There seems to be a flurry of video activity in the aftermath of the DNA2008 conference.

One of the sponsors, the European Journalism Centre, has announced a video for newspaper journalists course and picks up a lot of information and quotage from DNA delegates.

The site is worth a look, with some nice round-ups and thoughts from a range of media execs.

They have also put up my open post to newspaper execs and editors about video. It’s nice to be part of the debate

Image via Wikipedia

UPDATE: Oliver Luft has got a much more detailed report on the session and Ed Roussel’s comments in particular.

I’ve just sat through a session at DNA called Multi-format input, multi-platform output – does this work?

The majority of the discussion was based around multimedia in the sense of radio, TV looking to converge. As the chair Brigitte Vermeersch from Belgian broadcaster VRT, put it having all the content together but separate when it needs to be.

The first part of the session was mostly presentations about process. Using technology infrastructures to build combined output -integrated media and newsroom systems. VRT for example are using Avid’s inews as the management element feeding separate radio, TV and online output systems.

Interestingly one theme, from the European contingent, was the idea of doing away with feeds in to the organisation and creating an internal news feed. Atte Jääskeläinen, Director, YLE News outlined a reliance on an internal ‘news agency’. Each journalist has a requirement to add any story to the news feed.

Speaking of requirements. One thing that did seem to go unchallenged where comments by Ed Roussel, Digital Editor, Telegraph Media Group, about contractual requirements for delivery of content to their system.

In an interesting overview he outlined what may be a typical approach to a breaking news story:

• 11:15 Alerts sms email desktop
• 11:25 150 words, solicit reader help
• 12:15 Updated story, images video
• 13:15 Analysis, topic page
• 15:15 Multiple angles – multimedia analysis etc.

Shades of Paul B’s newsroom model in practice here. Good stuff.

The system that drives this is one of story ownership. So a senior editorial staff member is the ‘story owner’ for their area. They plan and commission content for a story, managing it in a system called the grid. And here’s where the contractual thing appeared. The impression seemed to be that once a story was commissioned, the story owner was “contractually obliged” to deliver it.

This seems pretty scary – a kind of performance related pay. Still, he did say that good results on a story where also rewarded. Anyone at the telegraph tell me if I got the wrong end of the stick here?

Ed also came up with a phrase that I will carry with me. In dismissing the idea (perhaps a myth) that the web was simply about breaking news and the paper about analysis, he said that the strategy for your website was to be about the first and the last word on a story.

Good advice.

So after a day of being told what video on the web isn’t and how journalism isn’t ready. I think I’m hearing two ways of looking at this.

• Video is an internal strategic solution. It allows broader coverage in a dis-aggregated media world
• Video is a way to enhance your storytelling to engage with your audience who attract advertising.

If I was playing devils advocate then I would say that the rub is both of those have difficult ‘return on investment’ issues.

If you take option one then you will find the time it takes to get people up to speed and producing, re-org your newsroom and put technology in place is woefully out of step with your shareholders ROI expectations.

If you take option two then the time it takes it takes to get people up to speed and producing, re-org your newsroom and put technology in place, sell ads and then educate your audience to it’s presence so they give you the clicks is woefully out of step with your shareholders ROI expectations.

A bit of pickle that one.

Sitting in a room of senior managers it’s clear that a lot of people are looking for an answer to number one. Some, thank God, see theme two as an issue. But no one is talking about the in between.

The people who inhabit this in between are the journalists and the audience. In the terms I’ve heard today, assets to be deployed. I’ve heard lots of talk of expectation but little of training. Lots of stuff about pull rather than push but little about engagement.

Still. There is tomorrow to come.

The pitch:

The newspaper industry is at the front of the digital wave that is engulfing all media companies. Faced with dwindling subscribers with an aging demographic and advertisers wanting cross-platform impact, the print industry is fundamentally changing working practices and delivery options to maintain their revenues and brand value. Print-only is no longer an option and print-based media companies are now producing content via online video, mobile phones and via a host of digital platforms and applications. In this session we will examine these strategies and whether digital content such as video can save the print industry.

The people:

Edward Roussel, Digital Editor, Telegraph Media Group

Bas Broekhuizen, Editor, Volkskrant TV

Charles de Vroede, Deputy Chief Editor, de Telegraaf

Adriaan Bouten, Senior VP, Chief Information Officer, (I&M), McGraw-Hill

Joris Van Heukelom, Director, Cross Media, DAG

The result. The same old stuff.

Who are the people who don’t get it? CEO’s, editors and ad sales people. Really! Some talk about who they would and wouldnt put in front of a camera. And (making the last point seem a bit odd) why newspaper video was different from TV. And why?Well, we never really got to that.

It seemed that the reason newspaper video was different to TV was that it is easier to say what newspaper video isn’t than define what it is.

The most sensible statement of the session came from the Telegraphs Ed Roussel. Sell the idea of video to a skeptical workforce by training. Yes.

In terms of good video the best thing to come out of the session was…

So DNA is underway with a key note from VJ evangelist Michale Rosenblum.  His speech was pitched to the crowd. The sky is falling! Robin Hamman gets up his first post from DNA and says what I wanted to say about Rosenblum’s pitch:

Rosenblum’s talk was interesting, well delivered and entertaining but I can’t help but think that he’s maybe spent too much time whipping up his perfect storm and not enough actually out there in the real world. There’s a vast gulf between the media landscape he describes, where media companies put little effort into “the fuck ups” in the corner who run online, and the massive investment and talent being thrown at new media by the BBC (my employer) and many others.

For me the talk made clear just how flexible a issue technology in debate. At some points technology was the killer – the inevitable machine that will eventually consume you. On the other it is the big red herring. The thing that distracts us from the real point – the audience.

Perhaps thats going to be the big problem at this conference. The industry wants to hear that the technology is the red herring except they don’t understand the audience who is engaging with it.