Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

The Irish Times is gradually adopting audio reports into its website. For example, on a recent breaking news story (the free section of the Times’ website) David Duffy of the ESRI discuss its Medium-Term Review. This is interesting because it is a move towards rich content, but most commentators until now would have seen an overlapping of photographers and journalists functions for breaking news stories. If the move is a sign of things to come, it would mark an interesting departure and it remains to be seen how journalists will react to report in audio, a format completely different to print in terms of editing.

This was also noted by Eoin Kennedy, fellow Irish PR blogger. Eoin points out that:

Journalists recording interviews is nothing new but them editing and uploading the content is a fairly big progression.

Interesting implications from a PR perspective. It introduces an element of colour to press conferences that may not always be desired and further erodes the fallacy of control but it also opens up opportunities. If they are using audio content then why not high quality audio interviews that are supplied by a PR company especially if the reporter cannot attend.

But its his next observation that jumps off the page for me:

This is a trend that is only likely to increase in complexity with rumours that Silicon Republic will be introducing video content or at least recording some events they cover. Undoubtably this will be a sellable item for them but again once the PR industry invests in the software and hardware its another area of potential growth for the PR industry.

There has been murmurings of a few news outlets and organisations incorporating video content onto their website. The obvious reason for this is that the barriers to entry have been falling pretty quickly of late. On this note, Damien Mulley reveals that:

Wexford Software company Ubcam have developed software for a whole load of Nokias, Sony Ericsson’s and some other brands (but not the iPhone) that will turn your phone into a live video streaming device. It’s like the well-recognised service from QIK except more phones can run the Ubcam software than can run QIK.

While the barriers to entry might have dropped, I am still slightly perplexed how news organisations (other than broadcast outlets) aim to overcome the challenge of quality. For example, I had an RTE news crew at a recent launch and two hours work turned into two minutes footage. Journalists are busy enough as it is these days, I just can’t see them being overjoyed at the prospect of more work. With media outlets increasingly streamlining their operations, which invariably increases the workload of its staff, how will they justify the time required to edit this content and ensure it adheres to its overall standards.

Damien goes onto point out that he “chatted to a TV crew from RTE recently about QIK and they were amazed that a simple mobile phone could empower the average punter into becoming a live news broadcaster. Wouldn’t they have been impressive during the Dublin riots?” Well would they? While the reports and photos of the Dublin riots from regular consumers showed up traditional media outlets, what about the Finglas riots on St Patricks Day. Judge for yourself from the two YouTube videos below. Somehow I don’t think that RTE will be quaking in their boots.

This isn’t too say that your average punter couldn’t have recorded footage as well as any TV news crew. What I am pointing out is that everyone has a core function as part of their job. It is expected that you should meet a minimum standard of quality. Hence we outsource functions that aren’t part of our day to day jobs to people who fulfill that that function on a 9-5 basis. Putting it in simple terms, As Chris Rock would say - “You can drive a car with your feet if you want to; it don’t mean its a good f***ing idea.”

While I might sound excessively negative about the potential dual role of journalists, I do believe that this evolution is only a matter of time. I’m just interested in seeing whether Irish media outlets will invest the sums required for a quality product, when in the short term the payback won’t cover the costs for the initiative.