The WSJ and its reality TV experiment

Adrienne LaFrance of the Nieman Journalism Lab writes about The Wall Street Journal‘s recently completed “Startup of the Year” online show that recently completed.

LaFrance writes, “The project was a way for the Journal to continue experimenting with video at a time when there’s huge demand for it. (Last year, then-Digital Network managing editor Raju Narisetti told me that ‘from a business point of view, we cannot generate enough video streams.’)

“But Startup of the Year is also a way for the paper to go after an untapped audience of young entrepreneurs and business students. The Wall Street Journal believes it can convert this demographic into a new generation of Journal readers by showcasing a ‘dramatic slice’ of their own world, Regal said.

“The Journal’s definition of ‘dramatic’ means exploring the travails of launching a business without the traditional reality-television format of ‘taking entrepreneurs to bars and showing them in bikinis,’ Regal says. So it’s not surprising that much of Startup of the Year feels a bit closer to C-SPAN than E! on the reality TV spectrum. Still, the Journal learned that this kind of storytelling benefits from a lighter approach — combining a ‘documentary feel with more drama and suspense.’

“And although the show traced the path of 24 companies through elimination rounds to a single winner, video producers at the newspaper insist the storytelling approach was meant to be nonlinear.”

Read more here.