Tag Archives: Online Journalism Blog

What videos by The Post will not look like…

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…otherwise I will be hanging my head in shame.

This was dug up by Paul Bradshaw on his Online Journalism Blog and is the 60-second update from the Reading Evening Post:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0st6x-vrW5M&rel=1]

[Edit: Is it just me or can you hear a female voice saying “lovely jubbley” at the end of the piece?!]

And it seems the crazy transitions and cutting your reporters’ off before they’ve finished are both techniques employed elsewhere on their site:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNsi-DqKH4I&rel=1]

I don’t blame the journos though (although someone has terrible taste in music and graphics). This smacks of poor training. Notice that the script sounds like it was written for print, not for video.

I hate the way that some people just expect that because you write the news you’re also going to be happy with and capable of presenting it on camera. It’s not true. Personally I’m skin-crawling-ly uncomfortable infront of a lens. I realise it’s something I will have to get used to and, when the inevitable comes, I hope, at the very least, I will have been given the right training to help me do it.

Bedtime reading for the NUJ…

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…and for any journlist who wants to get to grips with the future of journalism.

I’ve been following Paul Bradshaw‘s recent posts about blogging and investigative journalism with great interest. Currently there are five – all draft sections of a chapter for a new Investigative Journalism book.

I think they give a fascinating picture of just what can be achieved online – not just for investigative journalism, but perhaps other forms of reporting too:

  1. Blogging and Journalism 
    Explores the relationship of blogging to journalism.
  2. The Amateur-Professional Debate
    Questions whether the subjectivity of blogs is really corrosive to the search for “truth”. 
  3. Sourcing Material
    How online material can make readers part of the investigative process and help to “fine tune” stories.
  4. Publishing
    How online work can provide greater transparency and a wider distribution.
  5. Fundraising 
    How blogs have provided alternative funding streams for investigiative jourmalism. 

In his fifth draft, Paul also puts forward examples of interesting economic models for this style of journalism.

If would be nice to see the NUJ debating how such issues could be better exploited by professional journalists and, perhaps, provide us with a bit of training to boot.

Here’s hoping.