Newspaper Video Journalism (Part III)

On Assignment
For my third installment in this series, I went on assignment with senior staff photographer Randy Eli Grothe, a 31-year DMN veteran who joined the video initiative in January of this year.

The assignment was not anything out of the ordinary by newspaper standards. ...Go to local watering hole (Nellies) and shoot a bartender known for his ability to make flaming drinks. The print edition will use one photo (a video frame grab) as part of their regular Hey Bartender! series. The video will go to DallasNews.com where it will likely find popularity because of its firey content. That's right, videos showing anything burning or exploding are more likely to be popular with viewsers.

QuickTime MPEG-4 (m4v) / 1:18 / 7.2 MB / Get QuickTime

I see some important discussion topics here:

1. The assignment took about an hour to shoot for video, compared to the 15-20 minutes it might have taken to shoot a still photograph. Will all video assignments take significantly more time to shoot than still assignments? Is this a potential human resource management issue? It's not impossible to shoot a video assignment in a matter of minutes, depending on the subject. But is that really the goal here? Thoughts?


2. While this kind of feature content will be buried deep in the print edition, the video will have equal billing with other video stories. Does this pose any potential problems? Will news stories get lost amid the features, or visa versa? I'm referring to the 'videos' page on the website. I don't know how the site is programmed and how long a video stays on the video page before dropping off. I suppose this is merely a programming/user-experience issue. I'm just thinking of the visitors who go to the videos page to look for a specific item or to just browse.


3. The flaming drink story is a fun feature that will appeal to a number of readers, and Grothe did an excellent job with a tough shooting situation - dealing with the low light, loud environment, and busy backgrounds. I can't help but worry that as newspapers face an ever-increasing need to boost web traffic, photojournalists will feel pressure to produce more videos with a high predictability of viewser appeal. I can almost see the memo now: "We need more fires and car chases!" An obvious goal for any of the video content at DallasNews.com, or any other news/video site for that matter, is that the content be attractive and spread in viral popularity. The end result is more traffic, more page views, more ad revenue, and (let's be honest) more money, nicer toys, and better working conditions. This is a good thing we should all want. Right? Thoughts?