PBS Sets Bar for Interactive Journalism

I've long been convinced that PBS's regular documentary series Frontline is the best source in the United States for long-form video journalism.  They're always in-depth, always on the cutting edge, and very good at explaining complex, but timely issues — such as healthcare and the Iraq War — in an understandable way.  The series has also won DuPont batons for its investigative work — like this 2003 story on violations of workers' rights in iron foundries.

However, until recently, this cutting-edge series was relegated to the same old small boxes that literally define the boundaries of online video news (I feel like there's an instructive metaphor for, or parallel to, a television-to-online paradigm shift there too... but I digress).  I've always found that this is incredibly confining, especially when the video players do not allow for the viewer to maximize the video to full screen.  The example here is about 6 years old, and Frontline did adopt a video screen that allowed the viewer to expand the video's size.  However, this new Flash-based player was not conducive to allowing viewers to pause the video to view the extra elements to a story.  But now, the brilliant folks on Frontline's web team have whipped up a video player that I think finally starts doing justice to the potential of online journalism.

When a viewer opens up the story from Frontline's main page, they see this video player:

Unfortunately, my screenshots don't really do justice to the player, but I'll try and talk you through the features of the player.  The main featured video is on the left half of the screen, and a scrolling list of extras (links, videos, documents) that are accessible without losing your place on the playing video.  If you want to access an extra during the main feature...

...that extra will expand over your main feature and play.  What an opportunity to smoothly integrate longer sound bytes that don't fit into a video package into your story without inconveniencing an engaged viewer!

And as an added bonus...

...an expandable timeline that helps the viewer track their position through a complex story.

What I find even more impressive was that this player is not only used for special features — but is now the standard template for every single story.  The bar has been raised for the presentation of online journalism.  Now, I think the fair question to be posed to local news affiliates is, 'How can you meet this new high bar?'  Perhaps timelines aren't necessary on every story, perhaps video extras aren't always merited.  But local news affiliates must do their utmost to emulate newer forms of presenting their material if they hope to take full advantage of the Internet's possibilities, and finally jump out of the boxes that confine them.