Video Content Spices Up Coverage

Sara Nealeigh
sn115009@ohio.edu

Once again, Mitt Romney and his campaign are the main focus of the ABC Politics News page.

The banner of written stories on the Politics page all talk about Romney or his running partner, Paul Ryan. The titles that appear seem to shine a positive light, “Ryan Woos…” “Paid More than Required,” are countered by the question “Will Mitt Romney Get the Campaign Reset…?” 

ABC News - Politics 

While a majority of the site deals with the “horse race” aspect of the upcoming election, there are still pieces of good investigative journalism.

Take, for example, this video from Brian Ross on how people are being scammed by donating to fake political party websites.

Watch More News Videos at ABC | 2012 Presidential Election

As a broadcast major, I have to wonder why the videos aren't in prominent view on the site.

The remainder of the site conisists of what has become the usual sight for ABC’s Politics page. There are the infographics, pop-culture connections, approval ratings, and some horse-race style articles.

The OTUS page, for a “lighter” take on news, shows comedian Sarah Silverman as their cover photo. Silverman is featured with a link her video discussing Voter ID laws (a link is provided instead of imbedding the video due to strong language).

The strongest content of the ABC Politics and the OTUS sites are the videos. The articles are okay, but feel much more weighted than the video content.

The videos are giving usefully information in a clean and efficient fashion, even with the advertisements. Once the content starts coming, it brings a new angle on issues that other articles may miss.

ABC’s reports have done a good job of finding angles to work with and presenting the information in a new way, as well as adding more details.

If ABC were to attach the videos to written articles, the site would be much more organized and they would more than likely get more hits on their content. The additional and better information coming from the video would really add to the monotonous droning of constantly updated horse race articles.