The Wall Street Journal Standardizes on the Sony HDR-HC9

As I have described in several previous posts, these days newspapers are all racing to add as much video as fast as possible to their websites.  

How Do Papers Collect The Video they Need?

• Some papers are hiring videographers to create this video.
• Other papers are posting video sent in by subscribers.
• The third alternative is to retrain and equip existing print reporters so they can blossom into multimedia gathering machines.According to a recent story in Beet.TV that's exactly what the  Wall Street Journal is trying to do. 

Training and Equipping Print Reporters to Gather Video Content.

According to the Beet.TV piece, the Journal publishes 25 to 30 videos a day, most of which include material grabbed by Journal reporters.  The paper sponsors regular training sessions to help old-time print reporters master the craft of running video interviews. The paper also purchased "dozens" of Sony HDR-HC9 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $802.37) cameras for reporters to use.  Standardizing on a single camera helps the paper to come up with a uniform look and feel for all their videos and streamlines the workflow required to turn raw footage into polished streaming video. 

Why Did the Journal Pick the HDR-HC9?

As our review shows, the HDR-HC9 is a great tape-based HD camera. I suspect they picked a tape-based camera because it makes archiving footage relatively easy.  As our review shows, this camera is affordable, produces great quality footage, and looks a little "more professional" than its main competitor, the Canon HV30 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $569.95).  As I described in an earlier post, reporters care a great deal about what their cameras look like.    

What Sort of Videos can a Journal Reporter Produce?

Check out some of the great videos that Andy Jordan posts on his Wall Street Journal Tech Diary videoblog.