Fox Chicago Journalists Seek to Bring 新闻 Alive Online

Ever since the internet exploded into a phenomenon capable of snatching money away from traditional media companies’ wallets, the news industry has been looking for a way to take the business into the future. 到目前为止, that has primarily amounted to the publication of news stories on the web, but now a group of journalists from Fox 新闻 Chicago think they have found a better way forward.

"We spend a lot of time here figuring out what to do with the internet, 和 a lot of the answer so far has been to write more words, kind of like what a newspaper does," said Steve 男爵, senior web manager at Fox 新闻 Chicago. "Now we’re saying, ‘We’re a TV station, we broadcast live, we’re optimized to bring live coverage into this building, 和 there may be times when it’s great to go on TV 和 the internet.’"

Live Anywhere, Anytime
为此目的, the group—which includes 男爵 和 Fox 新闻 Chicago Vice President 和 新闻 Director Andrew Finlayson—created Live新闻Cameras.com, a site that features about 190 continuous live video streams from around the country. The feeds cover everything from large fires to floods to live newscasts to other more lighthearted fare.

"Our station in Detroit, the Fox station there, has a camera in the penguin cage of the zoo in Detroit, 和 they stream it through our website sometimes,巴伦说. "Quite literally, there are people that come to our website looking for the penguin camera. They’re like, ‘Forget about the political speech that’s coming in on something. Where are the penguins?’"

The streams come from a variety of news organizations around the country—including Sunbeam, Meredith Broadcasting, 媒体综合, 甘尼特, 和 《百家乐软件》—as well as about 30 overseas news outlets, according to Finlayson. According to 男爵, many of these organizations approached them asking to be included rather than the other way around. 然而, Finlayson said he, 男爵, 和 others also contacted many of their friends in the business to ask them to come aboard.

"The only objection that someone can raise—和 quite frankly, I don’t disagree with this point—is it does cost money,他说. "Streaming video does cost money. But it would be like a newspaper saying, ‘…We don’t want to spend money on paper.’ This is the future."