"LIVE" via I-Phone

[Chicago Dog]

I see people writing out of fear.

Inevitably, this assumption pops up in these discussions. The "writing out of fear" claim is in the top three of "assumptions that get my blood boiling."

When someone captures some video on a cellphone camera because they just happened to be in the right place at the right time, they did what they could with what they had. Is the rest of the story shot with the same crappy quality cell phone camera? Absolutely not.

The cell phone video is often sought by news crews who use their tools to do their job. Jeremy's liveshot was done with the iPhone. The rest of his package, however, was shot with a regular rig.

Hell, if technological advancement means my quality rig gets lighter and smaller, so be it! The more places I can take my rig, the better off my skillset is, and the better I make myself look when I come back with great shots.

Look: Nobody…but nobody shoots news at the top tier of the technology available. Otherwise we’d see news photogs shooting with the $250k cameras they use to shoot feature “films”. I’m in a top 5-10 market. We have a network O&O using toy P2 cameras costing in the $5000 range!

That's not really a good example. Just because a chainsaw can cut through trees in a matter of seconds doesn't mean a surgeon's going to try performing an appendectomy with one. It's all about having the right tool for the job.

We’re living in a time in which technology is moving faster than a defacto standard can be established for news acquisition. And we’re enduring an increase in the image quality of acquisition available to the general public. That competes with our skill set. Dads shooting dance recital have the same basic technology that we do.

I couldn't disagree with you more. We're paid professionals; dad and his tot are not. If you're truly scared about losing your job to Dad's $600 handicam rig, you should re-evaluate your skillset.

It only takes a handful of lazy, low-skill photogs at one station for management to start getting stupid ideas.

Remember: You have a good eye, or you’d be on the other side of the lens. The thing to do as an individual is: To maintain a commitment to the highest quality newsgathering technology made available to you as a photog. To gather news using the highest standards of production that time and budget will allow. And, more importantly, to uphold the highest standard of journalistic integrity. (That means no cardboard cut-out bears). If you do those three things, you’ll still be relevant when technology shakes itself out.

I agree.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: nobody buys a big screen HDTV with the thought of watching news. You can bet your ass that nobody with a big screen HDTV is going to watch the news if it's filled with shaky, grainy, unprofessional video.

 

[Nino]

Fear comes in different flavors. There’s the fear of being replaced by low skilled low paid photographers and there’s also the general fear of seeing a well established industry on a self destructive path, plagued by pseudo experts all trying to capitalize for their own little agendas. And there’s very little anyone of us can do to prevent this, except knowing that is coming and try to protect yourself. The same management who is coming up with all these brilliant “future saving” concussions, like the iPhone for news, is the same management who got the industry into this mess.

I wish my business professor was still alive. Even years after I graduated from business school we spent hours on the phone discussing industries who management incompetence and stupidity were leading their businesses into disasters. The news industry would have been right up there, topping the list.

No industry ever survived by compensating for the loss of sales by reducing the quality of their product in order to cut costs.

In school we had these sessions called “business prevention departments”. We discussed management whose decisions were equal of putting up signs that says “customers go away”. In our case “viewers go away”

After endless discussions, here and on the massive number of “self-proclaimed expert bloggers” who can find all the problems with the TV news but have no clues on the solutions, I have yet to see this question come up.

“What needs to be done in order to bring viewers back?”

Anyone willing to answer this one? Will I-Phone or similar toys accomplish this or will it drive viewers away from TV and deeper into the web.

Viewers are bombarded by cable and satellite companies all trying to convince the public on who has the best quality; and then we give viewers I-Phone generated news reports?

 

[adam]

Whatever we can do to bring the viewer closer to the story best. Jeremy's story was an absolutely ideal utilization of the iphone. But if the package after that was about a conservation effort in the mountains then it should be shot in the finest HD local TV can buy 2/3 chips and good glass. If the local highway is completely shut down because of a fight between a bear and an elk then the iphone will do just fine for the live pics until a truck or chopper can beam back HD. And the photog had better be shooting in HD for the late news because those are pics that everyone will want to see in glorious 1080p. If you try to pkg that with the iphone they'll be flipping around looking for bear v. elk in high quality on their 50" set.

We have so many ways to make the product better IF they're implemented correctly. Characters, surprise, characters, intrigue, characters and the sense of the experience bring people to the TV. Stuff like the iphone live shots can occasionally help with latter. If you try to replicate the former five items on the cheap or quick the product will suffer.

Something tells me that Jeremy wouldn't go to his ND with a request to shoot a feature about a hot air balloon festival only to tell him he doesn't want the best photog on staff because he'll tackle it with his iphone. I don't want to put words in his mouth, just a guess.

 

[Oldhuskie]

How is that iphone video going to look on a 50" widescreen in somebodies living room. Viewers might accept some poor quality vid once in a while but not all the time. I have three friends who will not watch my station because we are not HD like the others. We might think it is cool now to use these products but it will come back and bite all the news exes in the ass.

 

[iHD]

You know, I just recently bought my first HDTV and now I won't even flip to an SD channel. Furthermore, the little guide on the cable box tells me if a program on an HD channel is really HD or not. I love that feature. Now, I won't watch anything that is not shot in HD. Its really a bummer because none of the movies on cable are actually HD. I have a feeling I'm not the only one that thinks this way.