We’ve all seen antenna-topped TV news trucks stationed near a fire, a shootout, or other breaking event. Time to fix that dramatic image in your memory because traditional video reporting won’t be with us long. Instead, we’ll view video news shot by mobile journalists using their smartphones.  If you want to understand—and participate in— this journalistic revolution, read Shadi Rahimi’s “How AJ+ reported from Baltimore using only mobile phones.”

https://youtu.be/fR1gCfh7J1I

In effect, Rahimi has created a very concise mobile news video guide. While her team consists of professionals, the information she presents will be useful to aspiring citizen journalists. Rahimi probably didn’t intend to write a mobile news video guide when she sat down to show tell about AJ+. That’s Al Jazeera’s unit, which a year ago documented the revolution in Egypt mainly using mobile phones. The same approach was later used in Al Jazeera’s reporting from Ferguson.

There’s a lot more to the story than simply pointing a phone in the direction of the action. To win an audience—to go viral—the video needs to elicit “an emotional reaction.” And not just any emotional reaction. Rahimi discusses at length the importance of seeking positive—as opposed to negative— emotional responses, for example, “awe vs. sadness.” Related is the value of raw—unedited—video.

Going viral is crucial if mobile journalism—distributed primarily via Facebook, Twitter, and other social media—is to rival traditional news outlets. None of what Rahimi’s writes about is theory. Her discussion of the art and technique of using mobiles to cover breaking news is based entirely on the experiences of the Al Jazeera team. They’ve learned a lot.

While the practice of producing mobile news video will evolve—and eventually be taught at length in schools of journalism—right now Rahimi’s piece—published at Poynter.com—provides a useful overview of best practices.