MediaStorm: The Changing Newsroom

The Blog Changing Newsroom published Serious, Long-Form Multimedia Journalism that WORKS on March 22, 2009 by Carrie Brown-Smith, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Memphis. In the blog Brown-Smith described MediaStorm after hearing Brian Storm speak at the College Media Advisers conference in New York City. She raved about the website and went into detail breaking down how MediaStorm is effective presenting an audience with detailed and thorough journalism without losing their focus, which is a large problem today with the growing distractions people find online and with their busy schedules.

First, Brown-Smith mentions quality. She says that it is apparent that MediaStorm choses their stories wisely, and they take their time to report the stories right. The second is that they understand an audience’s expectations. MediaStorm knows they may only have a few minutes of someone’s attention, so they break down the pieces into chapters to allow people to watch small sections as a time. Even with this technique, MediaStorm still has a 65% completion rate for one of their 21 minute videos. This means that 65% of viewers will sit and watch the entire video. The last aspect was to put the content from the website in as many platforms as possible. This is where the importance of social media comes into play. By having this option for the audience, it allows the content to become viral over these different platforms, making them even more succesful.

This blog post does a good job breaking down the key aspects of what makes MediaStorm successful and it’s interesting that this post came from a journalism professional, yet it was still disconnected enough to know that these comments were real. MediaStorm is still a business, so seeing articles that are apparently neutral and unbiased are helpful to evaluate this website adequately.