In case you missed the news, there was a tire fire in downtown Butte late last week. While reading up on it, Anne happened upon this video (below the text of the story), added to supplement a story about the fire and produced by somebody working for the Standard in Butte. In Anne's words:
I don't think it's a notable video in itself, but it is interesting to see how a small paper in the state is using a video to supplement coverage of a breaking news story. And I think it sets the scene pretty well.
Michael Becker has been blogging about academia, digital culture and journalism since 2005. He is the Web editor of the
3 Comments
This is a great example of how video can help illustrate a news story without necessarily having to retell the same story. The video, short, unnarrated, adds to the text story but doesn’t seek to replace it. Good find, Anne.
I think the only difference between this and something a television station would produce is narration and an on-camera interview.
Burning tires–that can’t be good. A couple things I noticed: the ambient noise was important. Even though there wasn’t any narration or speaking, it would have been a worse video if there wasn’t any sound.
1:33 was plenty long. Even though the footage was interesting and the fire mesmerizing, I don’t think I would have hung in there for more than 2 minutes. Good to remember.
i
as Anne and Michael mentioned, a video as an addition to a story is important. I can see us doing a lot of this (in addition to full-out story videos). There are several stories I have going now that I could see a 1–2 minute video adding something to.