ABC News Annouces Riffs, Rerporters Grab Your Flip Cameras And Produce
In a memorandum to staff members, the ABC News president David Westin said the "transformation" would result in a leaner, smaller news division. "The time has come to rethink how we do what we are doing," Mr. Westin wrote.
I won't pretend that all of this will be easy. But I do truly believe that it will be good for ABC News. I believe in this institution. I believe in its mission and in its future. As always, I will need your help in making sure that we are as strong as we can be for many years to come.
Those who have been through layoffs and departmental riffs will find Mr. Westin's request for "your help in making sure that we are as strong as we can be" a hollow pr blurb.
Further, his specific comments which can be found at mediaite include:
2. In production, we will take the example set by Nightline of editorial staff who shoot and edit their own material and follow it throughout all of our programs, while recognizing that we will continue to rely upon our ENG crews and editors for most of our work.
The use of digital solutions (Flip cameras, NLE's, Live Capture/transmission technologies) all makes sense from a fast news reporting and ROI perspective. The question remains will the quality of journalism because reporters will now produce their own content result in more accurate and unfiltered reporting?, I doubt it.
The downward costs of hardware and software in the ENG process, i.e. a Flip could be acceptable footage if the story is important enough, it use to require a 20-40k camera with a two-person crew with audio and lighting, this trend has been happening for a long while, I think it all started when the VideoToaster came out in the early '90's. Many news and radio outlets are equipping their staffers with other similar small form-factor cameras to capture events on-the-fly, this will only accelerate..
