Seen Your Video

Today is also the launch of YouTube's new journalism channel, Reporter's Center. It's a collection of videos from various notable members of the press "helping you report the news."

So far, it's a quality page. There are an impressive amount of videos, more than 30 at the moment, which is much more than I had envisioned for day one. More importantly, most of them are rather useful.

We're treated to the fantastic Scott Simon of National Public Radio, who weighs in that all stories need details, so that little parts stick when they are retold. Stuff like what brand of shoes a victim was wearing when a storm swept her away. Lizzie O'Leary from Bloomberg News lays out how to do a story with that is heavy with data, essentially that all economics pieces are "little data points of human behavior," and it is our jobs to find that face to represent it.

But this surprising new page does bring up a good question, can journalism tips really be shared in five-minute bursts? I'm convinced most knowledge of this job, especially the important stuff, can only come from being out in the field doing the work. That definitely applies to citizen journalists as well. When Arianna Huffington from the Huffington Post goes on about the importance of people recording things like Obama's "Bitter-gate" and Kramer's...."racist-gate," events that created an uproar at the time but I barely remember now, it's not adding advice on how to get a job or how to improve journalism. Questions like that are not only much more important, they generally remain unanswered, a fact that keeps this channel from being something great.

To its credit, even the blander videos, like Katie Couric stating that a good interviewer is a gracious host, Tavis Smiley plugging his show to no end, Huffington rambling about citizen journalism and the always well-sourced Bob Woodward mentioning that a good day-of story requires nearly a dozen people and various documents, contribute just enough to make their five minute run times worthwhile.

There's a very good clip on there of an Associated Press reporter detailing how to pitch a story idea. Basically, he says you should have the main idea out in two sentences and be prepared for a flood of questions. The legwork must be done before the story is pitched, he adds. It seems like a majority of these clips are directed toward someone in his or her first year at a reporting gig, who just kind of stumbled into the job with little background on it.

I certainly hope the site continues, it really is a helpful resource for what it is, but I'm not sure who is benefiting. If the channel wants to expand, and it's clearly trying to make an impression with the big names featured right off the bat, then there absolutely needs to be more real issues discussed. Nicholas Kristof and Chris Cillizza are both geniuses, but their clips on doing stories internationally and not looking dumb on television, respectively, really aren't contributing much beyond plugs for their work. People in those positions, I would hope with their years of experience, already know what to do.

As with many fields, very little of journalism can be taught through instructional videos. Sure the page is a nice, free package of clips from experts for green reporters to wane through, but what was the point for everyone else?


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Reporters give advice on a new YouTube Channel