For this assignment I looked at the San Jose’s Mercury News web site. It is the local newspaper for San Jose, CA. There was a story about Phuong Ho, a San Jose State college student who was videotaped being beaten with a baton and tasered by police officers. The text also included 2 clips of video. One is from the video of the cell phone. The other is from an interview that paper did with Ho. I analyzed both pieces of videotape.
I like that all the video was wrapped with the text. I got all the essential detail with the added depth of the video. I really like the way The Mercury News posted this video from the cell phone. When you hit play, it gives you a split screen. The raw cell phone footage is on the left and a zoomed-in version is on the right. The video is difficult to watch because of the violence and screaming on the tape. The video is very emotional, which makes it very compelling.
The quality isn’t great. Because it’s from a cell phone, the quality of the video is grainy and dark. The zoomed-in side is blurry and darker than the raw footage. I liked being able to choose what screen to watch when.
The next piece of video was the Ho interview. It started with a man’s voice over the video and then Ho describing what happened. Ho’s account is intermixed with scenes from the cell phone video. At the end, it tells you that the video was provided by Ho’s attorney. The interview was done by the paper.
This video was done like a TV package, but there’s no reporter SOC or attribution. Nor was the officers’ side told. The Mercury News should be more clear about where they are getting their information and to be balanced in presenting both sides of the story. They should also be careful that they don’t become a mouth-piece for the defense attorney, who is giving them all this information. Regardless, the video is very graphic and emotional and is definitely compelling.
November 12, 2009 at 3:34 am |
Good point about making sure there’s balance. One of the tricky elements with multimedia is that you still have to push yourself to be balanced. Just because one source may agree to pictures and/or audio, you’ve got to get the other side. The other question: Should the newspaper have used such poor quality video or just passed? What would you have done?