With the second half of the semester beginning, #loweclass will start to incorporate video into our stories. Therefore, we were asked to critique our beat's use of video. The Detroit Free-Press uses video in the same way that we are taught to use photos, to tell a story that advances the story being told on paper.
The Free-Press uses video in different ways. In sports stories, the main style of video used is post-game press conferences. Readers get to see video of players and coaches answering questions. This allows for the reader to see the non-verbals of the quotes that appear in the text stories. However, it would be better if the Free-Press would use game highlights in their videos. Some readers may not have been able to see the game, so highlights would be a great way to keep viewers on the page.
As for news, the Free-Press offers its videos a little differently. The majority of stories are just accompanied by photos and allow for the text to tell the story. Then, there are stories that are told strictly through video with no text. I find these to be both refreshing while also inconvenient. For instance, I watched a video about beavers being found in the Detroit River. Was it really necessary to have a three and a half minute story based solely on an animal? The text story would have been extremely short, yet video allows the story to have some depth. So the story was told through the best medium possible, but was it worth being a story?
One area the Free-Press lacked video that surprised me was in entertainment. Before touring the website, I figured entertainment would have the most video. But the Free-Press did not have a single video piece in the headlines on the home page and had a couple in the carousel on he entertainment homepage. However, the video was used to add to the stories. For example, in the story about rapper Tone Loc collapsing on stage, the video is raw footage of paramedics checking out the rapper. I feel like this was great use of video to advance a story, yet it may have been more useful as a hyperlink rather than the dominant feature of the story.
Overall, the Free-Press uses video to its advantage more than as a disadvantage. The homepage has a multimedia section devoted to each desk of the newspaper and normally accompanies a story in some way, shape or form. There are some areas where video can be improved on, but otherwise, the Free-Press succeeds in using video to advance stories.
The Free-Press uses video in different ways. In sports stories, the main style of video used is post-game press conferences. Readers get to see video of players and coaches answering questions. This allows for the reader to see the non-verbals of the quotes that appear in the text stories. However, it would be better if the Free-Press would use game highlights in their videos. Some readers may not have been able to see the game, so highlights would be a great way to keep viewers on the page.
As for news, the Free-Press offers its videos a little differently. The majority of stories are just accompanied by photos and allow for the text to tell the story. Then, there are stories that are told strictly through video with no text. I find these to be both refreshing while also inconvenient. For instance, I watched a video about beavers being found in the Detroit River. Was it really necessary to have a three and a half minute story based solely on an animal? The text story would have been extremely short, yet video allows the story to have some depth. So the story was told through the best medium possible, but was it worth being a story?
One area the Free-Press lacked video that surprised me was in entertainment. Before touring the website, I figured entertainment would have the most video. But the Free-Press did not have a single video piece in the headlines on the home page and had a couple in the carousel on he entertainment homepage. However, the video was used to add to the stories. For example, in the story about rapper Tone Loc collapsing on stage, the video is raw footage of paramedics checking out the rapper. I feel like this was great use of video to advance a story, yet it may have been more useful as a hyperlink rather than the dominant feature of the story.
Overall, the Free-Press uses video to its advantage more than as a disadvantage. The homepage has a multimedia section devoted to each desk of the newspaper and normally accompanies a story in some way, shape or form. There are some areas where video can be improved on, but otherwise, the Free-Press succeeds in using video to advance stories.
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