NYTimes.com publishes video ‘Letter to the Editor’
Steve Safran September 14th, 2007
For the first time, NYTimes.com has published a video “letter to the editor.” Filmmaker Charles Ferguson sent the Times a video rebuttal to an Op-Ed piece that L. Paul Bremer III wrote about disbanding the Iraqi army. Ferguson’s a professional, and the video is certainly pro-quality. But this is a fantastic idea for amateurs as well, and local sites should embrace this. Invite video opinion pieces and encourage dialogue. (Via E&P)
3 Comments Add your own
1. Swift Loris | September 14th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Charles Ferguson made the highly acclaimed Iraq documentary “No End in Sight” that was recently shown on PBS. Most of the footage in the video–the interviews in particular–appears to have been taken from the film.
2. steve Garfield | September 15th, 2007 at 5:50 am
My thoughts:
What’s good about this?
The NY Times is posting reader generated content to their website.
The old style letter to the editor gets a refreshing new look.
People get a voice.
What’s bad about this?
There is no embed code for the video, only a permalink.
There is no place for comments.
The submitter, Charles Ferguson, gets NO LINK BACK to his movie site, No End In Site.
Having excerpts from a feature film as the first user generated video letter to the editor sets the bar high for subsequent submissions.
3. Swift Loris | September 15th, 2007 at 6:17 am
“The submitter, Charles Ferguson, gets NO LINK BACK to his movie site, No End In Site.”
I don’t understand why the little author bio doesn’t mention the film; it just says he’s a filmmaker. The bio for the other op-ed in today’s Times notes that the piece is adapted from the authors’ book, which it names.
A link might be too much like promotion–the book title doesn’t link to Amazon–but shouldn’t the Times at least give the title of the film and indicate that this is where most of the footage comes from?
Some of the footage is of Bremer’s op-ed with special effects highlighting specific sentences, which I imagine would be hard to do without fairly sophisticated equipment. So that’s part of the high bar as well.
Maybe it’s an experiment to see if readers will watch the video, and if they do, the Times will start accepting less professional submissions?
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