Living the Future Today in 360
Newsrooms experiment with 360 videos to develop immersive news and improve storytelling.
By Noa Radosh and Gloria Medina
A 360 peek into the aftermath of Tennessee’s wildfires.
The month-long wildfire in Tennessee culminated on Nov. 28 when the strong winds of a hurricane spread the fire through the Gatlinburg area and beyond. Some of the images were captured by the 360 video of The Tennessean. The story was reported by three contributors: Andrew Nelles, Karen Kraft, and Adam Tamburin, who took this Virtual Reality tool to immerse users in a lifelike environment.
Newsworthiness
On December 6th, The Tennessean published a piece with a 360 video of the tourist town of Gatlinburg, “the worst fire the state has seen in a century” according to Tennessee governor Bill Haslam. The video shows what is left of the town’s homes, businesses and cars.
The catastrophe took the life of 14 people, injured 150 and destroyed more than 240 properties on almost 18,000 acres.
The video narrates the events and the consequences, showing various scenes of places burnt down and what was left of them. In one scene, we can see the inside of a burnt vehicle and its surroundings. The narrator pauses a few times, and the images speak for themselves. The moving smoke coming out of houses and cars makes the scene more vivid and highlights the absence of life.
As the story developed during last week, two juveniles were charged with arson in suspicion of starting the fire. Though not clear whether they will be charged with slaughter due to their age, it becomes controversial as those affected want justice for their lost loved ones and properties. There are still many unanswered questions and as victims try to go back to normality, authorities are still investigating.
Experiment the 360 video with images from the aftermath of the fire on the Gatlinburg area:
http://www.tennessean.com/videos/embed/95050066/?fullsite=true
Audience’s reaction on social media
The video had over 20,000 views on Facebook, sad reactions and shares but no comments. It only had six likes and four shares on Twitter. In general, it’s among the pieces with minimal engagement on their Facebook page.
Andrew Nelles, the videographer, spent more than a week in the place reporting about the wildfires that lasted around a month. In his Twitter account, he had a few posts with pictures about the event, but not the one about the video. As we can see in this tweet he has one reply, five retweets and two likes.
On the other hand, Adam Tamburin, another contributor to the story, continued tweeting about the wildfires adding captivating pictures.
All the contributors promote the story and do a follow up, but at no time mention about the 360 video in their updates on the story.
User’s Experience
It wasn’t easy to see or to navigate the video with the arrows, but the narrator uses description of the images that were shown. The images show that it was the real scene of the wild fire with the smoke coming out of the debris, the scene shows only objects and no life.
We believe that with the combination of different scenes instead of a fluent video of all the area, may show the wrestled of the reporting while producing the piece. The idea of the 360 is to take the user in a journey through the area affected, instead, the narrator points out the destroyed area with little possible engagement.
The video would be more impactful if it would show residents of the area who were affected, or showing the US Forest Service firefighters while trying to bring down the fire. The experience of being transported to the “action” and individual consequences would trigger more empathy within the audience.
Concluding from the audience’s little engagement and our own experience, we believe this 360 piece doesn’t add anything to the experience of news consumption.
Other stories on 360 Video
This Ha’aretz piece, shows a drone shot from the aftermath of the wildfires that spread throughout Israel and the West Bank a couple of weeks ago. The high definition images demonstrate a section of Jerusalem, where the wildfire destroyed hundreds of houses and misplaced thousands of people. As opposed to the Tennessean 360 video, this one doesn’t have a narrator and is accompanied by music, which provides the audience with a more passive experience.
Both pieces have small text attached to them, offering the viewer an immersive experience, which could raise more awareness than a written piece or a slideshow. The fact that audiences living in other countries and continents can be “witnesses” of the natural catastrophes, wars and/or events by watching the videos, facilitates empathy and understanding.
Another (and better) example is Ryot’s “First Ever War Zone in 360 VR: Welcome to Aleppo,” which takes viewers through the destroyed city as war is happening around. As opposed to the two pieces previously mentioned, this one is also VR. Though in both methods, videos are created the same way, VR is more immersive and engaging than a 360 shot.
360 Videos and News Organizations
Major news outlets like the BBC are exploring 360 video and VR to to create new immersive news experiences; from refugee camps to Place de la Republique after the November 13 attacks in Paris. The New York Times launched a daily 360-video project after partnering with Samsung. Both of these organizations partnered up with Youtube, which is leading in the field of 360 and VR as well as in 360 live broadcasting. Behind Youtube, Facebook is adapting this media as well, and only two days ago National Geographic’s Facebook page launched the first 360 live video. In the future, Facebook users and pages will be able to do 360 live broadcasting, while Youtube already has this feature.
Recommendations Going Forward
The Tennessean video was not uploaded to Youtube, it is only possible to see it through the organization’s website or Facebook page. We would suggest the organization, to create a partnership with Youtube and have their own channel on the platform, which might increase their (OUTREACH).
Smaller local news organizations are trying to catch up with the bigger ones by adapting new technologies. Regional news outlets, like the Tennessean, are experimenting with immersive media. Since they serve a specific population, they must ask their audience what content they want to consume and how — do some social journalism. This could lead them through the adaptation of different media into their stories.
The Tennessean and their reporters should promote their work more actively through multiple social media platforms. In this case, they advertise it on Facebook and have thousands of views, but on Twitter they only shared the story without mentioning it can be watched as a 360 video.
