The May edition of Digital Journalism is up and there is (as usual) a lot of good reading there. The best of it is PF Bentley’s message to publishers trying to get into newspaper video with point-and-shoots and iMovie: don’t.
Bentley’s arguments are persuasive: if the web is the future for the newspaper (and it is), publishers need to commit to it and that means spending the money to do it right. Cheap tools may make it possible to get something started, but they won’t easily build and sustain quality.
That doesn’t mean there’s no room for small, cheap tools. Having reporters kitted out with point-and-shoots — video or still — makes sense for grabbing stuff on the fly. If they’re able to do a quick edit on a laptop with iMovie in the field, so much the better.
And it doesn’t mean newspapers should be waiting until they can afford “the good stuff” to jump in. If a point-and-shoot and iMovie are what you’ve got, go to it and start learning.
TAGS: JOURNALISM, VIDEO, TOOLS
