The Adventures of a Cameraman

Ray Bribiesca spoke Monday, November 1^st in the Hall of Fame Room of the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication about his job with 60 Minutes. Bribiesca gave us an idea of what his job entails as a photojournalist by showing a 60 Minutes video segment about American soldiers fighting in the war against Afghanistan. This story showed what Bribiesca does every day in his job. The war clip in particular showed Bribiesca putting himself in danger to get the story told. “The point of a photojournalist is to document a story so that the audience knows what’s going on if you turn the audio off,” Bribiesca said.

Bribiesca also played a video clip from the 60 Minutes website where viewers can watch behind-the-scene videos to get more in depth with different stories. Bribiesca went on to talk a little bit about how even when he’s not working with 60 Minutes, he feels that he needs to always be prepared for a news story to break out. He does this by always keeping a camera in his car just in case something happens.

Bribiesca fought in the Vietnam War, so when he had to shoot footage for the war in Afghanistan, it was a little more meaningful to him. However, in the video we saw him take shots of video footage where he had nothing protecting him from getting shot by the Afghans. Bribiesca mentioned that the story was important for people to see and he wanted to do anything to get that story across. This was a true sign of how dedicated Bribiesca is to his work.

Bribiesca gave different insights on what he thought was important to keep in mind for the field of journalism. He used many examples from his own personal work to back up his advice for the students who listened to his lecture. One thing that stuck out in his speech was directed toward measuring yourself in the world of journalism. “In 60 Minutes, you are only as good as your last story,” Bribiesca said.

Bribiesca is now retiring from 60 Minutes after decades of filming. The day after his lecture at OU, he left for Yemen to finish his final work as a photojournalist for 60 Minutes. However, for Ray Bribiesca, his work will never end.