By Jessica Milcetich
Special to AASFE

Videography is not television journalism. It goes beyond that, said Todd Feeback, a videojournalist at the Kansas City Star.

Newspapers are using video clips online to supplement their coverage by showing additional live interviews or as a sidebar to a print story that uses video to highlight a specific aspect of the story, Feeback told a group of journalists Thursday during a workshop titled Video Star at the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors’ conference.

            As more newspapers are trying to figure out how to incorporate various forms of multimedia into their coverage, the role of the videojournalist is beginning to evolve, Feeback said. At the Kansas City Star, reporters and photojournalists regularly post video clips on the newspaper’s Web site, said Feeback, who was joined by Kansas City Star assistant features editor Sharon Chapman and Preview editor David Frese.

            To achieve the best-quality videos, the panelists recommended involving a videojournalist early in the story-planning process. And it’s always better to have the reporter go with the videojournalist to the assignment.

            “The reporter has all the background and can ask better questions,” Feeback said.

            Feeback, the paper’s only videojournalist, said staff photographers are being trained to shoot and upload videos. Chapman said learning videography is easy.

Looking back at older videos, she said some of her first clips were too long. Eventually, Chapman said she realized the clips have to be short if they are going to hold people’s attention.

Chapman also has had to grapple with ethical issues, she said. Is the job of the videographer to document what is happening, or can they bring subjects into a studio and shoot them there?

As the technology evolves, newspapers will have an increasing number of options to consider when determining how videography will work for them.

“You don’t want to expect writers and editors to go out and be doing this right off the bat,” Feeback said. “It’s a planning project, and we’re still feeling our way through.”

Jessica Milcetich is a junior at the University of Maryland.