analysis of flash package

For my second blogging assignment, I examined a flash package from Financial Times’ Why are food prices rising? As I examined the items in the package one by one, I found many similarities from one video to the other. Generally speaking, the design of the flash package is neat and easy to follow, containing one slideshow and four videos. The slideshow is good for the photos and the audio it provides. However, the videos disappoint me a little.

The videos, which mostly show one person talking and display some photos, charts or maps, are not that attractive. The information contained in the charts and maps is useful, but seeing someone talk for more than a minute gets boring, especially since the speakers are only editors and correspondents. As I watched the video titled “the impact of climate change”, I wished to see some footage about different places where crop production has been impacted by climate. Of course, those shortcomings may have been due to budget and time restrictions that would have prevented the producers to go abroad on-site.

The last video, an interview with Jacquirs Diouf, director of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, has a wealth of useful information. However, Mr. Diouf does not reveal any new information from other videos. His video is divided into four poorly cut parts by topic. Most of the videos begin showing his hands in air.

As I watched the videos, it made me reflect upon the way that certain journalists continuously repeat the same information in report just to satisfy their length requirements. In this package particularly, the makers showed the same viewpoints and comments by different people, which results in a bigger package of lesser content. Can this really attract an audience?

Anyway, I appreciated the charts and maps that the journalists created. Some of them look novel and contain a good amount of information.Take a look at this one.All the logos are clickable and information about climate events in different areas will show if you click different logos.