Tit for tat on Digital Journalist editorial

May 24, 2008

Warning: Major bitching ahead.

I’ve got a problem with this month’s Digital Journalist editorial, How not to do newspaper video. I’m going to break it down.

It starts off well enough.

… [photojournalists] are being asked to do multitasking, shooting both stills and video. The good news is they can. But it is going to take much more time.

I agree with that. It’s one of the two things that I urge photojournalists to fight against at their newspapers.

Get training.
Fight your editors for the time to do good work.

Deborah Potter at Advancing the Story has a bit to say about the time issue too.

I’ve got a problem with the general idea behind the rest of the article. To me it feels like the same We-Know-What-You-Need: Shut-Up-and-Let-Us-Give-It-To-You approach that is sinking newspapers fast. On the Internet, people have decided that THEY’RE the ones who know what they need and want, and WE must be the ones to provide that for them. If we do not provide it, they will go out and find it elsewhere.

For example:

Newspaper video … can take as long as it needs to tell a story. An average newspaper video lasts three minutes, but it can go 10 minutes or become a series. As long as it is compelling.

Internet viewers’ attention is divided between many different tasks or activities at all times. It’s true that as web video producers, we CAN take as long as we need to tell our stories. Does that mean that we SHOULD? We need to respect our viewers’ time limits. We need to tell stories efficiently so that people can absorb them quickly and then get back to the five other things they were doing online before they graciously took a break to watch your video. We CAN produce 10 minute videos, but we CAN’T force people to watch them.

Another example:

Don’t worry about doing a video every day. Instead, focus on videos that will make a difference: good storytelling, excellent production values.

I think that this premise really holds video up on a pedestal, and it doesn’t belong there. I don’t think that video is special. I think that it’s merely a storytelling tool. I think that some stories can be enhanced using video, and others are much better told with other means like text, graphics, pictures, etc. People rely on us to tell them what happens on a day-to-day basis. As professionals we must give them the info they want the best that we can. In the realm of daily journalism, I guarantee that there will be multiple stories that video will enhance. If it’s our job to tell the daily stories, and we ought to tell them using the best tools at our disposal … Then yes, we need to “worry about doing a video every day.”

If you are running a piece on the Web site that is not worthy of submitting to regional and national competitions, it probably should not be there.

HILARIOUS! This statement is SOOOO We-Know-What-You-Need: Shut-Up-and-Let-Us- Give-It-To-You. The videos that win in journalism competitions are NOT the same videos that best serve what the audience is looking for. Normal people are coming to news web sites to find out what happened today. If you can have a great video that tells them about something that happened in their community, that means that you have served them well for that day. But a normal, deadline video like that isn’t “special” enough to win a contest. Journalists judge journalism much differently than normal people.

The fact is very few newspapers understand how the Web works. We hear from newspaper video people every day that they are being driven by either the online editors or the advertising people to “get the hits up!”

I’m feeling like a huge bitch at this point because I’ve really gotten on my soapbox here. But I’ve got to say this one more thing. Whom ever wrote this editorial is the one who doesn’t “understand how the Web works.”

Stop thinking you’re so high and mighty just because you know how to operate a video camera. It’s really not special. Video is not special, and it’s not just for special stories. It’s just another tool that we can use to tell our normal, every day stories.

Sometimes a 45-second video will be the best way to do that.

Instead of thinking “How do I want to use video?” and choosing the high-brow route, we ought to think “How can video enhance the experience of the people I’m trying to serve?”

This is a post from News Videographer.

Tit for tat on Digital Journalist editorial