"Multimedia" != "just video"
For those that are more journo than geek “!=” means “does not not equal.”
Does your newsroom have a multimedia guy? Odds are it does. What does that person do? I betcha it’s just video, huh. I’d also bet that his (or her) overall web skills are… um… we’ll go with developing.
You know, there are other media than just video. There’s text of course and there are photos naturally. There’s also audio, video and animations and all sorts of interactive web thingies.
There’s also HTML. Remember good ol’ HTML? Remember hyperlinks? Ever look up something on Wikipedia only to find that 45 minutes and 37 links later you’re reading about Cargo Cults or something? (c’mon, you know you have). Why aren’t our online news stories more like that?
I envision a simple lookup table, could be an SQL database somewhere or even a basic XML file. Then during some story processing step when the mayor’s name “Roy Stoner” is detected (perhaps only once per story) then is can be linked to a page on the guy. As a bonus, if the page is local (it doesn’t have to be) that would be your ad impression as well.
Picture this: Have a story on a structure fire? *click* The building’s history *click* The cities history *click* Other fire stories in a 5 mile radius (requires geocoding. you geocode your stories, right?) *click* Fire Engine 31 info *click* Other stories involving Engine 31 *click* Fluffy, Engine 31’s three legged dog.
But we don’t do that because we’re too busy doing just one multimedia.
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