The Washington Post hired Travis Fox as a photo editor back in 1999. He picked up a video camera on his own and started doing some video pieces for the newspaper's website, washingtonpost.com.

Now he's a full-time video journalist -- actually, one of seven -- and has filed from major world news hotspots, earning Emmy nominations in the process.

Some excerpts from the Q-and-A with Online Journalism Review:

OJR: You said that hardly anyone was watching videos on the Washington Post site at first. What was the turning point that led to the creation of a "video journalist" at the Post?

Fox: I think it was the Iraq war. And it was doing stories that are high profile enough that people couldn't help but notice. That's when the top editors both at the Website and the newspaper noticed. They had known me before, obviously, but this was a chance to show that in a high pressure, dangerous situations we can tell stories and we can do journalism that's on par with the newspaper.

OJR: How were these videos different than those on television that they made the top editors want to nurture this media?

Fox: I can't speak for them but the fact that it was different from television was not necessarily so important. It was the fact that we were doing it. And I think my style in general is different from some parts of television but not all. It's not reporter driven and it's not celebrity-anchor driven. That's not to say that it's not heavily reported and heavily narrated because a lot of them are. I would say the ones we did in the beginning were more different from television--they were more character-driven pieces, less narration. We still do those types of pieces as well but we mix it up with more heavily-narrated pieces.

OJR: What is your subject's reaction to being in a multimedia presentation versus being in the print version of the Post? Is there still a preference nowadays?

Fox: I think when I say I am from washingtonpost.com and I have a video camera they automatically think Washington Post and they think video and the two don't match up--much to their surprise. I think it depends on where you are. I do a lot of foreign coverage and I think abroad it is not as surprising as it is here in the States. But I think here especially, in the last year, Web video is becoming so common that it is surprising fewer and fewer people. I should also say that a lot of my pieces do air on television in different forms. So I always say both. I say that it's for the Washington Post online but also for possibly for other places.

OJR: So do you frame shots differently for the Web and for TV, or do you work with the same material for both?

Fox: In terms of the production of the video, I think they are pretty close to being the same. You can make the argument that the video screen is smaller on the computer monitor, therefore we should shoot tighter. But shooting tight is a good technique, whether you are shooting for television or for film. People typically sit closer to their computer screens than to their televisions, so proportionally the Web video looks bigger. I don't think it makes any difference.

In the beginning, there was the notion that you should have everything on a tripod to be stable because any sort of camera shake would cause the pixels to be refreshed, which would slow down your processor, which would slow down your computer. So that's still a concern, if you are dealing with slower computers.

I would shoot it the same way, whether it was for television or whether it was for the web. I have a certain style and a certain way of shooting, that's considered a Web style or Web way of shooting perhaps because that's where I learnt how to do video. But it also works on television.

OJR: Do you cut it differently for TV than you do for the Web?

Fox: These are interesting questions. You know my friends who work for television tell me that I am so lucky because people actually click my videos. That means they want to watch them. Whereas their shows on television are in the background when someone is making dinner. And at the same time I am jealous of them because it's a better experience when you are on your couch and watching it on television than when you are on your computer monitor.

So there are different ways of thinking about how to cut it. This is something we constantly talk about and we constantly deal. How tight and how fast moving to cut it? On television you want it to be fast moving because you don't want anyone to click on their remote control and go to the next channel, right? You want to keep their attention all the time.

Whereas on the web you don't want someone to go to a different Website. Obviously you want it to be tight and you want it to be fast moving. I don't have the answers but it's a different medium and it is interesting to think of it in different ways. ...

OJR: What about the role of video journalist within the paper and Website?

Fox: I think I it will be much more integrated with traditional news reporters at the newspaper. I think we will be working much more collaboratively. I would guess we are going work on their stories or work with them to develop their stories into video. We have had some successes with that but we haven't nailed that down as much as we really need to find the right working relationship. We don't want them to turn into television reporters, obviously. I don't want to produce that type of video and we want to give them the time that they need to do newspaper reporting. But we want to be able to leverage their expertise into the video.

I would say the direction we are headed in is that I will continue to do my own video reporting, but at the same time probably become more integrated with the newsroom--both the dotcom and Post newsrooms are becoming more integrated.

I did a piece in Azerbaijan with Philip Kennicott, a Post reporter, that was nominated for an Emmy. That's an example a successful collaboration. We didn't actually work together ever-- even our trips didn't overlap to Azerbaijan--but we compared notes and we shared the reporting. He went first then I went second. He wrote the script and I voiced the script and then I fed him my reporting and he fed me his reporting and we came up with something. So to me that's the kind of collaborative effort I am talking about.