TV interviews question re: VJs

[Fearmonger]

Okay the OMBs and VJs are here to stay. Whether it's TV news, an online newspaper edition or a video blog like mine. Local TV news as we all know it, is taking its last breath.

I suspect that turning reporters and photographers into VJ's using their own cars and prosumer equipment will save enough money to place a lot more people on the street.

I still feel that it will cheapen the end product. I also feel that our Joe Sixpack audience could care less about quality as long as they get their news.

I learned on thing from Youtube and that's that people only have a 3-minute attention span.


My question: Should the VJ have the interview subject look at the camera or to the side as though there is a reporter there?

[LunchPenalty]

The reporter/VJ/Pack Mule is doing the interview, not the camera; therefore the interview subject should look at said reporter/VJ/Job-thief.

[Bureau Chief]

Ya! What he said!

[Rosenblum]

Depends on the story and the situation. When the subject looks into the camera, they are looking at the audience and making eye contact. When the tearful mother cries "I was scared my baby was going to die" you definitely want her drilling right into the viewer at home... no? It the subject is talking to someone else or referencing to something else, then no.

The VJ style shifts the grammar of the story. It is no longer the viewer watching what a reporter does for a living (the audience is 3rd person in the room), the VJ now is the surrogate for the audience and takes the viewer into the experience first person - so the 'position' of the viewer has to shift accordingly.

[LunchPenalty]

So will the 'surrogates' also provide the viewers with 3-D glasses so when the mother cries, it is 'drilled' into the viewers brain tenfold?

Just something you might want to look into.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
The VJ style shifts the grammar of the story. It is no longer the viewer watching what a reporter does for a living (the audience is 3rd person in the room), the VJ now is the surrogate for the audience and takes the viewer into the experience first person - so the 'position' of the viewer has to shift accordingly.Translation: "I can't teach VJs good technique in three weeks, so I have redefined what 'good' means to include horribly amateurish techniques common to people who have no idea what they're doing."

It looks stupid, Michael, and you continually demonstrate your own lack of understanding of television when you try to package amateurism and mediocrity and sell it as anything approaching quality.

[Rosenblum]

No Spike.
Try to expand your thinking a little bit. Also, for webcasting direct contact with the viewer is paramount.

What, by the way, is the editorial value of looking at someone's ear, (which is what most interviews look like)? What makes you think that television news as it is done now is the icon of perfection?

However, if you would care to include a link to your own work in your next message, I would be more than happy to look comment.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
What, by the way, is the editorial value of looking at someone's ear, (which is what most interviews look like)?Maybe that's what it looks like when your amateurs try to do it, but that's not what it looks like when a real craftsman is operating the camera.

[Rosenblum]

Originally posted by Spike:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Rosenblum:
What, by the way, is the editorial value of looking at someone's ear, (which is what most interviews look like)?Maybe that's what it looks like when your amateurs try to do it, but that's not what it looks like when a real craftsman is operating the camera.</font>[/QUOTE]Please! Spare me.
Why don't you take a critical look at the work your station and others are putting out. I do this all the time. While there are certainlyl exceptions, you're not exactly watching the work of Sven Nyquist.

ps. love to see your work. please post link. thanks.

[RollTide98]

I just watched five video stories on KRON's website.

One was shot at least in part by a photographer, given the reporter was visible in the SOTs.

Another, assumably shot by a VJ, was done relatively well.

Two others were mediocre.

The other piece would've netted any one of our photographers a stern lecture from the chief had he shot interviews that way.

Was the quality bad enough to turn viewers off? Hard to say... The worst piece was so reminiscent of a home movie that you could argue any viewer paying attention wondered what was going on. The other pieces were likely acceptable to a viewing audience unaware of the standard practices of shooting television.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
Why don't you take a critical look at the work your station and others are putting out. I do this all the time. While there are certainlyl exceptions, you're not exactly watching the work of Sven Nyquist. That's just about the dumbest argument you could possibly make for your VJs: "Television news is bad, therefore it's okay to make it worse."

