BBC News uses mobile journalism to attract social audiences

Credit: Screenshot from BBC News. Laura Kuenssberg interviewing Theresa May, shot with a mobile phone

A BBC interview between political editor Laura Kuenssberg and the outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May demonstrates the role mobile journalism can play in reaching digital audiences.

The high-profile interview - May's final sit-down at Number 10 - was published last week on television, radio, on the website and also Facebook Watch. But the video was cut and cropped from platform to platform.

The footage shows three main settings: the sofa interview shot in part with a mobile phone, and two standard broadcast cameras shooting the staircase and cabinet scenes.

While the website version opens in the staircase, the Facebook version opts for the hand held, sofa opening scene.

"It was a deliberate attempt to make the video as accessible as possible," said Jonathan Paterson, editor, digital video, BBC News.

"There was more human interest than detailed policy developments, and that’s a good starting point for us in a social video.

"It might be a way of making the tougher points more accessible to a digital audience, but ultimately the pieces have the same goal which is to get across a serious point; in this case, reflecting on Theresa May’s time in office."

This is a relatively recent development for the BBC, according to Paterson, who also warned not to get too carried away with the virtues of mobile journalism.

"It’s very important we have experienced eyes behind the lens. There are significant savings to be observed by doing mobile journalism, but ultimately the audience demands quality. We have to make every effort to ensure the quality is as high as possible," he explained.

The full interview is 30 minutes long and mobile-shot pieces only account for a small portion of the content.

It is not a mobile-first project but rather a way of delivering for social, and acting as a cost-effective way to produce cross-platform content, which often audiences will not even pick up on.

Want to see how simple* it can be to do top-quality mobile journalism? @annaholligan is one of the BBC's real mojo reporters and this video shows how to do what she does so well.

*It can also be quite a lot more complicated. pic.twitter.com/JY1QJvlyKE

— Marc Blank-Settle @bbcmarc on Threads (@MarcSettle) July 10, 2019

"We now have a number of trained operators around the BBC who are stepping out of the building with just an iPhone and its rig, and you will be seeing more mobile journalism than you realise," he concluded.

Want to learn more mobile journalism tips, tricks and techniques? Join our course with Caroline Scott to learn how to produce and distribute content from the palm of your hand.

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