Columbia Journalism Review Discovers Videojournalism

Columbia Journalism Review devotes a zillion words to the state of videojournalism in its October issue, quoting the usual suspects, and not adding much to the conversation except the need to improve video search capability -- a point we've been making for more than two years.

Virtually all the worthy videojournalism examples cited in See It Now! by Jill Drew have been previously showcased on KobreGuide.com and KobreChannel.com (though both are blatantly overlooked in this report).

We suppose we should be grateful that the publication is paying attention at all ... but why does the article feel like old news already -- too little too late?

If you missed the advent and struggle of online videojournalism for the past two years, here's as good a place to start as any. For those in a hurry, here are the money grafs:

For candid video to move to the forefront of online news and address a rising generation of news consumers, several things have to change: online video journalists need to develop their own storytelling styles, breaking with the anchor-centered conventions of broadcast. Newsrooms need to better integrate and bolster their multimedia and video staffs, and create career paths for visual journalists that extend right to the top. Great video needs to be promoted just as big text stories are.

Video stories need to be judged like all other stories -- by how good they are, not how many clicks they get. And at the same time, media companies need to push search engines to focus on creating better tools to highlight well-produced, unique video stories.

Tellingly, no video accompanies this text story.