Chet Rhodes, Assistant Managing Eidtor for the Washington Post Online
We recently took a trip to the Washington Post’s multimedia department where we met with Assistant Managing Editor Chet Rhodes. Rhodes oversees the production and editing for WashingtonPost.com. Contrary to popular belief, the The Washigton Post and the Washington Post.com are two separate entities (for now) housed in two completely separate locations.
We begin our discussion by talking about the Post as an news organization and how its divided. Washington Post Media owns Washington Post.com and Washington Post (the paper). Being that we are becoming mulitmedia journalists, We visisted the buidling that houses Washington Post.com. The traditional Washington Post is where you would find the traditional reporters and editors but Washington Post.com is where you find the video journalists and web producers. The Washington Post currently has about 600 reporters and the job of the online division is two package the information found by the traditional reporters at the Post.
The types of video being produced in the interactive media division ranges from short quick videos to full length documentary styles. Rhodes puts each of the videos they produce into categories, which he refers to as tiers.
Tier 1: Short videos of a scene or event, usually referred to as b-roll. This video must work with text because otherwise, viewers may not understand the context of the video.
Tier 2: a little longer b-roll that uaually also incorportes an interview, which can also be referred to as a VOSOT.
Tier 3: Longer narrative, documentary style formats.
Rhodes has also been a part of the initative to help train print journalists becime familiar with video cameras. As newspapers continue to loose thier flare, they are constantly looking fot new ways to gain more audience interest. Rhodes said the biggest battle he is fighting is in changing people’s perspectives of the newspaper industry, more specifically the Washington Post.com. His ultimate goal would be for people to stop thinking as the WP.com as a place for just text stories but a place that provides them with video and also text. Here’s a video I found of Rhodes talking about his new intiaitive of training print journalists.
http://mindymcadams.com/tojou/2008/chet-rhodes-talks-about-washington-post-video/
He also showed us another multimedia resource that the Post has actually incorporated into some of their own work. A website called vuvox.com. It allows you to incorporate images, graphics, videos, and texts into an interactive presentation. Here’s an example of how it can be used.
Multimedia Journalism 