On Backpack/Multimedia journalism

As with most things, there are positives and negatives to multimedia journalism.

Multimedia provides a way to deliver news in a format that more easily maintains continuity than newspapers or TV, and can be arranged in such a way to target consumers who are interested in a specific story in the news.

However, I’m not a big fan of viewer/reader responses. Typically this devolves into an extremist, often childish argument between a couple of posters, or otherwise rude and ridiculous comments (think YouTube).

One danger of focusing more on multimedia delivery is that depth may be sacrificed. For instance, if a written story is packaged with video, it’s quite likely that many consumers will simply watch the video (if it stands enough on its own) rather than getting the depth provided through the written word.

It’s important that as converged/multimedia journalists, we maintain a focus on ethics, the truth and good storytelling – not simply on the medium(s).