Syrian Nuclear Reactor Video (USIC via Veoh)

The recent release of the US Intelligence Community's (USIC) video interpretation of the purpose of a Syrian facility bombed by the Israeli's back in September, 2007 is an interesting story but is even more interesting as an example of how the IC "translates" intelligence reports from their traditional print format (with a few graphics) to a primarily multimedia format with just enough text to highlight the findings.

We have run these kinds of projects for a number of years here (in our Intelligence Communications classes) and I have found that the most difficult thing to do is to make the video without coming across as "selling" the finding. I think the analysts and production people who did this report met that goal, at least, successfully (though you do wish that a 50 billion dollar organization would have been able to find a better microphone...). See for yourself: