Despite the push from many journalism companies into video, it’s not a format for all stories.
And those who think video will be the savior of journalism are dead wrong. Video has its place for sure, but don’t put too much stock into any one technology. That’s the ultimate lesson of the Web — to succeed you need a multi-prong strategy.
A lot of people have been making a hard push for video, believing that it can save a lot of newspapers and attract a lot of younger viewers. I’m 23, and I am here to tell you that myself and most of my friends just aren’t that interested in video.
It’s the least of newspapers’ concerns right now. There is a lack of relevant content that appeals to younger users as I noted last week.
Mike Cassidy asserts at his blog:
Online video is the first step toward achieving this goal, and is the driving factor in how these storied companies will once again reclaim some of their allure.
He is dead wrong. The first step — the step that virtually no paper has taken — is to create a beautiful and powerful Web site that is easy to navigate and enjoy. There are very few journalism sites that get it.
It doesn’t matter how good your content is, if you can’t display it properly. Worse, most newspaper sites are very hard to search (try searching for video, audio, Flash or photos). Most newspaper sites are closer to embarrassing then enlightening. Make a good platform to display your content, and then get back to me.
But even if you have a good Web site, should you focus on video? Video can cost a lot money to produce and shoot, so it makes sense to venture into the video waters carefully. Does every story require video? Of course not.
Just as every story doesn’t require text.
Here are a few examples of stories that just don’t make sense in video:
ESPN’s coverage of upcoming football games
ESPN does a myriad of stories and features for each game. A lot of it is centered around scouting. Yes, you could provide video previews of each game, and that would work well for fans of individual teams
But it falls apart when someone wants to be able to learn about a lot of upcoming games (like say fantasy football fans, people who take part in office pools and more dedicated fans). Video is time consuming. Text is skimmable, and video never will be. ESPN does an excellent job of breaking down a lot of its written content with lists and bullet points.
It’s written content that is meant to be examined quickly. Even better, is the database driven content that shows what happened the last 10 times two teams met, what star players did last time against their upcoming opponent, etc. The best way to look at and examine statistics is with written text, charts, graphs and visual simulations — just like ESPN.com does.
This particular page would never work well with video. Just browse around the NFL section of ESPN.com and the myriad of content the site has. It has video and audio content, but it also has content that clearly works better in other formats.
PolitiFact is another great example of where video just wouldn’t work. Video takes time to load and watch, and it usually has video ads. If PolitiFact had to rely on video to make its site work, it would be a very slow, boring and tedious site to use.
Not a lot of people would use it.
Instead it uses a highly searchable, database driven site. It displays content with pictures, graphics and text. It does have some video, and it’s usually very appropriate video for background purposes — like a campaign video that the site is analyzing for accuracy.
This isn’t to say that video doesn’t have a place. I watch a lot of video at CNN.com, for instance. It looks good, it’s easy to search (most sites have terrible search features for video), and it’s relevant. But if you think some poorly shot video that is barely edited about some newsless story is going to attract viewers, think again.
People like Cassidy claim to know what younger people want, but how many times do we have to hear what an older person thinks what younger people want before we realize that you can’t really understand something that you aren’t.
A 22-year-old reader of The Journalism Iconoclast isn’t thrilled about newspaper video:
To click on it, I’d have to think it would have something the text wouldn’t. I would have to want to see people speaking in a fuller context than quotes show, because video kind of requires more patience than text. You can’t really skip around or scan video.
Cassidy, us young people are impatient, and most Web video makes us really impatient. The worst is when someone tries to shove a 30-60 minute news program in its entirety on the Web. Talk about not using the Web properly.
To try to tell too many stories with video (some suggests that every story needs video) is a great way to turn off younger readers. We want speed and accessibility.
Don’t get me wrong, video is cool. It has a place, and it can tell some stories with incredible power. But written text, photos, infographics, Flash projects, database content, etc all have a place too.
It’s mastering how to put these different pieces together that is the real challenge. A lot of stories should be told by multiple formats, while some are really only able to be told in one format. Any paper that wants to succeed would be wise to understand and utilize a myriad of ways to tell stories to inform readers.
Just don’t over rely on video. It’s not a magic bullet.