Smartphone-toting journalists help Wall Street Journal launch a video channel

The Wall Street Journal today announced the launch of WSJ WorldStream, a global video newsgathering and publishing platform for short-form videos shot via smartphone by journalists from across its global news organisation.

WSJ WorldStream is the latest addition to WSJ Live, the Journal’s video initiative, which has launched four new shows in the past year from New York, London, Hong Kong, and Washington, DC. It is Available on WSJ.com and as a free web app.

WSJ WorldStream is video for the social media and mobile age. It consists solely of footage captured on smartphones utilizing the resources of more than 2,000 journalists worldwide. Each video is under a minute, and all footage is reviewed by an editor before being posted to the stream. Using a custom video publishing app, turnaround time is condensed to just a few minutes between shooting and posting video so that the content can be delivered from the journalists in near real-time.

“Our video viewership has more than doubled in the past six months to over 20 million streams,” said Alan Murray, deputy managing editor and executive editor, online, for The Wall Street Journal. “Many of our reporters are demonstrating the opportunity that technology has given them to capture powerful images that enhance their great journalism. We now have the opportunity to deliver that video more quickly and efficiently for use in our rapidly growing video operation.”