AUGUST 15, 2024
Evolving Storytelling: Avid’s Innovative Solutions for the Modern Newsroom
From a revolution in search to uncovering hidden insights and tackling news avoidance, what role will AI play in the future of news, and how can journalists harness its power to tell impactful stories?*
Storytelling is the essence of journalism. But storytelling is not restricted to a single formula. While the truth remains essential, how, where, and even when to tell the story continues to evolve. Avid has been at the center of this process for many years and our solutions continue to develop to address the needs of a constantly changing news landscape.
Avid has, of course, a long history in news, which can be traced back to early introductions of electronic methods of creating news bulletins with systems such as Basys news, then translating through to Avid News, Avstar, then iNEWS and beyond. iNEWS was rebranded as MediaCentral | Newsroom Management in 2017, and continues to power thousands of journalists’ workflows every day across the world, whether it is from the iNEWS client, on mobile, or in the web-based MediaCentral | Cloud UX.
Storytelling is the essence of journalism. But storytelling is not restricted to a single formula. While the truth remains essential, how, where, and even when to tell the story continues to evolve. Avid has been at the center of this process for many years and our solutions continue to develop to address the needs of a constantly changing news landscape.
Avid has, of course, a long history in news, which can be traced back to early introductions of electronic methods of creating news bulletins with systems such as Basys news, then translating through to Avid News, Avstar, then iNEWS and beyond. iNEWS was rebranded as MediaCentral | Newsroom Management in 2017, and continues to power thousands of journalists’ workflows every day across the world, whether it is from the iNEWS client, on mobile, or in the web-based MediaCentral | Cloud UX.
And, it is not just in the realm of text-based news and studio production where Avid thrives, but also in collaborative video sharing solutions such as Media Manager, Interplay and MediaCentral | Production Management which rewrote the way editorial teams could work together to create the packages which informed audiences on-air.
Through the past decade and more, the rise of social media and the fundamental shift in how news is consumed has been addressed through solutions such as MediaCentral | Distribute and MediaCentral | Publisher, providing an integrated method of delivering stories immediately to platforms for people to view when they want and on whatever device they want.
At Avid we recognize that while technology is a significant element, it is only one part of the puzzle. Journalists face many challenges as they strive to inform and educate. During 2024, many elections will take place around the world, and with this backdrop, it is critical that producers and reporters are empowered to do their work.
The workflows we support at Avid for news teams continue to evolve to meet these changing needs. Efficiency is a key theme we hear from many of our customers, as they deal with commercial pressures to deliver news. This is a tricky balance, as there is a need to produce more stories for more platforms, without necessarily additional people supporting that creative process.
CNBC Arabia, and other customers, share how Avid’s news solutions help them meet today’s challenges.
“We transmit huge amounts of content each day,” explains Shabbir Hussain, Director of Engineering and Operations, at CNBC Arabia. “With Avid’s solution, our teams are now working seamlessly and synchronized, and we can focus on delivering high quality programs.”
The need for efficiency is also driving changes in the way teams plan and work together. Now story-centric can mean different things to different people, but it is generally accepted that this is about putting the story at the heart of the process and the distribution platforms all around it. They are gathering a core set of materials — videos, images, graphics, text — and then using that core to create different versions for their platforms and, of course, their own properties, whether that is a broadcast show, a station website, a TikTok video or a post on X.
MediaCentral | Collaborate has been at the heart of those new modes of working, co-ordinating coverage regardless of the destination platform.
News teams are also having to address issues such as trust and news avoidance. These are themes explored in an episode of the Avid podcast, Making the Media, with Ros Atkins from the BBC in the UK.
“News avoidance is a huge issue. We always need to stop and think, is the way our journalism is manifesting itself right for the people that we are trying to reach?” Atkins says. “The formats journalism takes shouldn't be fixed at all. They should be something that we're constantly appraising. And with the issue of news avoidance, which is undeniable, it's definitely in my mind all the time that you need to think about what form is your journalism taking to make sure that it's working for people, that it fits into their lives.”
The workflows we support at Avid for news teams continue to evolve to meet these changing needs. Efficiency is a key theme we hear from many of our customers, as they deal with commercial pressures to deliver news. This is a tricky balance, as there is a need to produce more stories for more platforms, without necessarily additional people supporting that creative process.
CNBC Arabia, and other customers, share how Avid’s news solutions help them meet today’s challenges.
