Multimedia Journalism: “Where’s the Wow?”
In a Sea of Sameness, one of the most timely and relevant questions you can ask yourself is “Where’s the wow?” in your story.
This is the question my colleague Regent Ducas has been asking MMJs across the country during our training workshops with MMJ Galen Culver. This soundbite is succinct and worthy of watching.
The problem is all the stories look just about the same. In fact, many stories are so forgettable that even news people have difficulty answering this question we frequently raise: “What local TV news stories do you remember?”
The question gets several blank looks, then responses about non-local stories on ESPN and the Comedy Channel, for example. And several MMJs admit they don’t watch local TV news on a regular basis because it’s not relevant to their lives.
And what questions do they remember? Several mentioned Jay Leno asking Kanye West “What would your mom have said about this?” following his infamous rant during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech. The only problem: This didn’t have anything to do with local TV news — and the story ran more than a year ago.
Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to observe: “If we can’t get our own people to watch regularly and remember stories, what chances do we have to pull in non-employees?
Don’t ponder that too long. Here are takeaways:
- Cover stories relevant to the lives of viewers, including yourself. If they’re not relevant, the most creative photography won’t matter. Viewers have no reason to watch it in the first place.
- Plan the wow. Don’t wait for Divine Intervention. Plan the wow. For example, we often ask workshops participants to shoot a story about “Eating Healthy in the Newsroom.” Just about all the stories we see look the same. Yep, news people eating junk food. You know what that looks like, so we haven’t grabbed any frames for you to see. What are the possibilities for wowing viewers with an inventive approach? Think different.
For example, bring in a few dollars’ worth of healthy vegetables — like spinach — setting them in front of a news person eating the salty, sugar-laden, fatty burgers complemented by sugar filled pop and a sweet dessert. Will they eat the healthy food? Regent and I can’t predict for sure, but it certainly adds drama to what can be a ho-hum story. It can add a wow!
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An honored TV storyteller with a keen appreciation for delivering a wow in visual storytelling is NBC’s Bob Dotson. This is one of my favorite stories of his:
Multimedia Minutes: What the Nation’s Most Recognized TV Storyteller Learned from this Video
This entry was posted on Monday, August 30th, 2010 at 4:14 pm and is filed under broadcast journalism, Multimedia Journalism, Power Tools for TV Journalists, TV news training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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