Today I was out covering an event, while a TV news crew was there too, and it became quite apparent the difference between newspaper (Web) and TV journalists.
We were both covering wounded veterans learning how to use Segways to increase their mobility — a tailored made story for visual storytelling. We all get that.
My team had a video camera too, microphones, DSLRs, all that fun stuff. What we didn’t have was the audacity to ask people we were “journaling” to do things so we can get shots. The TV crew was telling the Segway riders to line up a certain way, move a certain way, come into the frame a certain way. All so the TV station could get the news exactly how they wanted it.
Is that even news?
Journalists — particularly TV journalists — are constantly under fire from people like John Stewart, Stephen Colbert and others. Why? Because TV news has made us all so jaded.
It’s just one big dog and pony show. It’s set shots. It’s ridiculous stand ups with anchors preening for the camera.
It’s anything but raw or immediate. The Web, is raw and immediate. My generation is not a big fan of TV news, and people like Stewart and Colbert have hit on why.
That’s why I don’t think we should pattern our Web video after TV at all. It’s too glossy. It’s too fake.
It’s horribly overproduced.
This is the Social Generation. We don’t mind baring our souls and revealing our warts.
We expect the same from the news.