It's early days, but could videojournalism give a much needed boost to the pr industry and the video news release? Absolutely and I wager a boon on the horizon.
I'm convinced in part from research that includes the work of the Press Association with their photojournalists.
Utterly fascinating, but more on that later.
In the same vein, but somewhat tangentially could videojournalism bolster the understanding of specialist subjects? YEP you're ahead of me.
The three areas that are close to me that could do with a shoe shine: economics, international relations and science.
It's the Economy, er stoopid
So said Clinton.
Later today the news should be festooned with matters concerning the economy.
Credit crunch, sub primes, and inflation.
Will the UK be mired in recession; the US seems certain?
Should the Bank of England cut interest rates by a 0.25 or 0.5 percent to stimulate activity in the economy?
And what does that mean in terms of the billions it unleashes into the ecoonomy?
Should the Bank of England's Monetary Committee have powers beyond interest rate cuts to get the economy going?
And if it is assets and the maligned acivities of the bank rather than the more obvious wage demands ( not since the 80s) that has the world in this mess, why can't the banks pick up the tab, rather than pass it on.
Lots of questions.
If you live in the bubble that defines the gobledegook language of economics, you've nothing to worry about. It all makes absolute sense.
If not, it's more than likely when you listen to the suits and shut your eyes you'd be forgiven for thinking Klingons are plotting a takeover of your neighbourhood.
It's about bizzness, er,...
Actually it's not that bad.
Anyone who had the delight of working through the 80s, with the business community, will remember the pain.
Then the language of economics and reportage was so dense and inpenetrable, you switched to the BBC Testcard when it came on.
And it wasn't just the community, the BBC's big hitter Peter Jay, Economics Editor, was famed for being lapooned with the comment, that only two people knew what he was talking about during his report, himself and his editor.
The alleged riposte is equally peachy; Jay is reported to have corrected this to say, he reports for himself and those that dont understand, well...
Economics had such the whiff of dread about it, that I once remember horrifyingly being asked to produce the markets within a couple of weeks working at the BBC's flagship news analyses programme, Newsnight.
Water torture would have been more suitable at the time, but it did have an effect.
I swore I needed to grab this thing by the nettle and as such would later spend an illuminating but exhausting period at the LSE for some economics rewiring by day and working as a VJ for a year on the night shift - 8 in the evening to 9 in the morning.
VJ Reportage
How the big picture translates to those pounds and cents in your pocket is ultimately what matters and it's where specialist video reporters (VJS) stands to exploit.
That means a couple of things, which newspapers already exercise - beat reportage - rather than the "snatch and grab" on the day, preferred by news outfits.
It also means abandoning our penchant for the oft-used phrase: "that's not a picture story". I'd argue the opposite. How else could anyone of those Hollywood film makers take an intractable manuscript/book and turn it into a visual feast.
In broadcasting you only need to examine side by side the difference in reportage between the most recent BBC Econs Editor Evan Davies, against Peter jay, to know you can be creative.
With Videojournalism, again the big picture made personal can craete some of the best and easily digestable reportage.
Its videojournalism inbuilt intimacy which could go some way in making econs matters that much easier to understand.
postscript
Now then what did they mean by Boom and Bust?
Boom:lower interest rates should stimulate more consumer spending, and less savings. The pound becomes weaker against other currencies with favourble exchange rates leading to more competitive trade for UK exporters, but not those willing to invest in the UK - they want higher interest rates... and so on and so forth.
Now throw in the effect of pensions, futures trading, borrowing by the government, trade deficit and balance of payments and the film that tracks a family over the course of an economic cycle Q1 - and there's something definately going on.
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