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Bob Costas’ grilling of accused Penn State child molester Jerry Sandusky should be mandatory viewing for all journalism students who want to learn how to handle a confrontational interview.

Costas wielded a strong command of the facts. Listened intently to each answer. Asked focused questions and follow-up questions. And he wasn’t satisfied with vague proclamations of innocence.

Years of cable news have brainwashed viewers into thinking a confrontational interview involves talking heads bullying and yelling at people.

Not true. Costas shows you can be polite — and tough — at the same time.

I’m a sucker for timelapse videos so I’m 100 percent biased, but I thought this video by the Texas Tribune was a creative way to give readers a sense of what it’s like in Austin during the first day of the 2011 Texas Legislative session. Cool idea and nice execution by Caleb Bryant Miller and Todd Wiseman.

I’m a sucker for cool time-lapse videos, and this one showing how much snow fell on the East Coast is no exception.

A nice twist to the print vs. Web conflict.

(Hat tip: E&P in Exile)

The suit at the 18 second mark is 100 percent pure awesome.

(Hat tip: Boing Boing)

Angela Grant at News Videographer has some fantastic tips for anyone who wants to improve their skills in shooting and editing video. If you’re tired of uploading shaky cell phone videos to YouTube, these pointers are for you.

Angela was our online video guru at the San Antonio Express-News and she saved my butt when I was in Portland doing a story about light rail. I had a point-and-shoot Panasonic Lumix with me that takes QuickTime video. My boss, David Sheppard, suggested I take some video of the rail system to show San Antonians what it’s like.

Great idea. Just one problem:

I had no idea how to take good video.

In a mild panic, I called Angela and she gave me a quick primer on some of the fundamentals:

The cool thing about these video techniques is that anyone can use them. Imagine how much better your family videos could be. They don’t have to be boring to everyone but you!

After I spoke with Angela, here was the result. Not the greatest video in the world, but it would have looked terrible without some intelligent advice.

To illustrate the huge difference these techniques make for just about any topic, I took two videos of some stray kittens my girlfriend and I found in our backyard. Here’s the first video loaded directly from my camcorder with no editing and no real thought of composing shots — a style you see all the time on YouTube:

See how annoying it is when the camera is shaky, panning around, and zooming?

Here’s a video that followed Angela’s advice:

Same kittens, different video techniques, better results.

Yes, it took a little longer to shoot and edit. But if you want people to watch your videos, isn’t it worth a little extra time to make something interesting? As a newspaper reporter, I think it’s challenging and fun to figure out new ways to tell a story with video, which can reveal some things better than the written word. The two methods compliment each other.

In the second kitten video, I used a tripod to keep the camera steady. For both videos, I used an external microphone, which vastly improves the sound quality, and an Aiptek high def camcorder. I edited the clips in Sony Vegas Movie Maker 9.0. You can also use free video-editing software available on Macs and PCs.

There will be times when setting up a shot isn’t feasible. If you’re covering a sporting event or getting compelling video like a police chase, by all means get the shot and follow the action.

But in most cases, these are some useful methods that will drastically improve the quality of any video.

Meet Stumpy. This pale zombie was the subject of a video I shot during a daylong class at the San Antonio Express-News offered by Angela Grant, our online media producer.

Angela gave us tips about how to shoot video. Then she sent us out to film whatever we wanted for a few hours. After that, we returned to the office and she showed us how to edit our clips using Final Cut Pro on a Macintosh.

I love the power of the written word. But some of the best stories being told at my newspaper have never appeared in print.

Thanks to Angela, the Express-News has produced interesting online videos that are essentially mini-documentaries. Most are about two minutes long. Unlike many annoying TV news broadcasts, the reporters don’t inject themselves in the middle of the story.

Angela announced that she’s moving to Houston, which is great for her but bad for the newspaper. Angela helped us produce professional videos that anyone — not just journalists — can learn to make. Angela blogs about the finer points of videos at newsvideographer.com.

There’s a debate in newsrooms about whether online videos are worth it. Angela blogged about her frustrations with building a loyal audience — most of the paper’s videos don’t muster more than 1,000 web hits. I’ve wondered if this is because people are only interested in YouTube videos of laughing babies, or if it’s because we make it difficult for readers to find and share our videos. (Notice how my video in this blog isn’t actually embedded? That’s because our web site won’t let me.)

I hope we figure it out. When they’re done right, online videos compliment news articles by showing readers information in a way that written words can’t.

In August, the Express-News sent me to Portland, Ore., for a story about that city’s light-rail system. I shot some video while I was up there.

The finished product won’t win any awards at Sundance. But the goal of the trip was to see what light rail is like in Portland, and share that information with readers in San Antonio, many of whom have never traveled on light rail.

By that standard, I think the video worked. It showed people how a light-rail train looks and sounds, and it might help them decide if it makes sense for San Antonio.

If it helped people make an informed decision, then the video served its purpose.

Thanks Angela.