Guerrillas in the midst
A willingness to take risks and tap into existing talent pools is the best way for newspapers to move forward in the multimedia world. Of course, basic principles of news still apply.
“If it burns or bleeds — just like your front page — it gets traffic,” said Joanne Burghardt, editor-in-chief of Metroland Durham Region. Burghardt sat on a panel with Ian Caldwell, manager of online editorial content with Metroland Durham Region, and Drew Hasselback, associate editor of financialpost.com
The seminar, Web Video Journalism: Guerrilla Style, was one of the last at Ink & Beyond, the Canadian Newspaper Association and Canadian Community Newspapers Association conference taking place at the Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto.
Panel members agreed video is an instrumental part of news coverage, and shared their approaches to shifting focus to capturing the news through a lens.
From left to right, Drew Hasselback, Associate Editor of financialpost.com, along with manager of online editorial content for Metroland Durham Region Ian Caldwell, and Joanne Burghardt, Editor-in-Chief for Metroland Durham Region talk about their approaches to video production and the vital part it is beginning to play in a print reporter’s job. Aaron Lynett/Toronto Star
Niche for community news
Burghardt said community papers are in a rare position to take advantage of the wide levels of interest in all styles of media coverage.
A few years ago Burghardt walked into her publisher’s office with a detailed proposal for a business section she felt would give their newspaper a competitive edge.
The idea was turned down.
Later she returned and proposed $20,000 be invested in technology. She did not have a set plan or experience, but wanted to use the cash to produce a daily newscast.
She got the green light.
Staff were trained at Sheridan College and, with steady practice, the bumps started to get smoothed out.
“It was actually not very expensive to do it.”
They’ve since brought in multimedia staff and traffic on the site has been steadily increasing, she said. But during the process the paper lost reporters who were not interested in holding cameras.
Sorting out video advertising is one challenge they are facing right now, she said. “Right now our sole purpose is to build an audience and build traffic.”
Rough-and-ready video sufficient for disasters
“Video has a unique way of telling a story,” Ian Caldwell said. Prime examples are videos of airplanes hitting the World Trade Centre on Sept. 11, 2001 and of tsunamis devastating sections of Thailand and Sri Lanka on Boxing Day 2005.
The standard for the quality of video is high but when disaster strikes, things change, he said.
Then, it’s more about capturing the moment, and a “cinéma-vérité” feel can be more appropriate, he said.
Perceptions about equipment are also changing, and hand-held cameras are increasingly accepted as tools of the trade, he said.
“The question now is, what is a good video story?”
If community news outlets establish themselves as a source of breaking news they are in the position to scoop national television networks tied to broadcast schedules.
News Durham Region received several thousand hits during recent coverage of a major fire in Bowmanville.
The success of the story was the result of two years of slow, steady progress. That dedication has established www.newsdurhamregion.com as a source for breaking news, Burghardt said. When news breaks, “Our traffic is spiking before we get there.”
Making financial videos that pay
Adding visual value to occasionally dry financial content has its own challenges.
“The most important thing for us was not video for video’s sake,” but adding quality content to the print offering, said Drew Hasselback.
One problem for a leading financial paper is that investors are tuned in 24/7; when news breaks they expect to have access to content from a trusted source.
Multimedia lends itself well to financial coverage, because the inherent level of transparency allows readers direct transcripts of conversations or video blogs of CEOs, he said.
The Financial Post has found success with several styles of video content, including a wildly popular video interview with financial giant Warren Buffett and a humourous series, Marred by Taxes, with real estate reporter Garry Marr.
The advertising side is a challenge, particularly based on the diversity of content and fluctuating volumes of traffic, he said.
When FP moved into multimedia they created four primary objectives.
The first was presenting “how-to” content, said Hasselback.
They brought trusted investment advisors on to give advice online.
“Not the most compelling TV in the world … but there is a lot of people out there who want to watch that stuff because they want to learn about it,” he said “It’s news you can use.”
The second was delivering broadcast news. By luck, the Financial Post had just hired an economics reporter with a television background who stepped in to do a noon broadcast.
Commentary was third, and “I think that is the thing we do best,” he said.
The last was interviews, which have a lot of appeal for people who look to the Financial Post for news, said Hasselback. “When you show that interview and the viewer can actually see the subject speak in their own words, that fear the journalist is getting in the way of the story is gone.”
