Multimedia Mania

We're past the time when people sitting around conference tables at major news media companies have to argue about the merits of including multimedia on their web sites. The verdict has long been rendered: Readers like video and audio to go along with their words.

So it is that these print (or Web-only) publications invest in cameras and recorders, and anyone on staff who has any type of broadcast experience becomes the in-house instructor to the legions of the lost.

But the question that should often be asked is what quality of work audiences expect of reporters who are dabbling in new journalistic endeavors. Or, framed another way, how professional should publications expect their podcasts or videocasts to sound or look?

For smaller companies that can't afford to hire broadcast experts or invest in top-quality equipment, standards are of particular importance. On the one hand, audiences are so used to grainy or slightly shaky YouTube-esque video that a little of either on a video posted on a news site probably won't send them heading for the hills. There's something to be said for visual pieces that don't seem overly produced, as well as those that are stylistically unique and fit the feel of the publication.

Then again, if you're requiring articles to be edited, fact-checked and edited more, what kind of message are you sending to readers if your audio interviews sound like they are happening on an airport runway?

Seems to me that the litmus test doesn't need to be whether or not a piece would be fit to air on NPR or the nightly news, but rather whether the content helps add value to the site (not just doing video for video's sake) and whether any problems with sound quality and visual clarity distract readers from that content.

It's certainly smart to train reporters how to frame their interview shots and get sound bites that come with little background noise. It's also fair to expect improvement over time. Still, technical perfection isn't needed. A perfected sense of news judgment is.