More Herald staffers shooting video

For at least two years, Herald staffer Paul Videla has split his journalistic duties here between photography and videography. Several other staffers, particularly East Manatee Editor Jim Jones, have also dabbled in video.

But photojournalists Grant Jefferies and Tiffany Tompkins-Condie held fast to their love of still photography, dedicating all of their time to print and online images and galleries. Well, that love isn't changing, but they also are foraging into the video world today.

Tiffany turned her first official video (see below) for today's package on the Innocence Project's motion to have rape convict Derrick Williams' sentence overturned, based on a new DNA test.

We plan to have more daily videos at Bradenton.com for those viewers who prefer that medium. Send us your ideas on what you'd like to see. (And I wish I could share Grant and Tiff's hilarious farce in testing out the video equipment last week, but you'll have to find that on Facebook...)

-- Joan

32 pelicans saved, but how many lost?

Please take 49 seconds to watch today's video at this link on Bradenton.com, shot by our summer intern, J. Hunter Sizemore. He went along with reporter Sara Kennedy and photographer Grant Jefferies to film the release Wednesday of 32 pelicans -- all rescued from the BP oil spill -- at Fort DeSoto Park. You can see moments of the release in this photo gallery as well.

As Sara quoted one tourist in her story, "Every animal matters." The unfathomable thought: the ratio of how many are perishing to those being saved.