Editor’s note: This story contains bonus video material featured in our free SmartEdition available at http://newsandtech.newspaperdirect.com
 

As newspapers adapt to the pressures of maintaining and attracting new online readership, several are jumping into the video fray. But instead of focusing on traditional newscast videos, some papers are taking a detour to the lighter side.

Take the Cape Cod Times in Hyannis, Mass. Last summer, the New England newspaper took the video plunge with two journalists who were willing to try something they knew little about and an editor willing to support their efforts.

The result? CapeCast, a five-minute daily webcast designed to explore offbeat  news about the seaside community and a nominee for this year’s Digital Edge Awards in the category of Most Innovative Use of Interactive Media.

“It’s a daily webcast that blends local and national news with offbeat stories and sketches,” said Times Editor Paul J. Pronovost. A new CapeCast is posted on CapeCodOnline at noon Monday through Friday.

Photos: Merrily Lunsford, Cape Cod Times
CapeCast producer Jason Kolnos and anchor Eric Williams on the set. The Cape Cod Online team creates their weekday five-minute broadcast both in the studio and on the streets in communities on the Cape.
 

CapeCast features reporter and host Eric Williams working with multimedia reporter Jason Kolnos to deliver the news. Both are trained reporters who thought it would be fun to try their hand at video and hope the ride doesn’t end anytime soon. Both work full-time on the video project.

The program uses a mesh of still images and video footage and typically centers on a unique topic. Some past episodes explored “One Week Job Guy,” a profile of an area pizzeria worker; and a lively exchange among news staff attempting to answer the age-old question “What exactly is a caucus?” through music (think MTV).

Production

Transforming a story idea into a CapeCast clip is a journey unto itself.

It takes around seven hours to produce the daily video cast, including finding stories, interviewing subjects, writing scripts and editing video.

No fancy set to be had, CapeCast uses an existing interview station within the Times’ newsroom. Williams uses his mouse to manipulate the teleprompter software on a laptop.
 

The paper turned an old photo lab into a video editing bay, outfitted Kolnos with a Sony prosumer video camera and quality audio kit and retrofitted its newsroom TV studio for use on the webcast. The studio is used twice a week for interviews with a local TV station, and now doubles as the CapeCast set.

When CapeCast debuted, it appeared at 4 p.m. to afford maximum production time, but at the end of last summer, the webcast was bumped up to noon.

“We knew the lunch hour would be better and Eric and Jason moved their schedules around so we could get up by noon,” Pronovost said. The paper also redesigned the site to make CapeCast easier to find.

“If you’re going to make this sort of investment, you can’t whisper it on your site; we now move CapeCast into the main barker for a couple of mid-day hours,” Pronovost said.

In a novel move, the Times uses YouTube as its primary mode of distribution. “The decision to use YouTube was not only that it’s free,” Kolnos said, “but because of its reliability.” That and any technical problems associated with hosting large video files are removed from the desk of the Times’ IT department.

For users, YouTube’s presence is subtle. The Times uses Saxotech Inc.’s Publicus software to create a customizable window that links to YouTube but, to users, appears to be part of the Times’ site. This design allows the Times to maintain a clean presentation and include advertising space.

The Times further promotes CapeCast by distributing it through MySpace and on the Cape’s community television station. In fact, it was the joint venture with C3TV that ultimately dictated CapeCast’s five-minute length.

Entertainment vs. integrity

Pronovost credits Williams and Kolnos for making CapeCast successful.

“Eric is the talent. He’s a former radio host who’s been at the forefront of our Web efforts,” he said. “Jason is the producer; he’s the multimedia reporter with self-taught video shooting and editing skills.”

Although the Times’ editorial staff questioned the integrity of CapeCast when it debuted, the webcast now enjoys strong support from reporters and editors.

“People were concerned that we’d poke fun at serious subjects and dumb down the news,” Pronovost said. “Those were legitimate concerns and we stepped over the line once with a tone that was too light for a death in the community.”

But the program was adjusted and ultimately CapeCast showed skeptics that the rules of journalism were still being applied. Today, Pronovost said he hears people using Williams’ sign-off line of “see ya” around the newsroom.

Inspiration

Pronovost said CapeCast was inspired by a commitment to follow some of the early webcast trailblazers and their desire to tell unique and interesting stories in interesting ways.

“News is generally serious business and you have to respect the subject with the appropriate tone,” he said. “But a webcast doesn’t have to be a ponderous exercise. It can be light and you can have fun.”

The Times hopes CapeCast will draw 1,000 users each day, a goal that Pronovost said the webcast is nearing.

“There’s been consistent audience growth with CapeCast and a bit of industry buzz, but what I appreciate most about this is Eric’s and Jason’s ability to find the interesting and quirky sides of the Cape,” he said. “They’re telling stories that no other media — including the Cape Cod Times — are telling and they’re doing it with an innovative style and technology.”
 