“We transmit huge amounts of content each day,” explains Shabbir Hussain, Director of Engineering and Operations, at CNBC Arabia. “With Avid’s solution, our teams are now working seamlessly and synchronized, and we can focus on delivering high quality programs.”
The need for efficiency is also driving changes in the way teams plan and work together. Now story-centric can mean different things to different people, but it is generally accepted that this is about putting the story at the heart of the process and the distribution platforms all around it. They are gathering a core set of materials — videos, images, graphics, text — and then using that core to create different versions for their platforms and, of course, their own properties, whether that is a broadcast show, a station website, a TikTok video or a post on X.
MediaCentral | Collaborate has been at the heart of those new modes of working, co-ordinating coverage regardless of the destination platform.
News teams are also having to address issues such as trust and news avoidance. These are themes explored in an episode of the Avid podcast, Making the Media, with Ros Atkins from the BBC in the UK.
“News avoidance is a huge issue. We always need to stop and think, is the way our journalism is manifesting itself right for the people that we are trying to reach?” Atkins says. “The formats journalism takes shouldn't be fixed at all. They should be something that we're constantly appraising. And with the issue of news avoidance, which is undeniable, it's definitely in my mind all the time that you need to think about what form is your journalism taking to make sure that it's working for people, that it fits into their lives.”
Constantly reviewing and analyzing the way in which stories are told is not about dumbing down. It is about identifying the critical elements which make up a story and ensuring that it is told with clarity in a way that resonates with audiences.
Another idea which has gained significant prominence in recent times — returning to the theme of efficiency — is the ability to use A I and Machine Learning in the creation of news. While this raises many ethical questions about the use of generative AI (where AI is used to create or write a story), some see AI as an opportunity for those who use it to their advantage.
In another episode of the Making the Media podcast, Professor Charlie Beckett from the LSE Polis Journalism and AI Project says, “The machine thinks ‘What's the most predictable, sensible answer to that prompt that I've been given?’ It doesn't think in terms of ‘Why do people need to know this? What is the tough question I should be asking? Should I be thinking beyond the normal response?’ So again, I think there's a lot of latitude for what I would call good journalism to be supported and supplemented by these technologies, but I think it's even more interesting how it puts a kind of demand on those journalists saying, ‘Ok, you've got to be better than the machine. You can't just do routine formulaic journalism anymore because the software can do that.”
Another idea which has gained significant prominence in recent times — returning to the theme of efficiency — is the ability to use A I and Machine Learning in the creation of news. While this raises many ethical questions about the use of generative AI (where AI is used to create or write a story), some see AI as an opportunity for those who use it to their advantage.
In another episode of the Making the Media podcast, Professor Charlie Beckett from the LSE Polis Journalism and AI Project says, “The machine thinks ‘What's the most predictable, sensible answer to that prompt that I've been given?’ It doesn't think in terms of ‘Why do people need to know this? What is the tough question I should be asking? Should I be thinking beyond the normal response?’ So again, I think there's a lot of latitude for what I would call good journalism to be supported and supplemented by these technologies, but I think it's even more interesting how it puts a kind of demand on those journalists saying, ‘Ok, you've got to be better than the machine. You can't just do routine formulaic journalism anymore because the software can do that.”
At Avid, we are exploring the use of AI technologies to support the journalist and video editor, acting as a co-pilot with them firmly in control. Journalists are bombarded with information these days, so our work is rooted in how we can help them do their jobs more easily. Whether that is through the creation of interview transcripts or summaries to simplify getting to the heart of the information they need, or through offering relevant footage to save time trawling through an archive to find what they need faster. The ultimate decision about what to use rests with the journalist or with the editor. They are the human-in-the-loop, taking advantage of AI, rather than having AI dictate to them. Avid has also produced a white paper on our view of the responsible use of AI for creative professionals.
News is fundamental to Avid. Whether it is a video for a station website, a package for YouTube, a post for TikTok, or a studio read in a bulletin, all of that matters to us, as our tools are used by journalists, producers, social media reporters, researchers, editors, directors and more. Our solutions are evolving and developing, as they always have, as we strive to meet the needs of news teams today and beyond.
*This article was first published by TVNewsCheck on July 15, 2024.
*This article was first published by TVNewsCheck on July 15, 2024.
Craig Wilson
Craig Wilson is a newsroom specialist with more than thirty five years of experience in the broadcast industry. Craig has held various roles with Avid and is now the Global Media and Cloud Product Evangelist and host of the Making the Media podcast.