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| The Wall Street Journal wants its reporters filing microvideo updates for its new WorldStream Posted: 27 Aug 2012 01:12 PM PDT
The Wall Street Journal has been busy expanding its video offerings and experimenting with dedicated news streams in recent months. Today, the natural merger of the two debuts: a stream of reporter-generated videos called WorldStream. WorldStream is a bit like what it would be like to follow a bunch of WSJ reporters on Twitter — except if instead of posting 140 characters of text, they were each filing in 30-second-video chunks. It’s a reverse-chronological stream filled entirely by what reporters in the field are capturing with their smartphones. Because it’s a stream produced by many, narrative flow is replaced by the dissonance of multiple stories, multiple voices, and multiple styles. Here’s Grover Norquist doing a standard-issue interview on Mitt Romney (35 seconds). And here’s Liz Heron giving a quick tour of the Google presence at the GOP convention in Tampa (41 seconds). Here’s…wreckage in Syria (17 seconds). Here’s WSJ reporter Arian Campo-Flores doing a standup about Hurricane Isaac (41 seconds). Here’s a moment-of-zen watching golf carts pass silently by (12 seconds). And here’s a still shot of a bunch of chairs in an almost empty room (10 seconds).
To do this, the Journal worked with Tout, which created an app especially for the paper so reporters can file video straight from their smartphones with little fuss. (Tout users can normally upload 15-second videos, but The Wall Street Journal’s proprietary Tout app gives reporters a luxurious 45 seconds.) Before showing up in the WorldStream, videos have to be cleared by an editor. In WorldStream’s nascence, Murray says videos that are filed but kept off the stream are the exception to the rule: Most of what they get is what you see. But there will be times when the Journal opts to keep a video private so as not to “tip off the competition,” or in cases where further explanation is needed for proper contextualization. “This is kind of like an internal work tool that’s being exposed to the public,” Murray told me. “The work tool still functions even if we don’t expose it.” For the 400-plus reporters whom The Wall Street Journal has trained to shoot video, WorldStream conceivably makes the process much easier: They see someone or something interesting. They shoot, and they file. “They don’t have to worry about it after,” Murray said. “It actually removed friction from the process… What this does is just give them an outlet.” Reporters who are being asked to collect video anyway finally have a place to publish it in standalone snippets. Depending on what they shoot, videos could also show up embedded in stories, as part of larger packages, in cutaways during one of The Wall Street Journal’s produced shows, etc., etc. Murray says just about “anything shot by reporters could and should go into the stream.” And to battle that somewhat disjointed mix of content, viewers can apply thematic filters — if you just want videos of what the GOP is up to in Tampa, that’s all you’ll see. The filtered view is more in line with the Journal’s previous forays into streamy news, which have focused on niche topics and events. (The 2012 election stream will likely become the most content-rich example of one of the Journal’s topic-specific streams.) The neat thing about the unfiltered version of WorldStream is it reflects Journal operations any given day, not unlike that notional Twitter list. (WorldStream entries also use a Twitter-inspired system of #hashtags for internal tagging of videos.) And it plays around with some of the ideas many have been promoting as critical for news’ future: the importance of video; the boom in information streams; the birth of new shells to contain new formats of journalistic output. But as with Twitter, the fact that WorldStream is available for breaking news won’t mean that it’s where management wants you to see the really big exclusive. “Suppose you ran into Joe Biden at the Democratic convention, and he told you something he hadn’t told anybody else, that he was going to cede his position to Hillary Clinton,” Murray said. “That’s not the kind of news we would break on WorldStream. We have protocols in place for that but it doesn’t start with a free video blog.” Photo by Joelk75 used under a Creative Commons license. |
| Latitude News and PRX partner on an international news podcast Posted: 27 Aug 2012 11:36 AM PDT
Relatability, Balinska argues, is key because it puts global news in a frame that feels less, well, foreign. Latitude News is now trying to expand its approach to international news through a partnership with PRX. Thanks to funding from the Open Society Foundations, Latitude News and PRX are producing 12 podcasts and broadcast segments that showcase global stories that link back to people and communities here in the U.S. As one of the largest distributors of audio storytelling, PRX has the ability to put Latitude on iPhones, Androids, and public media stations across the country. The shows are hosted by Dan Moulthrop and have a sound that blends the loose, conversational, nature of podcasting with a structure that borrows cues from public media programs. So far, two episodes have been produced, one looking at the ties between U.S. evangelicals and anti-gay measures in Uganda, the other connecting cod fishing in Norway and the United states. Balinska, a former Nieman Fellow and 20-year veteran of the BBC, said audio storytelling was natural to her, which is why she wanted to make it a part of Latitude. “Generally speaking, I think audio engages people in a particular way that is different from video and print,” Balinska said. More specifically, Balinska said the nature of audio stories — whether in your car, at home or in your headphones — is a stylistic fit with her goal of telling relatable stories. A podcast is the right vehicle for deeper, non-traditional, stories, because in order to consume it a listener has to spend time with it. “Think about the classic model of storytelling: two people sitting down over a cup of tea or glass of wine, recounting to one another,” she said. “That is the basic element of storytelling.” Looking at Latitude News’ site, you get a clear sense of how they approach international news. An analysis of President Obama and Mitt Romney’s stance on wind power is put in perspective by examining foreign companies that manufacture wind turbines overseas. A story on the Russian punk band Pussy Riot makes connections to a local band in Boston and musicians like Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. With newsrooms shrinking, locally driven international coverage has taken a big hit in newsrooms. While newspapers can still rely on wire services like AP to deliver global news, Balinska said those typically fail to provide something a reader can relate to. Balinska launched Latitude News last fall, with support from the International Women’s Media Foundation among others, to build a bridge between local news and global news. “I felt there was a real gap in the market for stories and coverage that actually broke down the barriers and the silos in the newsroom from the local desk and the foreign desk,” she said. The partnership with PRX will likely expose Latitude to new audiences. John Barth, managing director of PRX, told me at least one public radio station, Seattle’s KUOW, has already used a Latitude segment on air. Barth said the grant from the Open Society Foundations was for the specific purpose of broadening international coverage to American audiences. Rather than funding a traditional newscast, Barth said they wanted to find new voices and new approaches to international news. “One of the challenges is drawing connections between foreign stories and domestic issues here on a human and one-on-one level,” Barth said. “That’s one of the reasons that makes this so relevant.” |
While WorldStream aims to be a way for viewers to get a potpourri of fresh video content, it is first and foremost an internal newsroom tool that the Journal has opted to make public. Alan Murray, deputy managing editor and executive editor for the newspaper online, says he had long been looking for a way to, er, streamline the filing process for video. 
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