Video and newspapers

If I’m going to succeed after j-school, I’ll need to know video; video online is the future. The CNN-YouTube debates are one sign of where things are headed, as is the Sacramento Bee’s decision to begin accepting video letters to the editor. Newspapers can do video better than TV can, because (as Jeff Jarvis observes) they’re not bogged down with the expensive and cumbersome satellite trucks and equipment. All a newspaper videographer needs is a camera and a laptop.

What does this mean? Newspaper websites can truly leverage the power of broadband and short-form video to leapfrog old media video outlets. The new media “newspaper,” made up of text, audio and video, provides a far richer media consumption experience than anything out there. For me, in the long term, it means the future is going to be a very interesting place indeed. In the short term, it means I’ll need to learn to apply my film skills to journalism. It also means I need to add more sites to my RSS reader.