I’ll echo Dave’s sentiments. I’m working on a report on video in the American newsrooms and would be interested to see the data you collected.

Dave - Good luck with your Diplom. I’d be interested to hear more about it, and the new media landscape of online video for newspapers in general. Where do you study?

Matt

I’am working on my “Diplom” (like Master thesis in Germany) with the subject “Videos on general-interest - news sites”. Is there any possibility to get the complete results of your Video survey?
I would appreciate it.
Best regards,
Dave Best

I think you might be being over sensitive there.

“Reporters commonly spend that long or more to write a print story.”

Very true but that often means they can’t do both. A lot of newsrooms don’t have dedicated staff for multimedia. They need reporters/photographers to do it along side what they do already. It therefore often becomes an either or.

I’m not saying half a day is too long or too short. I’m not making an anti-video point here. I’m saying it’s half a day you need to factor in to what you have to do already. A stark reality for a majority of newsrooms not lucky enough to have an Angela. Maybe they should but that’s a cold hard budget issue.

Looking at the sums would you rather they had an over stretched photographer with a XH-A1, tripod and mic’s up the wazoo all plugged in to a top notch fcp suite. Or would you rather hire an Angela who had to struggle along with a HV20 and i movie. All issues of economy of scale. But issues of economy none the less.

“Professional still photographers’ gear costs more!!!”

I don’t get the point here. More than what? Thats like saying sports cars are expensive. Of course they are but what does that tell us about the way people use cars. Sports cars are great but I wouldn’t take one to the supermarket.

Are you are saying that pro-photographers need pro kit? I don’t think anything I said agrees or disagrees with that. In fact I think I made the point that using semi-pro kit can impact on the way people perceive their own professionalism. We need to consider that. I think the survey shows a commitment on the part of many outfits to buying good gear. But that’s not the point here.

I could play devils advocate here and say are you advocating that only photographers get pro kit? Or are you saying that a pro-photographer can only do a good job with pro-kit?

On comment on the survey took me to task for making the distinction between journalists and photographers. A good point. But your statement seems to suggest that we should make a distinction and it’s in the dollar value of the kit. Whats the equivalent? Reporters notepads should be pro-notepads! (devils advocate remember)

The perspective here should be more than just ‘give me good kit’ because any budget holder would look across at the competition and say ‘why? they don’t need it’. It has to be a better case than that.

I think we can all accept that pro gear isnt needed to make newspaper video. It would be nice if we had it and that’s what we should aim for. It makes our content much more transferable (and, I think, disruptive) But do we need it?

Every time the topic of quality comes up, be it with kit or output, it’s clear that there are many perspectives to look at . Financial, editorial, professional, personal.