Storytelling did not escape Mindy McAdams as she learned to be a video journalist at a boot camp. Her 1 minute 30 second look at an El Salvadorian restaurant in Washington DC provided a cameo of immigrant life in the city.

Although I have never been to south or central America I was convinced of its authenticity by the soccer match playing the television while a singer performed. Just like Spain, although the food is a reminder that the tortillas are very different.

Video storytelling is very different to a print story too, as Mindy found out. "This is not print reporting, and if I want to learn to tell a visual story, then I’ve got to check my print techniques at the door," she writes.

Not all of them, I think. There is a reporter’s curiosity in both the restaurant video and another on a bike shop she has posted. Both would fit well beside a written story, illustrating in a way words cannot.

I haven’t been able to find a copy of the new-look Press Gazette yet, so no comment on that. The website has been spruced up too and looks good with clear navigation, but still lacking full content online.

Of course, with an audience that universally has access to the web they need to protect revenue. I have no objection to paying for the content behind a subscription wall, but the replica digital edition I do not want.

Some glitches are to be expected — and forgiven — but hopes that the blurb below the new top navigation bar, would deliver what it promised ("Editors explain the relaunch of Press Gazette") were dashed. It linked to Martin Stabe, the online editor, writing about the website relaunch. Stabe is always worth reading but it was not what was promised.

Ian Reeves’s video report on the state of video in British newspapers and magazines gets a strong plug at the top of the web front page. The video was a fairly superficial gallop through how video is being adopted which left the impression that most of it is pretty boring, which it is.

I am not sure that the talking head with relatively short clips was the right approach. And why no links to the mentioned blogs to allow further examination? That is one of the things web video can do which broadcast TV cannot.

Actually, you would do better to look at the vlogs on Reeves blog to get a view of newspaper and magazine use of video. He does provide links to the sites mentioned. Good stuff, but I wish he would keep his head a little stiller and not let his eyes dart around as though he was looking for an escape route. But he is a whole lot better than the reincarnation of Ananova at the Eastern Daily Press shown in his Press Gazette video.

Later: Thanks to Martin Stabe (comment below) I have the link to the article about the redesign (I clearly did not scroll down the home page far enough to find it). 

In the redesign we are seeing the strategy of the new owners, Wilmington Media, to extend the audience to all journalists, rather than the much narrower one of  newspaper people.  The editor, Dominic Ponsford, writes:

The new look, masterminded by designer Michael Crozier, sees a new logo in place which places greater emphasis on the word "press" and incorporates our new slogan: "For all journalists".

This underlines the fact that "press" in our case is meant in the broadest sense of the word, encompassing all journalists wherever they work.Beyond that they are aiming at, "all those interested in the fascinating machinations of the fourth estate".

Nitpick: As the British Journalism Review said in a centenary article on the Daily Mirror in 2003: "The use of the word ‘first’ is as dangerous in newspaper history as in any other." Press Gazette heads an article: "Fleet Street’s first female editor Lori Miles on her move to customer mags." The first female Fleet Street editor was Mary Howarth, the first editor of the Daily Mirror, who lasted just a year before being replaced by a man.

 The danger for some newspapers in crafting video strategy is that to produce video they are rushing to replicate a TV model of production and in some cases presentation: Video plus legacy…. Newspapers need to start thinking like entreprenuers, Kevin Anderson writes.

The blogs editor of the Guardian is commenting on CBS’s acquisition of the Wallstrip video blog.

Hear! Hear! to all he says.

Bill Gates has been looking at the fairly near future of the media and his prognosis is equally bad for scheduled broadcasting and print on paper. Speaking to the the Microsoft Strategic Account Summit this week he forecast that the “transition point” for the move from paper to electronic reading would come in the next five years.

According to Seattlepi, he said: “The Internet is now cheap enough that the idea of having every household in America watching a different video feed has become practical.” While some infrastructure improvement was needed, “broadcast infrastructure over these next five years will not be viewed as competitive”.

Howard Owens’s take on this is that he believes that rather than most people doing their reading online, video will become the dominant online content medium.

I have a feeling that reading still has a good future. It is not only that there is pleasure in reading, but it remains a lot quicker to read 1,000 words than listen to 1,000 words.

My colleague David Dunkley Gyimah has an interesting post on the suggestion that “newspaper reporters are now video editors“. I am not going to try to summarise what he says but it is well worth debating.

Over at journalism.co.uk there is a story about the development of TV services at the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant which is using a mix of bought-in breaking news and their own features.

They have, according to the paper, designed the video interface so that it can be watched from the couch using a remote control. That is about people sharing the experience of watching rather than leaning towards the computer screen alone.

Guardian Media Group has a lot of expertise in doing online video so it’s a pity it is not shared around all their papers. A bulletin by the Reading Evening Post’s sports editor, David Wright, is a “new contender for the worst newspaper video” according to Paul Bradshaw, who teaches online journalism at the University of Central England.

One can only pity the people involved who have obviously had no, or inadequate, training. Bradshaw sees a lesson in how not to do online video and provides eight rules which are so basic they should not be needed.

I have doubts about the value of reporter on camera bulletins with a few stills, but surely GMG has someone who could help the people are Reading do it better.

Robert Freeman has an excellent take on the debate on the use of video on tradtional print news sites. He writes at MediaBizTech:

Rather than watching the news on TV and attempting to emulate the format, these publications should start by using video to illustrate better the stories they are already writing.

He provides a great example of the way it can be done from the Eastern Daily Press where a video with sound but no voiceover enhances the text on the page where it is embedded.

The two national newspaper websites re-launched last week offering lots of video as well as text and stills, The Times and the Mirror, have settled down and ironed out technical glitches, but not all of them. The Mirror’s choice of video content is inexplicable: almost entirely US from AP. The tone and content of much of it is entirely unsuitable for the audience.

The Times video player defaulted to a world news bulletin from Reuters, anchored from New York. But they do have the alternatives of Sky content as well as Fox.

My exploration has been limited because I have had real problems with the video players on both sites — links to individual items doing nothing, the start and pause buttons behaving erratically and general slowness. They are both using a system from ROO which serves advertising and video reports.

At the end of last month it was announced that News Corp, parent company of the Times, would buy up to 10% of the ROO syndication and technology business. Like Rupert Murdoch’s business it originated in Australia.

According to Techcrunch, Fox Interactive, which is meant to lead News Corp business on the internet, did not know about the deal in advance. Techcruch quoted one Fox insider saying he couldn’t believe News Corp invested in that “fucking disaster”.

Fox was said to have been having conversations with ROO’s competitor Brightcove.

And Brightcove was the choice of the Wall Street Journal for the video service on its recently redesigned site. That works beautifully on the three computers I have used to view the three sites.

The technical problems will be sorted out leaving the much bigger question of the bias towards US content. When people from around the world visit a British site they are looking for a distinctive and different voice. Globalisation should not mean an American view point dominating. It may be cheaper but I doubt if it makes commercial sense in the long run.