Reporting the news with Vine videos

Fox TV News local affiliate KSAZ-TV in Phoenix (@MyFoxPhoenix) wanted to tell the story of Vine, our mobile video platform for taking 6-second, looping videos. Reporter Steve Krafft (@SKrafftFox10) thought there’d be no better way to report it than by using a series of @vineapp videos.

Krafft had used Vine in the past. “I wondered what it would be like if I constructed a story entirely out of Vine videos,” he says. “Vine gives us a portable and flexible tool to help us tell stories that connect with our audience. If you’re shooting in six seconds, you have to concentrate on every word. We interviewed a professor from Arizona State who told us Vine videos are like haikus, and I think she’s right.”

Krafft says that Vine could become an important tool for journalists. “Vine gives you a platform on a smartphone to get video distributed very quickly. It’s a way to take visual notes you can share with people almost instantly. Its greatest use is probably for breaking news stories and feature stories — for example, fires, parades, sports, crime scenes, weather, etc. It’s also a good way to promote stories for our newscasts.”

While exploring different ways to report the news doesn’t mean professional video cameras will go away, using Vine does have a unique advantage over traditional broadcast news: Vine videos shared in real time on Twitter drive particularly high engagement (Retweets and favorites), according to Twitter research.

Here is Krafft’s entire report, and the collection of Vine videos he used:

Have you seen other innovative uses of Twitter? Email us at mediablog@twitter.com.