Chapter 8 of Mark Briggs’ “Journalism Next” textbook discusses the importance of using video in news stories.
Briggs compares two video journalists: David Pogue of The New York Times, as well as Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal. Briggs shows that Pogue’s video stories are much more polished than Mossberg’s, mainly because his recordings are aired on CNBC.
Briggs claims that although Pogue’s video is great, Mossberg’s low-tech story delivery by webcam is very effective. Less-polished video content online can receive more page views due to the timing and quantity of the content, according to Briggs. He also says that this is great for photojournalists because more polished stories seem to not get as much web traffic.
The chapter has suggestions to build an acceptable video news story online:
- Understand that there is no ‘one size fits all’ formula for filming news stories.
- Sketch a rough draft of your story as it would appear on TV.
- Use different vantage points and views when filming.
It can also be useful to record a stand-up report for your news story. Briggs urges photojournalists to prepare a script, or at least an summary of what you plan on saying.
Chapter 8 also goes into great detail about what equipment to choose as a photojournalist. Briggs suggests using a high definition video camera and claims that the future in media production is HD, however, he does recognize that the disk space needed to record in HD can be a problem for some people.
Final Cut Express HD, Adobe Premiere Elements, Sony Vegas Movie Studio and Pinnacle Studio Ultimate are all great programs to edit video in.
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