Local television news is often bad. But it doesn't get better by taking away resources and forcing people to do the jobs of two people. It also doesn't get better by attempting to redefine what's "good" to fit with the limitations of your system. It may not get better if you simply leave it alone, but you've already proven with your previous two conquests that it gets worse when you touch it.

[Rosenblum]

No
My point is that there is LOTS of room for improvement. And this happens to be one of them.

The VJ approach introduces the sense of authorship to television journalism - particularly visually. We are just at the start, but over time, as more and more journalists embrace the technology and take responsibility for what is on screen, instead of hiding behind cameramen, editors or excuses about why this is too hard to do.. we will begin to see the arrival of a new look to TV news, and one that is better.

A similar event happened to still photography and photojournalism in the 1930s with the introduction of the Leica and rolled plastic film invented by Agfa. Many photo pros, no doubt, argued that the small cameras were toys and that 35mm was too small and too grainy.

Doubtless those used to shooting on 8x10 sheet film through a view camera on a tripod found the images by Cartier Bresson or Margaret Bourke White to be upsetting, messy, amateurish, random.

That however, was the rise of a new kind of visual journalism for print - more personal, more powerful, more intimate.

I would no more use a Leica stuck on a tripod to take a static still than I think we should use a hand held HDV camera as though it were a betacam. This is an opportunity to redefine television journalism - to break out of the mediocrity that it has been trapped in for years. And that will only come through pushing the edges.

Fearful folks like you only hold back progress, perhaps because you fear you will be left behind?

[Fearmonger]

I can’t help but believe the only bad video is when its too shaky, improperly lighted or has crappy audio. For some reason I think the art of great video making is lost on the TV news viewing audience.

I suspect that short, crisp clean video that showcases the witness is a winner over an effort to win awards for lighting or other forms of creativity.

I have not seen any good examples of VJ work in my markets LA & Phoenix but suspect anything at all that gives a new view to news stories may well have a novelty effect just because its different.

There was a OMB network reporter named Jon Alpert who filed lots of third world and combat zone stories but it’s been so long I don’t have a clear memory other than he’d shoot video handheld and ask the questions at the same time. It did seem somewhat awkward to me.

I did a somewhat long interview of a Westwood CA news stand operator for my other blog Westwood Happenings.

This was too long for TV news for sure but on a blog time is not a real issue other than as a cure for insomnia. Tell me what I did wrong here:

http://westwood.wordpress.com/2006/11/30/a-news-stand-to-the-stars-in-westwood/

[ January 01, 2007, 08:56 PM: Message edited by: Fearmonger ]

[Another side]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
No
My point is that there is LOTS of room for improvement. And this happens to be one of them.

The VJ approach introduces the sense of authorship to television journalism - particularly visually. We are just at the start, but over time, as more and more journalists embrace the technology and take responsibility for what is on screen, instead of hiding behind cameramen, editors or excuses about why this is too hard to do.. we will begin to see the arrival of a new look to TV news, and one that is better.Which video cameras in what price range are you recommending? What about the editing software ... how much?

[Another side]

Originally posted by Fearmonger:
I can’t help but believe the only bad video is when its too shaky, improperly lighted or has crappy audio. For some reason I think the art of great video making is lost on the TV news viewing audience.

I suspect that short, crisp clean video that showcases the witness is a winner over an effort to win awards for lighting or other forms of creativity.I find myself somewhere in the middle of your two first paragraphs. While I agree the creative elements may go unappreciated to a large extent, people still expect -- if unknowingly -- well done video that tells the story beyond the testimony of the "witness."

This was too long for TV news for sure but on a blog time is not a real issue other than as a cure for insomnia. Tell me what I did wrong ... I'm not going to try and tell you what you did wrong -- I haven't done what you're trying to do so I don't know much about it. But I can give you my thoughts as I watched it.

It was too long, at least as shown. Too many shots (and discussion) of the magazines.

The interview was too narrow -- I kept waiting for him to tell us what his biggest seller was, how he wound up in that location, and why he got into that business. He seemed like a pretty bright guy ... there were a lot of places to go with that interview.

As far as the video, I kept thinking, "C'mon ... no one's skin is that color." To me, everything seemed cloudy.

Those are my observations ... but again, I don't know what your limitations were.

