NBC News hit the top of YouTube’s trending tab by streaming James Comey’s Senate testimony on Thursday morning, but that wasn’t the only online video news The Peacock delivered this week. It also teased the launch of Left Field, a social video unit that will create short clips for platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Details about Left Field are still sparse, but the unit’s introductory video says the venture will explain “what happens when filmmakers, programmers and journalists from all over the world come together to create a new digital video unit within America’s first broadcaster.” Variety, in reporting on Left Field, has also managed to dig up a job posting from earlier this year that offers a few more hints about the sort of work NBC’s forthcoming unit is expected to produce.
“The group’s work will be found at the intersection of technology, shoe-leather reporting, and avant-garde video storytelling — all aimed at mobiles, social, and set-top boxes,” reads the posting. “And we’ll begin our journey by developing innovative video products in several areas, including creative news-based documentaries (domestic and international) and VR — all while taking advantage of creative treatments as well as NBC’s internal mountain of archive.”
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NBC News will not be the first TV journalism brand to spearhead a social-facing video producer. CNN, for example, has funded Great Big Story, which has used an eclectic collection of newsy videos to reach more than 4.3 million followers on Facebook alone.
