cameron robertson - journalist and documentary-maker

There’s an issue prominent in newspaper websites that is being explored by careful experimentation or rigid policymaking: should video journalism achieve a balance or strive for the polemic?

The co-founder of The Huffington Post, Ariana Huffington, maintains that balance is not necessary in a story, only “the truth” should be. In these video interviews, (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2008/jul/08/huffington.journalism1) (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2008/jul/08/huffington.journalism2), Huffington says such a policy may be naive, but she believes in the idea of one truth - even if that truth is polemic. 

Later in the interviews, she says if someone from Hamas wrote a blog for publication on THP, she would ask someone to write an Israeli view to address the Hamas line of argument. So her truth-seeking approach is essentially about achieving a balance across THP website by cross-referencing two polemics. (I know she is not referring directly to video journalism, but I’ll get to that.)

However, this polemic-polemic approach needs predictable behaviour by the viewer/reader. If the viewer does not realise there is another blog or article, reading a singular post could be interpreted as promotion for a particular cause and accusations of bias may be raised.

Traditional TV news bulletins have reported two sides to a story, with both sides’ comments are usually featured, even if only in voice-over to acknowledge one party ‘declined to comment’. Crucially, online video journalism is being influenced by the users of net, who, exposed to short, sometimes unedited clip format on the likes of YouTube, become more familiar with the polemic view. With the majority of video journalism as five-minute films and under, and sometimes shot on cameras of lower quality than TV equivalent, video journalism is undoubtedly being influenced by what formats the web viewer is familar. But this web content, too, must be carefully considered by newspaper websites.

The Guardian website does video blogging, or vlogs.  (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/oct/09/uselections2008-sarahpalin) This is a quirky angle on traditional reporter-to-camera TV news because vlogs can be more emotional and biased. Otherwise could it be called a vlog? It’s quick to produce, making it useful for any reasons, particularly for fast reaction to a breaking story. Are vlogs video journalism? Technically, yes. Essentially, they are a newspaper column - a polemic - on video.

Looking at filmically-creative video journalism - which the Guardian also produces - The Washington Post has interestingly categorised its video, making this balance-polemic issue more digestible for the viewer. We hope. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/) If you scroll down the front, there’s a grey box with a choice of ‘Documentary Video’ or ‘News Video’.

‘News Video’ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2008/10/10/VI2008101002244.html) has clips. This one (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2008/10/07/VI2008100701145.html), supplied by Associated Press, has raw video of tear gas being fired at Thai protestors. Balanced or polemic? Technically, it is balanced because there is no opinion given in the footage and filming appears to take place among both police and protestors. 

Clicking on ‘Documentary Video’, you visit a haven of the polemic. One video I randomly viewed (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2008/09/25/VI2008092503575.html) was called Feeding Others Through Fasting. It covered a Muslim Student Association event about Ramadan and the tradition of fasting. It’s a video with all contributions being positive about fasting. So that’s polemic. Does it raise a debate? No - there are few doubts cast over fasting. But does it make the viewer think about the issue? Yes.

What is the viewer, before they watched, was opposed fasting? Would they be happy about the video? I doubt it. Would they be justified to complain about biased reporting? That’s for the relevant press complaints organisation to judge.

Returning to The Huffington Post, I happened to randomly select one of its video pages (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/11/free-marketeers-rally-on_n_133883.html)

The page read: “Two new videos, presenting an interesting juxtaposition of reactions to the current financial crisis, from the American News Project”. This seems a good illustration of Ariana Huffington’s claim of balance on her website.

The first video, Free Marketeers Rally on Capitol Hill, is about a rally to support free markets and deregulation. The second video, Fallout on Main Street: Mailman Speaks His Mind, is about a mailman who talks about the impact of the financial crisis on his family life.

They are quite different points of view that converge on the same theme. So placing the videos on the same web page appears to justify the polemic - so long as the viewer realises there is a second video further down the page. Unless wielding some office power, the video journalist has little to do with page design. So it could be argued that senior newspaper staff have responsibility to present balance on the newspaper website - not for the video journalist to incorporate in their individual video. I’m not sure if this is deliberate by THP, but both videos play when you enter the page. So the viewer - ironically - has to turn off the balance in order to view the polemic.

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