[ January 02, 2007, 04:48 AM: Message edited by: Another side ]

[Fearmonger]

That guys skin color was a little funny as you can see by the other people in the piece. That and Youtube and Google Video's compression does goofy things to video I still need to learn about. I just looked again at my original raw video and it looks loads better.

This video blog concept is still new I have to guess just how to use content.

Things I need to do are:
1. Get a MAC computer and learn Final Cut Pro.

2. Get a better data storage host for my videos that does not compress the video to death. It's obvious they figured out some of those things on http://www.darynkagan.com/index.html
Daryn is no VJ here because she has a photog.

3. Many TV station websites "solve" the compression by making the video window so tiny that the compression does not hurt the image. I want a larger viewing window and good quality too.

[ January 02, 2007, 06:22 AM: Message edited by: Fearmonger ]

[2:30]

I can’t help but believe the only bad video is when its too shaky, improperly lighted or has crappy audio. Perhaps if your experience were in news, as opposed to police work, your understanding would be better.

[Fearmonger]

2:30 I have nearly 20 years in TV news on at least a part time basis.

My comment on video quality is based with my opinion of our low-brow, news programming viewers. I don't think they really care about quality. I came to that conclusion based on the wild success of Youtube. Look at some of the stats connected to some real crap video posted there. It causes me to begin to accept the VJ arguments in favor of that concept.

[LunchPenalty]

I think there is a major difference in tuning into seeing a well produced newscast, where you expect quality, rather than checking out YouTube for grainy videos of a kid lighting his fart.

Both have their place and those trying to mix the two are snake oil salesmen trying to convince us they are both one in the same.

Respect your audience a little more, they certainly can tell the difference in video. Brushing them off saying things like "Joe Sixpack doesn't know the difference" is pompus and extremely naive.

[Marty McFly]

Respect your audience a little more, they certainly can tell the difference in video. Brushing them off saying things like "Joe Sixpack doesn't know the difference" is pompus and extremely naive. I will argue otherwise. The 'every-day' viewer at home doesn't know (NOR DO THEY CARE) if video was shot on DVCPro, Beta SX or a Sony Z1U.

Last November I was covering an election and was the only guy (of about 20) shooting on a little P2 using the miniDV tape. I compared video shot on DVCPro to that shot on the miniDV.

Was there a difference?

Of course.

Would anybody at home notice?

NOT A CHANCE.

Now I will say that a viewer at home will know the difference between something shot on BetaSP versus an old, grainy VHS camera.

[ January 02, 2007, 08:09 AM: Message edited by: Marty McFly ]

[TAFKA wacowx]

Originally posted by LunchPenalty:
I think there is a major difference in tuning into seeing a well produced newscast, where you expect quality, rather than checking out YouTube for grainy videos of a kid lighting his fart.Do evening news viewers turn off the live sat phone reports when they come on? Or when 'we' show lower-quality video from the web, does that affect viewership?

And as Marty stated above, very few viewers will notice the difference in quality between DVC-Pro and MiniDV for example. Heck, even the newest MiniDV format cameras will do HD, so the arguments against shooting with these 'mini' cameras becuase of quality gets shoddier and shoddier. The quality of MiniDV, directly imported via Firewire into an editing computer is extremely good...even better than what most stations were using just 10-15 years ago on-air.

[Rosenblum]

[/qb][/QUOTE]Which video cameras in what price range are you recommending? What about the editing software ... how much?[/QB][/QUOTE]

If you want to go to air with this, you cannot beat the Panasonic P2. It records on a card instead of tape, so there is no 'ingest' time at all. Shoots HDV or DVcam. NTSC or PAL. Cameras are about 3K, but you will also need a better shotgun mic than the one that comes with the camera. I like Sennhsiser but there are lots of options. If you wanna get serious, an rf mic system for 2nd channel makes a big difference as well.

For editing, cannot beat FCP.

If you are just doing webcast, your choices are a lot broader and a lot less expensive, but watch the audio always.

