Toying with TV...

Writer for The Christchurch Press Alex van Wel is immersing himself in convergent thinking - the coming together of all forms of journalism online. He's in America on Fairfax Media's Mike Robson Fellowship, travelling from South Carolina up to New York. In the nation's capital on his 5th day, he dropped in on a landmark publication.

The Washington Post is not the kind of paper to dabble with new ideas in an unfocused manner.
As the preferred read of America’s governing elite, it offers some of the best political reporting available, and still counts Watergate investigative journalist Bob Woodward among its staff.

Video has been on the paper’s agenda since print publications moved to the web at the end of the last decade.
Now it’s ramped up its capability, with a state of the art new facility.
It knows that attracting traffic to its website means competing with all mediums, including live TV news.
Last Friday the paper quite consciously went head to head with national television when Tiger Woods emerged to apologize for cheating on his wife.
The Post’s assistant managing editor for news video has a track record in broadcast tv...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoRl1KiRG-Y

The spark for all this is the bottom line.
Newspaper executives began by simply experimenting with video, with not too much concern about shaky camera-work or inaudible sound. But not anymore: there's a realization that advertisers are not going line their products up next to amateur packages.
It's tricky though. Web users are being asked to transform their perceptions of newspapers, in much the same way that the journalists are having to redefine their roles.
Chet Rhodes again...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3HOzDOVhQg

Capitol Hill, Washington DC













Not all newspapers in the US see it this way, though. Smaller, local papers know the cannot compete on national or foreign stories. Some are also reluctant to use resources trying to beat local TV crews to breaking news in a medium in which they lack the expertise. Many only use video to go behind the headlines and tell more personal stories.
There are limitations of course, too. It cannot just be video for the sake of it. TV just doesn't lend itself to complex political stories. It is good with emotion and personal tales, but looks horribly out of shape when it tries to tackle something like the detail of legislation.

Rhodes believes the perfect formula is still to evolve.