If I remember correctly, video cameras at the time were very bulky. If pressed, my dad would probably have reminded me of his bad back—an ailment I’m becoming familiar with now that I’m about the age that he was then.
Despite my love of movies, television and all things pop media, I’ve never been one of those who really felt the need to video-record things. After all, if Paris Hilton taught us anything, it’s that sometimes you don’t need a video camera.
With relatively little video experience, I am now in the thick of it. For those of you who haven’t seen our new website yet (www.loudouni.com), we are moving heavily into video news along with our standard print. It takes some getting used to, but rest assured that it’s video plus print not video instead of print.
It’s been a struggle. In general, one of the things that I’ve enjoyed about journalism is that you don’t particularly have to dress up when you’re the one taking the picture. Now, at a moment’s notice, you can end up on camera introducing a news report. It’s intimidating—I was born with four cowlicks in a row, right on the top of my head, and it requires effort and vigilance to get my remaining hair under some sort of control.
Now that we’re beginning to think about video in conjunction with print, it’s also opened our perception to some of the other tricks of the trade. As you’re passing a crowd, how do you know who the reporter is?...Because he’s the one dressed very well, but only from the waist up. I have seen reporters wearing a suit top and flip flops.
The really fun part of our new video style is that I’ve recently rearranged my office so that most of our mini-shows can be filmed in it. While I’ve had the pleasure of heckling our publisher Amy Burns during her Daily Briefing reports, I have tried to excuse myself during the longer filmings—like the recent Moneyline Dogs sports show, or the Independent Opinion review of the local political scene.
It was all fun and games until I was evicted, and now I’m trying to type a story while sitting on a folding chair behind our receptionist—still, I’ve enjoyed the results and it’s only getting better.
Personally, I enjoy the news videos, and there’s something outrageously enlivening about taking your hand-held Flip Video camera out to get the closest shot possible of a house fire, or using it for an unexpected comment from one of our elected officials on the news of the day.
While I generally concede that I have a face made for print, but you’ll even catch me in front of the camera from time to time—I hope your monitor can take it.
Despite the tears shed over the “fall of media” and the hands wrung out over “will newspapers survive?,” I think this is possibly the most exciting time ever to be in journalism. More than that, it’s an exciting time to be someone looking for the news.
Rather than curse the new mass media and wonder what can be done to return to where we were, I instead look at it as a ten-fold opportunity to provide local news in ways that weren’t possible before.
I do sometimes wonder how my father would have viewed the increased multimedia requirements of news today. He likely would have grumbled some and said how he preferred reading to television…Then, forward-thinker that he was, he’d have seen what it could do. After that, he’d have been off trying to use it in the most interesting, reliable way to get the news out to those who need it.
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