Training Our Audience

Let’s face it, most of us know that video is an awesome (though not all-encompassing) story telling tool. There are some things it just does better than stills or words. And we’ve watched a couple waves of the-future-is-video, oh-no-no-one-is-watching-it came and go now.

So, which is it? A massive time suck and drain on our time and financial resources? Or the future?

After a talk with several people I trust last year, I came to the conclusion that we in the journalism business are ahead of the game right now, that we’re just waiting for the audience to catch up. That thought came from alum Justin Gillis at the New York Times who said his paper was putting the effort in now so that when the audience catches up, the Times will be the expert.

When the audience catches up. An interesting phrase, don’t you think?

Well, some of his colleagues and competitors are now saying the same thing, as you can see on this Beet.tv piece.

(Thanks to Steve Fox on Twitter for the link.)