Telling stories differently

April 8th, 2008 at 05:10pm Anna Voelker

This weekend, sports reporter Doug Goodman decided to use video to tell two stories. Both published online Monday. Doug took a Handycam and a tripod to Rockford Speedway and Kent Creek and got this:

Enduro race opens Rockford Speedway’s season
Spring trout season opens at Kent Creek

I asked Doug if I could share his thoughts with newsroom staffers on what it was like to take a new approach when telling these stories. Here’s what he had to say:

I’m hoping this doesn’t sound too much like a pep rally for the march from traditional newspaper reporting to the world of multi-media reporting, but it might.

I’ve been a sports reporter for eight years now, and after covering the same sports that long it becomes slightly boring. It’s not like sitting on a wooden chair for hours covering a city council or school board meeting, but more of a job than a fun experience.

When I heard we were going to videotape events, it sounded interesting. I’ve never had a video camera but used them in high school and college in classes — many, many years ago.

Last week I told Chris (Soprych, multimedia editor) I wanted to shoot Rockford Speedway’s season-opening enduro race. Billy (Kulpa, multimedia journalist) gave me a 10-minute intro to the camera, and I was ready to go. It’s that easy.

I was covering the spring trout season opener Saturday morning and threw the video camera and tripod into the car. After doing my reporting for the newspaper story, I shot about 15 minutes of video. It was an enjoyable challenge. The footage was not the best — a tripod leg in the frame on one segment — but usable and gave people a feel of what it was like to be there at 6 a.m. Saturday. Kelley Simms (multimedia journalist) edited the video Monday, and I did a voice over for the one-minute video.

The enduro race was more involved. I shot for a couple of hours from different angles on the track. I also interviewed the winners and a loser.

Billy edited the action and interviews into a nice three-minute video.

These are events I would normally cover for the newspaper, but they were made more fun by shooting videos. I was excited about coming to work Monday morning to work on the videos.

Entry Filed under: Video storytelling, Web-only, Web first, Video