It might seem that we’re all at the same bus stop, even if not at same geographical grid - sorry, Matrix moment.

I was with some senior regional journalists yesterday VJ training and we whizzed through a few UK sites, which today led to a post on this thing called videojournalism.

The term videojournalism, now almost part of newspapers’ DNA, conjures up so many different thoughts, essentially video online from journalists . Good enough etymology?

In 93 we (Vjs) had stoic thoughts on what this thing was; perhaps it was also youthful exuberance?

But today in this invigorated market we’re seeing clear distinctions. I’ll be talking about this at <a href=”http://www.wansweden2008.com/en/Conference/EditorsForum/”WANet al.

For me it looks something like:
VideoJournalism for TV - Same TV language- just made by one person. There’s a great VJ piece made in 1996 by my colleague Mark who interviews all the major UK newspapers.
VideoJournalism DIY ~ papers doing Vjism with no training.
Videojournalism - [gonzo], [invasive], [observational], [creative]
Creative see Scott Rensberger *click image
and often what I refer to as an IM6VJ approach - integrated multimedia VJ aproach, which is more aggressive.

Forgive me they need further annotating, but broadly there are many many newspapers doing video, which is created off TV’s lingua franca.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but size, flexibility, and the many pros Vj possesses, coupled with the web’s spatial-ineractive qualities begs something new.

We’re seeing these breakthroughs from bespoke design-driven multimedia sites - some part of newspapers, some stand alones.
* Filmmakers in residence is a big favourite.

Many newspapers have mooted embedded video. At the London ONA
meeting last year BBC technology had come into some favourable numbers from experimenting with embedded Vid. The Guardian have also expressed an interest.

Perhaps it might take a CMS (now there’s ker chings) to move the tide, but then for uniqueness etc …..??

Year of the rat huh! We live in multi-experience times and the feeling is this year will herald new new things perhaps making embeddd video a no brainer.

Cheers D.

p.s I’ll be producing an IM6 hyperlinked video next month, with multiple question strands from a senior BBC exec interview. I’m about to email you

Those are good points and of course you are absolutely right. Sorting out the way CMS’s are implemented is key to developing strategy.

It strikes me that’s a lot more like the issue of metrics. That kind of thing has often been out of the hands of those generating the content. Your analogy of the presses is apposite.

But…

You need a CMS that allows you to embed video clips in the story.

You need video hosting that feeds your clips quickly and reliably.

You need producers to link your stories and multimedia components.

Many major papers have decided on using stand-alone video players that serve videos - and ads - sequentially and in separate windows. Many major papers have content management systems that don’t give permanent urls for linking. Many major papers don’t have enough producers to deal with stories, let alone multimedia.

When business decisions like these are made, it has a big effect on what you do.

In the old days, your press configuration and capacity determined how many sections you had and when press turn was.

Now, your CMS and your server bandwidth put similar constraints on video.

If you made the decision to use a separate video player that can handle your bandwidth, you also decided to commit to making stand-alone video stories that don’t need the context of the story. They go hand-in-hand.