Category Archives: online journalism

Online journalism documentary – and why video blogging is ‘a good thing’

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PBS have been doing a TV series called “News War: What’s Happening to the News”, which is a comprehensive history of journalism in the US. Of interest to us OJ types, however, are parts 19 and 20, ‘The New Universe of Online  Media’, and ‘The Revolution’s New Synergies’ which are available to watch on this page.

‘The New Universe of New Media’ features interviews with the team behind online TV news service Rocketboom, the founder of massively successful blog the Daily Kos, and Jeff Jarvis, as well as stuff about important events like the Trent Lott story (kept alive by bloggers) and Rathergate (a documentary’s veracity being questioned by bloggers).

‘The Revolution’s New Synergies’ is about how mainstream media have incorporated new media forms like blogs, and taken up leads through new media.

Bill Cammack gives a more thorough overview of the series, and the accusations that blogs lack original material, from a videoblogging perspective:

“With video blogs, I think [the lack of original reporting] is much less true. Granted, there are video blogs that are really videotaped versions of text blogs. Instead of typing the information they got from search engines, people sit in front of a video camera or webcam and talk about it. Not much difference from text blogs there in terms of lack of originality. ANYONE could do it who chooses to use a search engine to look up their chosen topic. What I’m talking about is the ability to show someone, anyone… somewhere, ANYWHERE (that has a viable internet connecton) something that they otherwise would not have been able to see. I don’t see any way that anyone could deny that visual and audio documentation of something that happened can be AS relevant and important, if not MORE SO than a shot, produced, scripted and edited news piece, such as the Frontline piece I’m currently commenting on.”

In other words, the very fact that you are filming video – assuming it is not of you talking – means you are creating original content. This is probably the most persuasive argument I’ve heard for bloggers taking up their video cameras and audio recorders – it (hopefully) forces you to leave the desk, and find material. Of course, it will not be searchable, and it will be harder for someone to scan. So it had better be good.

Five reasons for audio journalism: actuality, debate, emotion, background, podcast

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I’ve been grappling further with the issue of audio journalism and podcasting, and discussing the issue with ‘ podcasting expert’ Andrew Dubber. What is beginning to emerge from our discussions (audio versions in full below) includes the idea that audio does three things particularly well:

  • Actuality – the feeling of being there
  • Debate – the opportunity to interject, the tone of voice, another level
  • Emotion – the tone of the voice communicating more than words alone

What’s more, if the purpose of journalism is to convey what is happening, argues Dubber, then audio becomes a primary way of making your audience face the story.

There are other advantages to audio. It’s easier to edit than video – “it’s linear”. It’s less intrusive than a video camera if you want to record events.

Then we come across a fourth thing that audio can do well –

  • Providing background – in other words, next to an edited text interview the journalist can post the interview in full (what is sometimes called ‘wild footage’) much more quickly than if they were to transcribe the whole thing.

So here’s a question: should the online journalist just take a video camera with a view to only taking the audio track? “If you carry around a hammer everything’s going to look like a nail,” Dubber says – you run the risk of overlooking the audio in your search for images.

The fifth use of audio is really about distribution:

  • Podcasting. It’s about convenience – time shifting, people not having to visit your website.

But it’s also how the podcaster imagines their audience, about intimacy – “not announcement but conversation”. We should be thinking about the medium when we produce content, rather than producing content (e.g. newspaper news) which we stuff into different sized tubes.

So here’s some ideas: environment is important. The sound of heavy machinery behind an interview with a factory worker, for instance, or of field wildlife for a story about GM crops.

Leave the office, forget about the studio, and go out to record your podcast – ‘the sound of stuff happening’

Podcast #1: audio journalism (http://www.zshare.net/audio/dubber01_audiojourno-mp3.html)

Podcast #2: wild footage (http://www.zshare.net/audio/dubber02_wildfootage-mp3.html)

Podcast #3: podcasting (http://www.zshare.net/audio/dubber03_podcasting-mp3.html)

Let the Daily Mail know you care about comment integrity

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It seems the Daily Mail aren’t keen on criticism. According to Martin Belam, his comment posted on a Daily Mail story, ‘ Suicide generation: five-year-olds calling helpline‘, was edited to remove a line criticising the paper’s reporting:

The published comment reads:

“If you actually read the report ChildLine issued, it does not say that suicidal five year olds called ChildLine. It says that there were 42 phone calls by children between the ages of 5 AND 11. The other 96% of suicidal calls were by children 12 and over – which whilst it is still very sad.
– Martin Belam, Salzburg, Austria”

As Martin points out, he “appears to trail off mid-sentence. What I actually submitted was:

“The other 96% of suicidal calls were by children 12 and over – which whilst it is still very sad is nowhere near the picture of suicidal 5 year olds portrayed in this article.”

