Journalism's future: video on mobile

While old newsmen still quibble about the "quality of journalism", the need to re-train staff on new media tools, "convergence" newsrooms, and online workflow processes, others are already showing the way. Get over the tools already, I say.

Video journalism seems likelier to jump straight to the third screen and skip this PC-centric obsession with old-style, broadcast-centric reporting. In markets in Asia and Europe where broadband cellphone penetration is exploding, trading video via mobile networks is already the norm.

A previous blogpost about how Norwegian online pioneer VG is already doing this via VGTV.no suggests where we will be in ten years.

The Sydney Morning Herald documents how the Philippines' Inquirer.net is already leading the way with Nokia N Series-armed reporters:

J. V. Rufino, the site's editor-in-chief, said multimedia was the future for journalism. Inquirer.net has also set up a video channel on YouTube to display its reporters' footage. (Note: Close to 200 videos already up.)

Multimedia reporter Erwin Oliva did a video interview with me in Manila. Oliva said he enjoyed having access to "cool tools" but believed the bottom line was the need for good journalism. "We get the news out in the fastest way possible in as good a way as possible. But nothing beats good writing."

Joey Alarilla, Infotech columnist at Inquirer.net, said he was proud of the way his reporters filed scores of breaking news stories a day. "In the near future we have to train them to look beyond the printed word, and think of how they can tell their stories via multimedia."

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