Where’s the story? The problem with soundbite-only video

Posted by briansingler on Nov 18, 2010 in Featured Articles, Storytelling, Video | 0 comments

If I had to point out one problem with the majority of online video journalism, it would be the distinct lack of a coherent story.

It feels like somewhere along the way, somebody decided that online video journalism would involve soundbites from one or multiple sources strung together for minutes on end, often with pretty pictures and video filler to cover the audio track.

If we are going to call ourselves visual storytellers, then we have to tell stories, not just mash together soundbites. When was the last time you read a text story, newspaper or otherwise, that was one giant string of quotes?

Never. There is give and take between sources and a journalist who puts the sources and story in context. I believe more online video journalism should do that.

As someone who consumes a lot of online video journalism, these are the main problems I see with the sound-bite only approach, which anecdotally seems to be far and away the dominant structure:

1. It forces sources to say boring things, like who they are, what the event/topic is about, the 5 W’s, and other important details any story needs. Since sources rarely put all these in one nice, short soundbite, the details are often scattered around or missing altogether.
2. The beginnings of the videos lack punch, for many of the same reasons as No. 1.
3. The video lack that critical nut graf that defines the story itself.
4. The stories become predictable. They all sound the same. Go to any newspaper site and click on a staff-produced video. It’s going to be soundbite-soundbite-soundbite. I have to think readers pick up on this at some level.
5. The videos struggles to stand alone. When embedded on another site apart from an explanatory paragraph or accompanying story, I often have to clue what the story’s about.
6. It forces every video to have a “discourse” structure, or a non-narrative structure. While not always appropriate, a narrative or chronological story has power when used well and when you’re relying only on soundbites for your video, a narrative structure becomes almost impossible.
7. Stories tend to be shallow and wallow in generalities. Unless your source is great or you really push them for details, sources can tend to stay at bird’s eye level.
8. Overall, you’re so limited as a storyteller. If you notice something important or you find out something important later, you have no way of adding that to your story.

This is all coming from someone who spent a lot of years writing print stories, and I understand that many photographers have a different take on storytelling, involvement in a story, etc. However, I believe a video has a lot more in common with a print story than a photo.

However, it would be wrong to suggest there is never a situation in which a soundbite-only story is appropriate. Certain types of stories beg to be told from a single perspective. Imagine if you’re telling a story of what it’s like to go through a disease or chronicling a love story like the New York Times does with it’s Vows series? In that case, the soundbite-only method was a chosen for a reason, not just applied as the defacto standard for every story.

The reality is that we often can’t rely on audio from sources alone to tell a story for us. No matter how much time we put into swapping around the soundbites (and you can spend A LOT of time doing that), the reality is that an unscripted interview is, by its very nature, incoherent. During interviews, people don’t put things in logical order and don’t always nail the significance of whatever the story is about.

When that happens (and I can’t think of a time it hasn’t after doing thousands of interviews), it seems like many visual journalists then try to force coherence onto what the person said — rather than making the story coherent first and using the source to further illuminate the story. Does that make sense?

Why?

After working in many facets of journalism, including newspapers, TV and online, I have seen several reasons for the reliance on soundbite-only stories:

• It’s damn hard to make a video piece with both stunning visuals and a great story. This story I did for the Post-Dispatch was not great in either category, but it still took a full 40 hours. When you add the care, thought and structure that goes into a typical print story with the complexities of shooting, editing and post-production, you’re in for a long ride that’s mentally taxing. But the payoff is huge.
• Video pieces are treated like photo assignments. They are not. A good video, I believe has more in common with a print story than a still photo and takes longer to produce than both put together.
• Editors don’t get involved in multimedia. They leave it to the photo staff to handle or feel like they don’t understand the visual or technical elements well enough to comment on the story.
• Deadline. Sometimes you have to get stuff out and soundbites are all you have time for. I often have to get away from a story for a little bit for some ideas to come to mind on how to structure it. That time isn’t always available.
• Philosophy. Some organizations are way more interested in being content factories than making good content. There is little incentive to put the time into putting a great story when you have four more stories to do that week. It’s a recipe for burnout.
• Laziness. It’s easier to string together soundbites than make a cohesive story. I put this one last because I’ve seen it the least often.

Making the story in your video stronger

Here’s a couple ideas for improving the story in your video story.

1. You can script out your video. This is whole other blog post, but putting a story on paper (while keeping the visual part in your head) forces you to address holes in the story, make sure nothing is missing and place important details where they need to go.
2. You can work with a reporter and editor to make sure your story is strong. I have yet to work at a place where anyone took a critical look at the story a video is telling. Instead most people seem to check for jump cuts, missing crossfades, or other minutia that while important, is not as important as the story.
3. Add voiceover. This scares the hell out of some people and photographers seem to universally dislike it, but it prevents your source from saying boring but necessary things and gives you, as a journalist and storyteller the power to craft your story.
4. Use text slides. Sometimes the key details, context and significance of a story can be added this way while, once again, taking that burden of your source(s).
5. If you’re going to use only soundbites, work extra hard to ensure the story is coherent. This is my favorite example of a soundbite-only story that doesn’t sacrifice the narrative.

I think it often comes down to the fact that a lot of online video journalists are more concerned with pretty pictures (don’t get me wrong, I love pretty pictures) than solid storytelling.

This post could (and will) spawn at least a dozen others. Would be curious what you think.