Wednesday, March 26, 2008

ITV, via Blip.tv ITV News video blog from Afghanistan: Reinforcing bad blogging stereotypes.

Two approaches to online war reporting crossed my virtual desk last week. First, a broadcast journalist at ITV News told me about their video blogs from Afghanistan. Take a minute to watch this informal report by ITV correspondents Mark Austin and Phil Reay Smith.

Next, Reuters sent me a press release about Bearing Witness, "a unique multimedia package and online documentary to mark five years of reporting war in Iraq," After you've watched the ITV video, check out the Reuters project.

Spot the difference?

For years journalists accused blogs of being indulgent navel-gazing ego-trips. The ITV News video blog from Afghanistan supports that myth by offering little insight, reflection or indeed seriousness. The mood of the ITV video, as I noted on Twitter at the time, is of a lads' jolly. Put another way, the film uses the narrative of a "behind-the-scenes" promo, as if this is indeed only a "theatre" of war, where the stars remark on the quality of the catering and the sets.

iraq.reuters.com Reuters online special feature, "Bearing Witness," gets right to the heart of why war reporting matters, and how dangerous it can be.

Oliver Luft at Journalism.co.uk went further. On Mar. 7, he wrote: "Three things stand out in this vlog piece. First, it's just like a traditional piece of broadcast news, presenter driven, sets constructed and people artificially placed to interview. Second, if there is a war about, it seems a very jolly one -- no blood and guts, not too much slumming it for the ITV boys. Third, there seems to be millions of them out there, using a ton of kit. Why not just send a reporter with a lightweight camera and a laptop?"

On Mar. 10, ITV News responded to Luft's criticism, pledging their war video blogs "will be 'rougher, edgier, sometimes more opinionated' than traditional broadcast news. Read the full response from Ian Rumsey, head of output for ITV News.

The Reuters piece, on the other hand, tells a very different story.

"Covering news in hostile places is a worthwhile thing," says former Iraq bureau chief Andrew Marshall at the start. "It can bring about change, it can inform the world, and it is worth us risking our lives."

Video, audio slideshows, maps, timelines and links are combined to provide a reflective and informative angle on the conflict. This genuinely is "behind the scenes" -- the dangers faced by journalists, what they do and why they do it.

And importantly, it goes some way to address the cynicism of viewers who believe journalists are only there for the scoop and the status.

Now obviously the video blog and the multimedia interactive are different mediums with very different investments of time and money. But the reflectiveness of the Reuters piece could have just as easily been done with a video blog. In other words, a video blog doesn't have to be superficial.

Instead, ITV has opted for entertainment over insight -- which is understandable: that's what ITV News is known for, what its audience has perhaps come to expect. This is blog-as-diary rather than blog-as-journalism.

While hearing ITV producer Matt Williams talk about the "fun" of being a fellow soldier with Prince Harry may be entertaining on a personal level, it may also damage ITV's journalistic reputation. Viewers would likely ask, understandably, "Where is your critical distance?" Or note, "It's not 'fun' for my brother on the front line."

Put another way: imagine that these videos were on the journalist's own personal site, or Facebook page, and a viewer came across them. What might they think of the journalist?

Both of these online war reporting examples beg the question: "Why are we doing this?" The answers provided by the two pieces could hardly be more different.

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