When the current President of the Broadcasting Division of Gannett, Dave Lougee, was the News Director at KUSA-TV in Denver, the station added a second satellite truck to its operations in their West Slope Bureau out in the boonies of the Colorado mountains, but he didn't want to pay for an engineer to staff the truck. His ingenious solution:
1. Hire a photog that was also a truck op. Only problem, the satellite truck was much slower than the bureau Suburban, so when the two person bureau headed out for breaking news, the reporter would often arrive an hour or more ahead of the photog, and have to do the one man band while the truck was driving to the scene and setting up. (Think mountain passes, snow and hundred mile+ driving distances to the average story)
2. Another small problem: when going live, the photog had to stay in the truck, meaning the reporter had to man the live camera AND do the report. When this new truck was announced, Lougee's brilliant idea was to have the reporter start on camera--with feedback from the truck on where to stand--start his stand-up, and then walk off camera (with a "here let me show you what I'm talking about") and move the camera live on the air to zoom in to the scene, all the while still narrating. Then, while the package was rolling, the reporter would have to zoom back out and dance into place in front of the camera for the backside wrap. (or, zoom back out, and walk back in front of the camera to keep delivering the intro)
Lougee was mystified when the photog staff--a perennial NPPA "Station of the Year" winner or finalist shop--failed to show much enthusiasm for his revolutionary, "cutting edge" visual concept.
Of course, this is also the same guy who basically questioned the manhood of his photog staff when hardly anyone wanted to fly in the station helicopter (after 5 crashes). Two of them resulted in fatalities--including the Chief Photog--one of the greatest guys I ever had the privilege to work with.
I have a hard time believing in the crowded, pack o' media DC market that a one man band is the premium work flow for gathering general and spot news, but given Lougee's background, I'm not surprised at all that he'd endorse it.