[Consider This]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:

If you want to go to air with this, you cannot beat the Panasonic P2. It records on a card instead of tape, so there is no 'ingest' time at all. Shoots HDV or DVcam. NTSC or PAL. Cameras are about 3K.More like $5,300 (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/beta/controller/home?O=1881&A=details&Q=&sku=381410&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation), at least at B&H Photo Video, and that doesn't include the cost of the P2 cards.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Consider This:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Rosenblum:

If you want to go to air with this, you cannot beat the Panasonic P2. It records on a card instead of tape, so there is no 'ingest' time at all. Shoots HDV or DVcam. NTSC or PAL. Cameras are about 3K.More like $5,300 (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/beta/controller/home?O=1881&A=details&Q=&sku=381410&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation), at least at B&H Photo Video, and that doesn't include the cost of the P2 cards.</font>[/QUOTE]Michael is probably talking about the discount price you might get if you buy 50 of them at once directly from Panasonic. But then, the stations he is ruining aren't actually buying 50 cameras, despite his sales pitch to the contrary. I would be curious to know what WKRN and KRON actually paid for their cameras vs. what Rosenblum quoted them when he made his sales pitch.

[Sid]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
Depends on the story and the situation. When the subject looks into the camera, they are looking at the audience and making eye contact. When the tearful mother cries "I was scared my baby was going to die" you definitely want her drilling right into the viewer at home... no? It the subject is talking to someone else or referencing to something else, then no.

The VJ style shifts the grammar of the story. It is no longer the viewer watching what a reporter does for a living (the audience is 3rd person in the room), the VJ now is the surrogate for the audience and takes the viewer into the experience first person - so the 'position' of the viewer has to shift accordingly.I came late to this discussion, but I wanted to comment on this. Unless the subject is directly addressing the audience at home, they should never look directly into the camera. It's just not natural. If you have a grief-stricken mother, she's not going to be playing to the camera. She's going to look for solace in the eyes of those around her. The power of the scenario you created above is compelling enough to the audience at home no matter where the mother's eyes are fixed. It needs no augmentation.

[Fake Post]

Originally posted by Sid:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Rosenblum:
Depends on the story and the situation. When the subject looks into the camera, they are looking at the audience and making eye contact. When the tearful mother cries "I was scared my baby was going to die" you definitely want her drilling right into the viewer at home... no? It the subject is talking to someone else or referencing to something else, then no.

The VJ style shifts the grammar of the story. It is no longer the viewer watching what a reporter does for a living (the audience is 3rd person in the room), the VJ now is the surrogate for the audience and takes the viewer into the experience first person - so the 'position' of the viewer has to shift accordingly.I came late to this discussion, but I wanted to comment on this. Unless the subject is directly addressing the audience at home, they should never look directly into the camera. It's just not natural. If you have a grief-stricken mother, she's not going to be playing to the camera. She's going to look for solace in the eyes of those around her. The power of the scenario you created above is compelling enough to the audience at home no matter where the mother's eyes are fixed. It needs no augmentation.</font>[/QUOTE]I dunno. Looks perfectly natural to me.

http://www.ourmanintokyo.net/archives/images/fisheye.jpg

[ January 02, 2007, 10:40 AM: Message edited by: Fake Post ]

[2:30]

My comment on video quality is based with my opinion of our low-brow, news programming viewers. I don't think they really care about quality. I came to that conclusion based on the wild success of Youtube. Look at some of the stats connected to some real crap video posted there. OK, I'll bite. If you've actually been in television news, you should understand that there is an important difference between youtube and news. The former is posting home videos. The latter is reporting.

And what you call success indicates, again, that you don't understand the difference between the media. Having someone click on a video is not the same as having someone go to a newscast for information.

Viewers may not express a desire for quality video versus the crap peddled by some consultants - one in particular - but they do vote with their remotes. And their remotes aren't saying give me VJs or youtube.

[Fearmonger]

Just one point here the TV news viewers have left TV for their computers and Youtube. The incredible shirnking TV audience is rapidly changing what they are watching.

I'd say that no matter the media we should do our best to provide better video. I like great video but I just don't think most viewers care.

I'm also learning that the Youtube offerings with misleading titles get more hits.

It's anyone's guess what will shake out and catch on. I only wish I could predict the future.

