ABSTRACT
Video news journalism covers a wide spectrum of visual/sound reports that use a number of camerawork conventions. A loose classification separates hard news stories, which aim to transmit an objective, detached account of an event (e.g. a plane crash) in the next available news programme, from those soft news stories, which incline more towards accounts of lifestyle, personality interviews and consumer reports. Acceptable camera technique and style of shooting will depend on content and the aim of the report. A basic skill of news/magazine camerawork is matching the appropriate camerawork style to the story content. The main points to consider are:
the need to provide a technically acceptable picture
an understanding of news values and matching camerawork style to the aims of objective news coverage
structuring the story for news editing and the requirements of news bulletins/magazine programmes
getting access to the story and getting the story back to base.
