Bloomberg Business: Frontline Asks What Are Journalists Allowed to Do With Virtual Reality?

Posted December 18, 2015

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From Bloomberg Business:

"Another familiar name from the traditional journalism industry is catching the virtual reality bug. On Thursday, the Knight Foundation said it was giving a $580,000 grant to the PBS documentary series Frontline to make virtual reality films and to develop standards for headset-based reporting. 

Over the next 18 months, Frontline will work with Nonny de la Peña’s Emblematic Group to make three virtual reality documentaries. Both organizations have already done some work in the new medium. Last year, Frontline aired its first VR film, about ebola in West Africa. De la Peña is one of the pioneers of VR-based documentary work. In 2012, she premiered a virtual reality film at the Sundance Film Festival about a man who went into diabetic shock at a Los Angeles food bank, and she has given similar treatment to stories about a Mexican migrant who was killed by U.S. border patrol agents and about a rocket attack on a street corner in Syria. At next year's Sundance, de la Peña is premiering two films, one putting the audience in the role of a domestic violence victim, and the other asking them to walk into a Planned Parenthood while being harangued by digital anti-abortion protesters."

Read the whole piece here.