Zac Echola is muffin but trouble

Do it: The argument for more “crap” on the Web

Published on 11/08/07
by Zac Echola

I just went on a long rail in the comments over at multimediashooter.com. I think I just woke up too early this morning and I might be a little crabby, but I’m sick of seeing this line of thinking come from my (rather pretentious) colleagues in the Web news business:

Please tell me why these have seen the light of day? No dis-respect to photographers Chris and Jason, I know this is coming from above you, at least I hope, but WTF. Most of us in the industry are fighting not to do ‘video just because we can’ and you guys are doing this! Really, what is the point? I just have to know. Have they given the photo staff video quotas?
I am going to use these as examples of the wrong way to approach newspaper video.

And these from the comments:

I agree, what the heck were they thinking? This is the problem I think many people are facing, management that didn’t understand photojournalism before video, and really doesn’t understand the what multimedia storytelling can really do. This is the video equivalent of someone yelling out to go get a weather picture. Hopefully these two argued their case beforehand.

My guess is that these videos were tagged to a reporter’s online story. Just one more thing that the photo departments will have to deal with until reporters are trained to shoot these video tags themselves. These videos on there own don’t have much to say, but placed in the context of a written story they might give the viewer some added value. Is it what I want to shoot? Hell no.

And again from Richard:

it should read editors defend yourself. I’ve been In the business long enough to know this is beyond photogs. But when you work at a place that uses these pieces as examples of why we ahould be producing five staff videos a day, i feel the need to speak out and say no. This is not the kind of video journalism we should settle for. All eyes are on us as an industry and we have a responsibility to speak up. We should be fighting and talking about this kind of thing to death. I know i didnt become a photojournalist to be told to go shoot video of grass growing. Maybe its time for me to get out of newspapers. And, as for me splashing this out there….well dont forget any jerk with a blog can say what they want.
i think the time to always be nice is over. Its time for some tough love. Dont get too worked up about the spreading of negativity there is always a bad apple in the bunch, but because it looks so ugly and moldy and smells bad it makes the rest of the apples look good.

This was my long winded response:

As a Web producer for mid-sized group of papers, I’m all for tiered video on the Web. By this I mean having a mix of well produced video packages that can stand alone from a written story and short clips packaged with text, graphics and photos that certainly can’t stand alone very well.

Granted, those short clips should somehow enhance the story. And a reporter could just as easily shoot it as a photog.

But, the fact of the matter is that sending photographers out on extended video assignments doesn’t make much sense on deadline either. A photo is arguably easier to produce and it can be used in multiple media (the paper, the Web, cell phones, etc.), whereas video takes generally more time to create and can really only exist on the Web right now; Unless you have some kind of deal with a TV station, that video has a smaller audience than a series of photos. So it makes sense to spend more time on photos than video, thus producing more short clips and saving produced video packages for weekend centerpiece stories.

My argument extends further to text and photos. Why not put the “crap” on the Web, too? Storage and distribution costs may as well be zero and everything on the Web finds an audience regardless of how you perceive the quality. Write briefs about the little league game that will never make the paper, add those photos you don’t have space for in the paper, or that you think are unworthy of print. SOMEONE wants to see it.

This is the beauty of the Web, the crap and the masterpieces are the same value when it comes to serving up advertisements; two eyeballs equals on ad, regardless of what those eye are seeing. There isn’t the problem of limited space and time, like we have with newspapers and TV respectively.

The “archaic” line of thinking is that you only distribute what you think is the best content. You don’t speak for everybody in your audience.

I think it’s time for newspaper and TV people (I’ve worked in both areas) to start understanding the Long Tail of the Web. Google it.

That is all.

And now for another long rail:

To elaborate a little bit further via analogy: YouTube wouldn’t work if you cut off just the best videos on the site. First, deciding the “best” is such a subjective game. Second, cutting off all those videos with, say, fewer than a 1,000 views over the past month would artificially cut off thousands upon thousands of people who want to see these so-called “crap” videos.

YouTube would simply not grow. It would die because some competition would come along and aggregate all the content better.

The problem with we media types is we have a tendency to think we know what our audience wants and needs. Our view of quality is disproportionately higher than our audiences view of quality. We spend all day looking at media of all kinds, and then we either directly or indirectly (it doesn’t matter which) assume that our audience thinks like we do.

This is a confirmation bias and it is wrong! DO NOT purport to know who your audience is, because you are at the fringe of the audience yourself. You cannot see the forest for the trees.

For the most part they (our audiences) do not watch you and watch your competition! They do not necessarily read your newspaper and your Web site. They do not care about us!

They care about a variety of information. You may have a thousand readers who want to know about a city council meeting and one reader who wants to know what the fishing is like at some lake. It’s easy to give them all what they want because space is unlimited and the cost of producing the fishing information is probably much less than the cost of producing the city council information. Since ad space on a page is limited, you’ll get a higher return on eyeballs looking at the fishing information than the council information.

The point is people come to us in hopes that we have what they’re looking for. If they can’t find it, they look somewhere else.

This idea of “general” is dying off. It died in the magazine industry, and the content is flourishing because of it. It’s dying in television and the content is flourishing because of it.

We need to think about our audiences (yes plural). We need to think about niche content. We need to think like spaghetti sauce companies.

The end. Or is it?

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