In November 2012, I was lucky enough to find myself seated
almost directly behind the chief economics writer for the Financial Times,
Martin Wolf, on the night he was awarded the James Cameron award for journalism
(normally reserved for embattled war correspondents – as the name suggests at
City University London. My company at the time included a star struck
ex-business correspondent from Milan.
For years my Italian colleague had regarded Mr Wolf’s disillusion with
government austerity and the omnipotence of the free-market as what separated
the FT from that old Daily Telegraph trope of existing merely to ‘comfort the
comfortable’.
Before accepting the award, Mr Wolf was approached by George
Brock, head of the City journalism department. After a brief chat Mr Brock
looked up, scrutinised a ragged row of students before looking directly at me.
Pointing back to Mr Wolf he informed me that “this man wants to talk to you’’.
The columnist turned in his chair: “Are you a journalism
student?”
“Yes.”
"You’re not expecting to make any money are you?”
“No.”
“Good, this is trade becoming a rich man’s hobby.”
The value of any newspaper office could easily be measured
by circulations and prime location, where the FT has impressive bragging
rights. Pearson however, is also in possession of another profound and valuable
resource. There is not a room in One
Southwark Bridge
where intelligent, insightful and well-informed conversation cannot be found;
and the ground floor edit room is no exception.
On a typical day various videos will arrive from either the
studio or the outside world. The footage, along with an appropriate template
must be extracted from the clutches of Final
Cut Server. Once edited, a blurb and title must be written. This metadata
is then sent to the presenter for “checking”. After approval is given, this
copy is sent to “web-revise” who check the title and blurb for grammatical
errors before returning to sender. As this is being done, relevant thumbnails
have to be requested from Manila.
On the return of the corrected title, the corrected blurb
and the correct thumbnail, the metadata must be meticulously entered into both “what
page” and “topic plans”, each subsections of an online publishing tool called Méthode.
As this being done the video must be returned to the Final Cut Server, where all the metadata must be entered once again. This is followed by a
visit to Brightcove.com where the thumbnails are added. (This can take any time
between 40 seconds and 40 minutes) Once thumbnails are up, the video can be released
into the wild. As can the intern.
There is now a growing realisation in the newsroom that
video is going to play a big part in the future of online journalism. News, our
editor informs us “is no longer the newspaper”. In this evolving world the
video editor is the sub-editor, the camera operator is the reporter and they
are often the same person. The printing press is now a towering server and we
are its servants. If you’re expecting to make any money, don’t. If you’re
expecting to make any news, to quote a David Byrne song: “Behold and love this
giant.”
