Investing in video and the future of local news

Today we started working with Michael Rosenblum and Lisa Lambden of Rosenblum Associates on an exciting new project — training a group of newsroom staffers to become true video storytellers.

As Michael suggests in his post about the project, this is about more than one newspaper trying to ramp up its video work. It’s about trying to find a new vocabulary for news that includes video as an integral part of the lexicon.

We have made a lot of progress in producing quality video for the web in the past couple of years (you can sample some of our stuff here and here), but this partnership with Rosenblum Associates represents a significant new commitment (you can get an overview of their amazing work here).

What will come of it? We’ve got lots of ideas, and they’ll get knocked around as we spend the next several months training and building a video operation together. Whatever happens, it should be a fun ride.

I’ll chronicle much of the adventure here, and Michael will keep me honest in his blog.

More soon, but for now a question: What do you think the proper role of video should be in a newspaper newsroom in 2008?