Category: news

onBeing: Washington Post’s video experiment

onBeingJust found out about onBeing, the Washington Post’s experiment with video vignettes from ordinary people. onBeing’s Jennifer Crandall explains the purpose on the site as follows:

onBeing is a project based on the simple notion that we should get to know one another a little better. What you’ll find here is a series of videos that takes you into the musings, passions, histories and quirks of all sorts of people. The essence of who they are, who we are.

There will be a new video every Wednesday, so check back often. In the meantime, feel free to add your thoughts to the comments section and tell us about someone you’d like to see in onBeing. Over time, we should end up with a pretty cool community. — Jenn

I’ve just clicked on a couple of videos, so it’s too early for me to form a judgment. But my overall impression is that the videos, while interesting, are too long. But at least the people at the Post are trying something, so good for them.

Other views from blogdom:

Pro: “All in all, it has a very iTunes-like feel. Totally un-newspaper-like.”

Con: “It’s like some undergrad documentary project that’s not interesting enough to make it onto the 3 a.m. slot of a third tier cable network and not edgy enough to get noticed as modern art.”

The State of the News Media, 2007: 7 trends

Last week, the Project for Excellence in Journalism released its annual State of the News Media report, which notes seven major trends to watch. Here’s a summary of them:

  • News organizations need to do more to think through the implications of this new era of shrinking ambitions. The move toward building audience around “franchise” areas of coverage or other traits is a logical response to fragmentation and can, managed creatively, have journalistic value. To a degree, journalism’s problems are oversupply. … But something gained means something lost, especially as newsrooms get smaller.
  • The evidence is mounting that the news industry must become more aggressive about developing a new economic model. The signs are clearer that advertising works differently online than in older media. Finding out about goods and services on the Web is an activity unto itself, like using the yellow pages, and less a byproduct of getting news, such as seeing a car ad during a newscast.
  • The key question is whether the investment community sees the news business as a declining industry or an emerging one in transition. … If news companies do not assert their own vision here, including making a case and taking risks, their future will be defined by those less invested in and passionate about news.
  • There are growing questions about whether the dominant ownership model of the last generation, the public corporation, is suited to the transition newsrooms must now make.
  • The Argument Culture is giving way to something new, the Answer Culture. [Applause! – ed] … A growing pattern has news outlets, programs and journalists offering up solutions, crusades, certainty and the impression of putting all the blur of information in clear order for people.
  • Blogging is on the brink of a new phase that will probably include scandal, profitability for some, and a splintering into elites and non-elites over standards and ethics.
  • While journalists are becoming more serious about the Web, no clear models of how to do journalism online really exist yet, and some qualities are still only marginally explored. A content study of more than three dozen news sites offers more details.