The second story from our guest speaker for tonight includes a video. It was interesting, as many times video is used to give additional commentary on a story. This was a 24-second clip of a protestor march without any news commentary, and it was placed at the beginning of the story, rather than within. This helped set the scene for the story quite well.
In another example, this New York Times story has a short video compiling different officials commenting on the Fort Hood shooting. It, however, is placed within the story, helping the reader along. Both approaches work well.
In a webinar I attended this week, the presenter cited a stat that the average attention span is only eight seconds (National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, The AP). That, as he pointed it out, is a smaller attention span than a goldfish. We need ways to capture and maintain attention, and video is one way to do that.
At Our Sunday Visitor, we have been exploring new ways to offer our content so the experience is more interactive: video, audio, better/larger photos, graphs, etc. It is difficult, however, to do any of this extensively on every story. The Crimea story is a simple way to add more engaging content. However it is done, it definitely changes the way you investigate and write a story.
What I find curious--PBS New Hour often quotes stories from the NYT, TWJ, and interviews the reporters as well. It does feel as though the NYT is bearing the costs for some of the 'hard news' and 'investigative reporting.' Some days, I do think Hollywood versus Journalism. That said, I too enjoy audio/video. I actually listen to the news as I'm driving somewhere, putzing , etc.
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