Keeping pace with evolving viewing trends is the name of the game for the Naples (Fla.) Daily News as it continues to expand its online video foothold in southwest Florida.

The newspaper took the video plunge in 2006 when it launched Studio 55 in a bid to fill in the void left by local broadcast television stations, said Phil Lewis, the Daily News’ editor and vice president.

“We developed it initially to compete with the local broadcast television stations in our region who we didn’t think gave the Naples area as much attention as they did for some of the larger cities,” he said. “All our commercial television stations in southwest Florida are based in Fort Myers. Naples is 40 miles south and we saw an opportunity where we could be the local broadcast station.”



Photos: Michelle Le, Naples Daily News
Naplesnews.com assistant Web-desk editor Carrie Wise right, interviews Naples, Fla., City Council candidate Gloria Kovacs in Studio 55 on Jan. 1.The interview was included in the daily vodcast presentation of Studio 55 on naplesnews.com and two presentations, at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., on the local cable channel.
 

The first incarnation of Studio 55 mimicked a regular broadcast station; staffers produced a 30-minute newscast that was streamed to the local Comcast cable operation each weekday at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.

“We had a Web component of Studio 55 but the whole structure was based on being a TV station without a license and a tower,” Lewis said.

Almost two years later, Studio 55 is primarily Web-based. Videos are built and posted online before the Studio 55 newscast is built. And next month, the show will become Web-only when the Daily News ends its distribution agreement with Comcast.

Studio 55 assistant director Heather Harkins operates a jib-mounted video camera during the taping of an interview of Naples, Fla., City Council candidate Gloria Kovacs, left; by naplesnews.com assistant Web-desk editor Carrie Wise, center. The Naples Daily News’ Digital Edge Award-nominated Studio 55 is one of a growing number of video programs produced by newspapers nationwide as the industry finds new ways to attract readers.
 

No more cable

“We won’t be building a linear broadcast for cable television,” Lewis said. “It will be Web-based and we think we can make it more timely. There is a lot more potential to get viewers and we think that’s where our audience truly is. It’s not sitting (in front of their television sets) at 4 o’clock waiting for a newscast to come on.”

Studio 55 is spearheaded by two Daily News staff members, host Denise Spidle and online producer Ryan McAfee. But many other newsroom members contribute to the videocast by supplying interviews and video footage.

In addition, the Daily News employs two professional videographers who contribute long-form videos, video that is longer than one hour, for the webcast. There are also four other staff members who can cover breaking news.

Lewis said having trained videographers is key to ensuring the Daily News has the flexibility it needs to cover breaking events.

“For Rudy Giuliani, who was making the rounds in Naples because of the upcoming presidential primary, we sent one of our people to shoot the video,” said Lewis. “We’ll eventually be training our entire newsroom to shoot video and making sure they have easy-to-use cameras available for that.”

 

Immediacy is the key

Lewis said that Studio 55 gives the Daily News adds an important video dimension to its news distribution activities.

“We are going to start posting videos of Studio 55 reports earlier in the day, especially when we get away from our commitment of putting together half-hour broadcasts,” said Lewis.

Studio 55 also serves as a repository from which the Daily News harvests information for the print edition, Lewis said.

“For example, if there’s a city having city council elections and there’s a candidate forum, we’ll send a videographer to tape the whole 90-minute public forum and post and archive footage on our Web site.”

From there, Studio 55 will offer a concise news account of the forum while Daily News readers will see an article based upon the video account the next day.

As much as the Daily News plans to capitalize on its video capabilities, Lewis said the paper still has a few technological hurdles to overcome.

The most critical is its inability to provide live newsfeeds, which means the Daily News sometimes has to wait hours before posting video of a particular event.

 

Future plans

“That’s where we still can’t compete with broadcast because they have satellite trucks that transmit live,” said Lewis. “We think that eventually technology will get it to the point where we will be able to stream live on our Web sites breaking news 24/7. I think that’s the next incarnation of Studio 55.”

Overall, Lewis said Studio 55 evolved with fewer bumps than imagined. “The news staff has gravitated toward it rather well and we have had a couple of people who have become excellent on-air journalists,” he said. “The big part of the success is that we learned that a print newsroom can deal in video and breaking news and compete against broadcast stations.” 

In fact, Lewis said the Daily News has garnered attention from broadcast rivals interested in the paper’s reporting style. The paper bucks the traditional method in which a reporter stands in front of the scene of a news story. Instead, videographers and reporters let people tell the story from their point of view.

“We let the people tell the story,” he said. “Within two months of us starting Studio 55 the local television stations began moving away from the old style of storytelling and started doing their video reports more like we were doing.”
 

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