Videos are great for a quick background on the stroy. When you want a little more detail Text is the way to go. However I was reading the story of the Chilean mine rescue on the BBC news website. They had the textual content bu they also had a horde of other informatiuon like pictures of each miner and their profiles, a live video feed from the site and a brilliant interactive Flash animation detailing how the recue operation worked.

I my opinion, text is essential if you really want to know the story. Everything else is extra.