[Rosenblum]

Dear Sid
Try this one at home.
Tell your wife a story, but completely avoid eye contact. After all, the power of the story should be enough, no?
We are in the storytelling business.
Good storytelling is about connecting with our audiences.
The only reason there is a 'rule' about not looking into the camera is because heavy gear mounted on tripods caused us to shoot interviews in this off-center way.
The grammar of television news was not cast in stone and handed down by God. It was created by people grappling with a very cumbersome technology to get stuff on the air.

The 'rules' can and should change. Dont be so afraid.

What you are beginnning to taste here is the 'democratization' of television and in particularly the 'democratization' of television journalism and news.

It is scary

It is really scary to people who have worked their lives in it and thought they had a lock on something that was somehow 'special'.

It aint so special.

Lots of people, including some who are no doubt posting on this board full of fear and anger, believed they had a specific skill set which suddenly everyone and their brother is taking a crack at. What nerve! Who do they think they are??

Lots of people are going to do this now, and lots of people are going to try new things. Some will work, some will not, but we are going to push the borders of 'conventional' (read, tired, old, boring, tedious and predictable) television journalism and create something much more compelling and dynamic.

Youtube v. your current local station? Which one would you have rather owned? And Youtube was just started under two years ago.

Yes yes, you are going to hear lots of really frightened people like Spike who act like they are fighting for their lives.

Know what? They are.

[Vulcan]

I agree with much of your sentiment, 2:30, but I think there is a valid truth here:
Originally posted by 2:30:
Viewers may not express a desire for quality video versus the crap peddled by some consultants - one in particular - but they do vote with their remotes. And their remotes aren't saying give me VJs or youtube.The remotes aren't changing stations, they are clicking "off." And as the votes are tallied, grainy Youtube fart videos are gaining on Slick Stone Phillips pieces.

As the general consumer gets more acclimated to grainy crap, they will be more tolerant of lesser-quality news video. Content is king.

Now -- I'm not entirely convinced that Rosenblum's package deal will pay off. I get it in theory, and anything that results in more personal ownership of a story and more bodies on the street spending more time crafting journalism is great.

In theory.

In reality, I fear those who "buy Rosenblum" are still waiting to pull the trigger on cuts. Why keep 45 VJs around, when you can trim the fat and fill the casts with 30?

The best benefit of the VJ system is -- for the same price as a traditional newsroom -- having many more active reporters who can chase speculative stories that are not daily turns. Too much of today's "news product" is crappy because it is safe. "What we can turn in a day" is more important than "What would benefit and interest our viewers." It's simply too easy to scale down that benefit and cut costs -- even though that decision wipes out the one real advantage the VJ model brings.

Michael, you truly are a visionary. But like many visionaries, you don't have the final piece of the puzzle to bring it home. Try as you might, you'll never sell the average station owner on doing it the way you dreamed, because you left the corners too exposed where they are easy to cut.

[Rosenblum]

Vulcan
I see your point and I have seen it happen.
However, as the station owners are self-interested, and as more stations in the same market adapt the same cost effective model, I think you will agree, that in the end, the one that puts more cameras on the streets, gets more original stories, will garner a greater audience.

If you have one station that puts 8 cameras on the street a competitor that puts 50, where will the viewers go?

50 might not be the answer, but 8 sure is not either. The marginal cost of an additional VJ is low compared to the marginal benefit that additional reporting brings.

[DoneThatToo]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
. . . I think you will agree, that in the end, the one that puts more cameras on the streets, gets more original stories, will garner a greater audience. . .Jumping in here and late to the dance I am, but I don't fully agree with the above. Somewhere along the line the viewer will still want to see relevant stories, not just original.

Just because somebody offers me 30 selections with half of them being junk against another’s offer of 15 selections with only a few clunkers wouldn't really entice me to watch quantity over quality. Why waste my time to get a little content verses the same amount of time to get more quality content?

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
Vulcan
I see your point and I have seen it happen.
However, as the station owners are self-interested, and as more stations in the same market adapt the same cost effective model, I think you will agree, that in the end, the one that puts more cameras on the streets, gets more original stories, will garner a greater audience.

If you have one station that puts 8 cameras on the street a competitor that puts 50, where will the viewers go?