This is cowardly, against the spirit in which comments are invited, and I can’t think of any excuse the Mail can give. Space isn’t an issue here, nor is offensiveness or even grammar. If their only reason is to protect the ‘good name’ of their paper, they’ve scored a big own goal – as censoring commenters will create more bad publicity than any comment itself would. And that starts here – I invite you to go to the story and post a comment of your own criticising their comment ‘moderation‘. Will they publish them?

Create an RSS feed for your site (or others)

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A colleague has introduced me to FeedYes, a service that will create an RSS feed for your site, or indeed for sites you wish had one. Very useful for people running an indie news service who don’t have the time to get to grips with XML.

Clarification: this service is most useful for sites with no RSS or XML component at all. If you run a blog, for instance, most blog services include XML feeds by default, so you shouldn’t need this.

3 types of blog: closed, conduit and participant in the conversation

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An interesting model from Robin Hamman on different types of blog.

  • The ‘closed’ blog is your typical family/holiday/baby blog, aimed at a close circle of people;
  • the ‘conduit’ blog is the type of blog that people create when they really need a website – a repository of information for a limited audience;
  • The ‘participant’ blog is more complex. These “are connectors of ideas and people, but also of conversations that flow between them. Blogs of this sort have an audience potentially as big as the numbers actively engaged in the conversation.” I’m guessing that this blog is one of those

A commenter wants to add diary blogs – though these may fit in ‘closed’ or ‘participant’. I’d like to add the organisational news blog, though I suspect this would fit under ‘conduit’.

A nice model, though.

‘Letters to the Editor Blogs’

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Poynter has a nice list of ‘Letters to the Editor Blogs’:

“Examples include the Decatur (IL) Herald-Review, the Tacoma (WA) News Tribune, The Australian, and The Economist. In my own town, the Boulder (CO) Daily Camera letter blog recently garnered well-deserved praise from BusinessWeek blogger Stephen Baker.”

Author Stephen Baker also suggests some features he’d like to see, including a simple domain, cross-links, allowing HTML and even recording voice messages for mp3 distribution online.

When should the online journalist use audio?

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Here’s a question: what makes good online audio? Having already seen journalists struggle with online video and predictably try to duplicate the qualities of broadcast television, what should we take from broadcast radio – and what leave behind?

I have some suggestions.

Firstly, the audio should be short. Online users don’t have time to scan through a five minute speech. If the subject matter is long, then it should be ‘chunked’ into separate subject-specific pieces of audio.

Secondly, the audio should offer colour. This can come in two forms: a compelling voice; or atmosphere.

Say, for example, you interview someone who fought in World War II – quotes alone may not convey the fear in his voice as he recounts his experiences – or the joy.

Or say you attend a boxing match where the crowd got out of hand. The sounds of booing, the announcement on the PA, the confusion and argument could all make a compelling piece of audio that again, words wouldn’t describe as effectively.

Or, how about a mix of the two? A politician makes a speech and is heckled, for instance.

Now, that’s all I can think of: brevity, and compelling content. Are there any other reasons for using audio? I suppose if you have copyright covered you can use music to set a mood under a story, but that seems a lot of effort to make. Radio can keep its presenters, and the four-minute package that presents a range of viewpoints is just as effectively done with words.

But this seems too simple…

Comments please.

PODCASTS: Podcasts, it seems to me, represent a separate category here. These are useful as a distribution format for news generally, so if you’re producing podcasts you could be forgiven for simply reading out the headlines on the basis that people are likely to be listening to the podcast on an mp3 player as they travel when they’re not in a situation to read a paper or click through a website. Having said that, I think the same considerations as radio news apply – so, brevity again, and the importance of colour.

NatMags sets March launch for stand-alone digital title

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from Media Week:

“Each issue will run to at least 35 pages and will target 13 to 19-year-old girls with fashion, music, film and TV content with a humorous tone, rounding up content from websites such as YouTube and inviting readers to send in clips.

“As with Monkey, it will be e-mailed for free each week and will have a variety of rich media ad formats, including display ads with embedded content, advertorials, sponsorships and bumper ads that bookend video clips.”