Tampa Bay's local CBS affiliate, WTSP, has posted
an ad on its web site seeking Citizen Journalists.
The station will train 20 ordinary Joes and Janes to shoot video. WTSP will provide a camera and tripod for those chosen. Video may show on the air or on the station's web site with each video the station uses earning the shooter $20.
Full disclosure: I do very occasional work substituting for WTSP's morning traffic anchor. My paycheck comes from Traffic.com but I work at the station when I appear on its morning show.
But I have no inside knowledge of the reasons behind the idea. I heard of it from a
posting on a TV photographers message board that I frequent called b-roll.net, where people do not warmly welcome the idea.
I don't see it as the threat that they do, though. Their fear, not entirely unfounded considering how the TV news business has gone, is that these $20-a-story shooters will replace some of them as stations try to make up for falling ad revenue by finding cheaper ways to gather the news.
Many stations, including WTSP, have begun adding "one-man-bands," who shoot, write, edit and report stories by themselves. OMBs (called "backpack journalists" in WTSP lingo and "videojournalists" at some other places) are common at small markets. I shot my own stories for the first three years of my professional life at WMDT-TV in Salisbury, Maryland.
(Now, in a completion of the circle, I own
my own camera and shoot some of my own freelance work.)
The chief criticism of using citizen journalists is that airing the work of amateurs cheapens that produced by professionals and further blurs the line between established news outlets and any idiot who signs up for a free blog and starts typing, especially those idiots with access to still and video cameras.
One such idiot could interrupt your reading pleasure at any time with some stupid video of his cat, which he thinks is clever because the music -- first of all titled "The Year of the Cat" -- builds up to a huge crescendo (thanks, in part, to one of the guy's favorite guitar solos ever) as his cat, which has no commensurate ups and downs in its life, sits licking herself.
2 comments:
One could argue, from a branding perspective, that News-10 doesn't want its logo and brand associated with home video or prosumer equipment.
As you know, broadcast teevee isn't just about the product on the air...
True, but if the station is willing to air video from these cameras, being identified with them would seem a secondary concern, especially since its "backpack journalists" shoot with prosumer cameras already.
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