Cover the Planet

By David Poulson

Two students here at the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism got a resume-builder of sorts this week when their work appeared in Andrew Revkin’s Dot Earth blog.

Revkin, a reporter for the New York Times, reported that former Vice President Al Gore removed a misleading slide from his climate change road show. He linked his post to a video of Gore’s presentation – complete with the offending slide.

That video was taken by MSU EJ students Andy Balaskovitz and Andy McGlashen last week at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. They posted it, helpfully divided into several small clips, to YouTube in preparation for publication in an MSU blog they created to cover the conference.
So how did Revkin end up with it?
“I went to YouTube because I couldn’t get my Macbook to play the video files at the aaas.org site,” Revkin wrote in an e-mail. “And, better yet, the short clip made it easier for viewers to home in on the suspect comment!”
For driving traffic, you can’t beat the New York Times. Revkin’s mention boosted the circulation of the students’ efforts significantly. Within 24 hours the video received more than 2,200 views.
The take-home message here isn’t that journalists should post to YouTube on the off-chance they’ll show up in a New York Times blog.  Instead, think of all that stuff on YouTube that might help illustrate your own story.
Do a quick search of the site before you hit the send button.  Or check it out before you start writing – what you find may just prompt a great story angle.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 7:31 am and is filed under Climate, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.