50 might not be the answer, but 8 sure is not either. The marginal cost of an additional VJ is low compared to the marginal benefit that additional reporting brings.Michael -- we probably need to spill some swill at some point. I honestly "get it." I understand it. I even believe in it. But I don't see market forces overcoming that gap.

Newsrooms now are staffed based on newshole, which is constant. Stations in larger markets can afford to staff above skeleton ONLY if there is promotional value -- some type of investigative franchise. Not nearly the same concept as the "overage margin" both of us agree is healthy for good journalism.

Stations and groups are converting to the VJ-format only one at a time. There is no market pressure to keep the "overage margin" intact, because you're filling the same time with lower cost. If a second station chooses to flip the switch, the first will have already set a baseline for skeleton staffing, and rather than starting with 45 or 40 and settling down, they'll start with the 25 from across the street plus maybe 1 or 2. The bulk of that trimming is already done.

I fear your revolution might be too little too late -- and may fall victim to the very same technology that sparked your experiment. Guys like Fearmonger have their hearts in the right place as well -- and they will hit profitable niches gathering local news.

The real tech revolution will come when grassroots citizen journalists get smart enough and financially sound enough to add user-generated video to their sites. They won't be going out and shooting much fresh material. Spot news will come from camera phones, with the "shooter" earning micro-credits per viewing. The "newsroom" will be one or two people with strong editing skills, who know layout, design, and self-promotion.

At the end of the day, you're still stuck to a mature and slowly starving business model. Guys like Fearmonger will only get better and be a more competitive guerilla threat. Tex over at http://watchingwashington.com will be doing quite well, or maybe the team at http://dwightseffort.com.

[Don Konkey]

Originally posted by LunchPenalty:
The reporter/VJ/Pack Mule is doing the interview, not the camera; therefore the interview subject should look at said reporter/VJ/Job-thief.Why are OMB's job thiefs? I am a photojournalist, in a prevoius job I was a producer. I see the trend coming and guess what, Sparky??? I have sharpened my on-cam skills and am functioning as a VJ/OMB. I think it requires the cream to rise to the top, which I am doing. It takes a hell of a lot of extra work to shoot, write, edit and present a story by yourself. I hate this disgruntled attitude that everyone has towards this. Change happens, if you are worth your weight, you will adapt like I have and your career will feed your soul (if not your wallet) like mine does. If not; see you in Florida, Grandpa.

Now, let the hatred for me and mud-slinging begin.

BTW, I use a large DVCPro camera, so I set up the shot, stand to the side and have them look at me.

edited for a missing comma

[ January 02, 2007, 12:59 PM: Message edited by: Peter Gibbons ]

[Fearmonger]

The fear and disbelief involved with changes in TV news are overwhelming. Anyone who has spent years to learn a job that is now going through a major metamorphosis has to be frightened. Watching the paychecks of my friends in TV news get smaller has been no fun at all.

Yes, I started a blog and have shamelessly promoted it here not to gain hits as some claim but to see what works and does not. I’m grateful for every visit I get from Medialine because it’s a great lab for me.

I have to laugh at how some little Hollywood fairy (Prez Hilton) can set up shop at a Starbucks with a laptop on Sunset Blvd, steal pictures from everyone and attach it to mindless commentary. That while making an un-Godly amount of money from the morons that like the crap he posts. (I think he will prevail in the copyright infringement lawsuit he has been served with.) Rocketboom.com is yet another strange money machine I will never understand.

I know that just to survive everyone in the news business we will all need to know how to post text, pictures and video on the Internet. That of course is in addition to writing, shooting and editing just to pay your rent. We can do this as independent business people or work for someone else. Then there is the issue of selling you product to advertisers.

For those unwilling to learn new tricks their hope will be to work as a PR flak somewhere. There will be plenty of computer savvy kids that will learn whatever it takes to make it big in the new media world. These kids are all working in their Boot Camp right now. It’s called My Space.Com.

[ January 02, 2007, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: Fearmonger ]

[2:30]

Content is king.
Vulcan-

That's precisely right. And, at the risk of being drawn into one of slick silly's be assimilated or die rant-chains, I'll offer you my theory on why the remotes are clicking off.

