It’s another remarkable indication of the spread of video to all news media.
The 2012 New York Press Club Awards have been announced, citing outstanding journalism in all the usual media: print, radio, magazines, Internet and television. Entries for each medium are usually confined to news outlets within that medium: newspapers for print, radio for radio, and the television categories for, well, TV stations.
But 2012 is a watershed. Nearly every daily newspaper in New York submitted entries in the television categories, and one of them won! Entries in several TV categories came from Newsday, the Daily News, New York Post, even El Diario-La Prensa, as well as from websites, including DNAInfo.com and WNYC.org. They vied for prizes in video against more traditional TV outlets such as 60 Minutes, WNBC, WPIX, News12, New York 1 News and many others. In the category of Special Programming, the New York Daily News website won the top prize for its entry “We Witnessed 9/11 Through Their Lenses.” The video report told the moving recollections of several staff photographers who covered the events of Sept. 11, 2001. The judges gave it the highest marks for creativity, technical quality, presentation as well as writing.
So whether it’s the deconstruction of strict media definitions, or YouTube’s transformation into a worldwide showcase for professional video, or the increasing influence of the Digital Content Newfronts, or even the deluge of web videos that will be a characteristic of the 2012 Presidential campaigns, video is pervasive, universal, transformative, and it’s crown is brighter and more valuable each day.