Rough cut: Our video montage missed the mark
Our recent video compilation fell short. We did not meet our own standard of “no implicit bias”
Our video montage missed the mark
Oakland Report is an experiment in a new form of media. As part of this experiment, we have expanded into video production to accompany and illustrate our work.
But our most recent video, a montage of clips from Oakland city council member Janani Ramachandran’s Instagram account, fell short of our standards.
The video appeared with a guest commentary written by Chris Urkofsky, “Oakland coliseum: An open letter to Oakland council member Janani Ramachandran,” published July 27. The video montage was produced by Oakland Report staff to accompany the article.
We have removed it from the article and replaced it with a static image and a correction.
The video was intended to show examples of council member Ramachandran promoting her music career on the same social media account she uses for council business. The video juxtaposed multiple separate video clips from Ramachandran’s Instagram page in an attempt to illustrate this.
But as presented on July 27, the video was misleading for many readers. Some described it as “rage bait,” while others thought Ramachandran had edited and posted the entire video montage herself.
Our nonprofit mission is to provide reasoned, fact-based, well-sourced reporting and analysis on local government issues, focused on observable and verifiable evidence free from implicit bias. But our video fell short of that standard, and our readers held us to account for that misstep.
Below we detail their concerns.
Readers respond and suggest revisions to the video
Mr. Urkofsky’s open letter to council member Ramachandran — a thoughtful request for his council member to reconcile her vote for the Oakland Coliseum sale with the ‘culture of enforcement’ she has publicly championed — was overwhelmingly well-received by readers.
Read this related article:
However, the video montage that originally appeared at the top of the article drew confusion, concern, and criticism.
Some commenters described the video as “sensationalism and rage-bait.” One wrote that “it makes me question the quality of everything they include on their website.”
Another comment: “I always believed OR would stay as an objective, unbiased platform… However, this video distorts that objective, and appears to be better suited to the polarizing social media space.”
One reader offered these extended remarks:
“Yes, the council member may be promoting her own music career on her Instagram page that covers council business, and this should be called out.
“But the edit needs to properly represent the fact that it’s not a single video but multiple videos. On a Reddit thread many people thought she added a promo for her own singing career to the end of the video, even the moderator of that community.
“Such sensationalist edits actually makes me lose faith in Oakland Report’s unbiased reporting. It’s ‘rage-bait’ rather than informing and calling things that are wrong (such as mixing singing career and council business) in a more factual, unbiased way.
“I hope you take this feedback and adopt it in future reporting. Even updating the video to be less biased by perhaps putting more gaps between each segment and not overlapping it. Maybe include the Instagram video URL or post date as a source text at the bottom of the video, to make it more clear they’re different videos.”
Corrections and commitments
One of Oakland Report’s guiding principles is to always remain open to examining and questioning our own biases.
In that spirit, we’re grateful for the direct and incisive feedback we received from our readers, and the suggestions for improving the video to better meet our own standards.
We plan to continue producing videos to help illustrate our work for diverse audiences across multiple platforms. Going forward, we will exercise more care to present documentation and evidence — and avoid implicit bias — in the context of the videos themselves, as we do with our written articles.
This will include the use of onscreen captions, transitions, citations, narration, and other video techniques to make clear to viewers the sources and facts behind the videos.
We want to hear from you
We strive to keep an open forum for new information that may advance our understanding — and help Oaklanders better grasp the decision-making that affects our lives.
In that spirit, we invite our readers to present your perspective in our comments or by sending us an email at letters@citizensoakland.org.
Thank you.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Sean S. Reinhart is a former library director, now retired after 26 years in local government. He served as library and community services director for the cities of Hayward and Menlo Park for a combined 16 years, where he helped build Hayward’s new main library and Menlo Park’s new multi-service community center. His post-retirement endeavors include serving as the managing editor of Oakland Report.
Sean and his family have lived in Oakland for 15 years. He grew up in nearby Hayward. Sean enjoys exploring California’s world-renowned coastline, valleys, deserts and mountains. His creative pursuits include writing, printmaking, carpentry, music and visual arts. He enjoys meeting new people, reading, hiking, gardening, and spending time with his family.
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