New York Times To Release 360-Degree VR News

As part of The New York Times’ push into the next generation of news delivery, the publication is launching its VR news platform offering a 360-degree view of daily events. One of the first stories to be featured on the new platform is the segment by Ben Hubbard, with featured photos by Tyler Hicks.

The publication is collaborating with Samsung, which is providing their reporters with Gear VR recording equipment in order to provide viewers with VR landscape that The New York Times is planning on making into a mainstream asset. The feature will become available on the publication’s website, Forbes reports, and corresponding VR apps.

This is an important step to modernizing the news media industry, allowing traditional media to keep up with future modes of delivering information. The New York Times Company’s executive vice president and chief revenue officer, Meredith Kopit Levien said as much.

“It’s time to make 360 video a part of the daily news report, as common as text or interactives,” Levien said.

More than simply keeping up with the times, however, the use of 360-degree VR technology to deliver news can also come with significant benefits for both the journalists and the viewers. As Tech Crunch notes, journalistic endeavors pioneer some of the best uses of the technology to date, including ones made by The Huffington Post and The Guardian.

The 360-degree view provides viewers with a much clearer picture of what is going on in certain locations or scenarios that static, rectangular screens are not able to afford. It also provides users with much more control over the things that they see, which is not available via conventional news media.

On the matter of capitalizing on the technology, however, there’s no guarantee that it’s going to take off anytime soon. Hitting the target too early could cause the project to collapse, much like many other technologies when applied to news media have done before.