Friday, October 20, 2006

Pro-am television

Yesterday's discussion about the internet TV channel 18 Doughty Street raised yet again the interesting issue of what constitutes 'professional' standards in the age of anyone-can-do-it television.

Iain Dale said he wanted Doughty Street to lie somewhere between where it is now (a bit rough) and the BBC.

But what does that mean?

In a few weeks we will, for the first time, set about giving basic video skills to all our postgrad print journalists. But what should we be attempting to teach? Emulating the best craft skills of TV news - or something different?

My own sense is that it should be something different - not inferior, but different. I've seen on newspaper websites examples of video that I've found highly effective that would never pass muster in the newsrooms of ITV, Sky or the BBC. More YouTube than Wales Tonight. More from the heart than a 50 year tradition of craft TV skills.

The BBC has already wrestled with these issues with its local TV pilots. I think we in Cardiff should be thinking a lot harder about what it is we are striving to achieve with these TV for print journalists sessions.

More soon!

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