Analyzing BBC News: Video

BBC News utilizes two types of video reporting: at scene live streaming and more packaged, documentary-like content with voiceovers and interviews. For this week's news track, I decided to find and analyze one of each to assess BBC's effectiveness in video reporting.

The first video story I stumbled upon was BBC's live and breaking news report on the explosion of a US rocket that was launched with supplies for six astronauts at the International Space Station. BBC intended just to cover the rocket launch, but were smart in using video to do so, as I don't think pictures would have given the same "inside look" with such a visual occurrence. Obviously, they set up the report without knowing that the rocket would explode, but I found the reporter's approach after the fact very calm and put together. She took a step back, allowing for the video and audio from the control center to speak for itself, but knew when she had waited long enough and didn't hesitate to give background on the issue.

 

The video was also enhanced later on the website by a full length article, complete with pictures, that allowed for more information on a piece of breaking news. Obviously, the reporter didn't have any information when the rocket exploded, but BBC ensured complete coverage of the issue by filling in these blank spots with the accurate information as it filtered in.

However, this was one area that BBC fell short in when announcing Victoria Beckham's spot on Britain's Top 100 Entrepreneurs through a documentary-like, packaged video. There is another post announcing and providing more detail behind Beckham's accomplishment, but the video and this article are in two different places, meaning viewers have to switch pages to get from one thing to the next. To reduce this "hopping around" effect and to keep viewers on a page longer, BBC should have embedded the video onto the original, longer article.

Additionally, when clicking on a video about Victoria Beckham winning an award, I expected to see Victoria Beckham. Instead, the video is entirely man on the street interviews intertwined with footage from her London store, with Beckham only appearing for a 2-second, one sentence clip that is ultimately interrupted and cut off by the reporter. While I appreciated the MOS interviews and the documentary feel, which gave me a sense of the public's reactions to her award, I also wanted to see a little bit more of Beckham, whether that be through her own interview or just clips of her at different events, working in the store, etc.

All in all, the website has a few kinks that they should consider when producing video content.

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Analyzing BBC News: Using Photos to tell the Story

Photos are an important part of any story. They allow the viewer an inside, first-hand look at any situation in any place, far or near, providing them not only with a better understanding of the story, but also a better understanding of the world.

BBC News approaches the use of photos in a few different ways. While they do embed photos directly into each article, they also have a separate page titled "In Pictures" entirely dedicated to photo content. I clicked on the page expecting to find different photo slideshows for each story, but instead I found that they break this category down into two parts: "Day in Pictures" and "Week in Pictures." These are exactly what they seem -- they take that day's (or week's) best photos from around the world and embed them into one continuous list with a short caption to describe the image.

While I think that this is an interesting and efficient way for viewers or readers to get a "quick snapshot" of today's news in pictures, it falls short because of its lack of connectivity. Despite a one-line caption, a single photo alone does not always provide all of the information readers want to know about the situation displayed. More importantly, if the path to that extra information is not clearly marked (most likely via quick-links), readers will not stay around. Instead, they will most likely turn to Google with a few keywords, hoping to get to the story as quickly as possible. Online readers are not patient people, and the majority of them will not spend time digging around your site for the story. The Google search could lead them to another news network, meaning you just lost a valuable reader (and probably many more) because of an easily-fixable short-coming. BBC could improve by simply linking the photo or caption back to longer articles, providing readers with an easy opportunity to learn more about the story behind the photo if they please.

Of course, this won't always be the case. This photo of a hippo at a Berlin zoo is probably not worth an entire article of information. But readers probably won't be looking for it in this case. However, certain news demand more attention. This photo of Ukrainian protesters in Kiev represents an ongoing crisis in the region, and readers will probably be looking for an update. The key here is to think about and know your readers and the content -- Will readers want more information regarding the situation in this photo? Do I have more information? If both answers are yes, there is no reason to leave out a quick-link.

Analyzing BBC News: SEO

Today's main headline on BBC World News covers a familiar and ongoing topic: the Hong Kong protests. Big deal, right? Normally this would just become another article I look through on my way through the site, but after sifting the rest of BBC's coverage of the protests, I discovered an interesting trend that reveals one of BBC's tactics in securing a positive search engine optimization (SEO) for their Hong Kong content.

 All of the articles regarding the situation in China are applied the same headline: "Hong Kong protests: ..." followed by the most updated news the site can offer. The title even appears on a subsection of all Asia content dedicated to the crisis. To those who don't know about SEO, this probably goes unnoticed. But, personally, I see the brains behind this operation: not only is this a smart and efficient way to ensure their spot at the top of the hierarchy we call Google, but it also provides BBC with an effective way to organize all of their Hong Kong content for later use. The simplicity of those three words, "Hong Kong protests," also work in their favor, as these are the words people will most likely search for when looking for new information on the crisis.

And a quick Google search shows that their efforts in SEO are working. BBC shows up as the top two news sources for the most current update on the Hong Kong situation.

However, that's not the only perk BBC is getting out of their well-planned headline. By titling each post the same way, they've also created a neat archive for readers to pick through. Simply Googling "Hong Kong Protests BBC" provides readers with easy access to all of the articles BBC has written about the topic, which, in turn, generates more page views for the news site. 

Overall, I found BBC's tactics well thought-out and very well-executed. Although it may not be noticeable to most readers, the amount of traffic going through BBC's site based off of their Hong Kong coverage is probably unavoidable.