It's because we've ignored your three words.

Content is king, and we've dropped the ball on offering it. Content - to today's viewers - isn't flower shows, cats up trees, car crashes or nickle and dime crime. That's cheap crap, easily defeated by whatever is different on youtube.

But - and it's an important but - there is content they want. And driving them to youtube by implementing some chickens- consultant's cost cutting schemes isn't going to solve anything, any more than the last fad, which, if you recall, was trying to make everything look like a magazine...because somebody thought Time and Newsweek had big circulation, and we ought to try to do what they do. Well, that worked nicely, didn't it?

So, now somebody's pushing youtube reporting? How about topless Rocketboom?

As long as the bar is set really low - so low that a network with 900-thousand viewers is considered a success - and as long as managers go for the quick fix at the expense of long term success, we'll continue to have flunked out parasites eating away at the core of good journalism.

[ January 02, 2007, 01:04 PM: Message edited by: 2:30 ]

[Fearmonger]

The flunked out parasites will rule because the real audience does not care. The problem is that we all want to play to ourselves as the audience.

Face the fact that there is a huge percentage of people in America that can't read, write or even speak English. Many of them have even completed high school along the way.

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by 2:30:
Content is king, and we've dropped the ball on offering it. Content - to today's viewers - isn't flower shows, cats up trees, car crashes or nickle and dime crime. That's cheap crap, easily defeated by whatever is different on youtube.But the business model requires that you fill the time available, and doesn't appropriately reward filling it well, for the reason I describe below.
Originally posted by 2:30:
As long as the bar is set really low - so low that a network with 900-thousand viewers is considered a success - and as long as managers go for the quick fix at the expense of long term success, we'll continue to have flunked out parasites eating away at the core of good journalism.And who dropped the bar? Not the viewer.

Management and consultants dropped the bar. When the audience had more channels and options, the response was to sink to the lowest common denominator. Try to keep more of the shrinking pie, by being as non-controversial and dumb as possible.

Stations that buck this trend do well. Most don't, and are part of that great spiral leading to the sewer.

Originally posted by Fearmonger:
For those unwilling to learn new tricks their hope will be to work as a PR flak somewhere.Sorry, Paul, I have to disagree with you there. There's a lot more to being a "flack" than you think.

Some of us made the transition because we wanted to -- and there are as many or more changes going on in the PR industry as there are in broadcast news. Those unwilling to learn new tricks in teevee probably won't be willing to keep up with emerging trends in other communications fields.

[Rosenblum]

Vulcan
A very intelligent and cogent analysis. You may be right. Any time you are in NY, look me up.

Meanwhile, the local news market is fundamentally too rich to leave (or be left) to conventional local news. If conventional local news providers continue to keep to the minimums, others will come to fill the vacuum, and they will not be burdened with the archaic architecture that contemporary stations have built in.

Keep your eye on Verizon and ATT as well as local newspapers and video online sites. (I like the links you put up). Lostremote reports today on two online hyperlocal news sites that were already purchased.

My conversations with stations owners leads me to believe they also understand the larger nature of what is coming and what is reqired to respond. It is on the implementation level that we encounter the bulk of the problems.

[Fearmonger]

900,000 viewers for three minutes of content like Rocketboom.com assembled by three of four people with little cash investment (less tha $20 grand)means they have struck it rich.

[ January 02, 2007, 01:23 PM: Message edited by: Fearmonger ]

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
The only reason there is a 'rule' about not looking into the camera is because heavy gear mounted on tripods caused us to shoot interviews in this off-center way. That makes absolutely no sense. There's nothing about a tripod that makes it even remotely difficult to look into the camera. If there were, reporters wouldn't look into the camera for standups and live shots.

Yet another demonstration that you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Another side]

As with Vulcan, I'm interested in what Mr. Rosenblum has to say, primarily because a friend and former news director whom I greatly admire brought it up over a beer several years ago.

But my observation is this: There's a lot of talk about the TV News audience going to Youtube ... and there are suggestions that's the audience that TV News operations should be recruiting.

I don't believe the middle-class of my community -- the teachers, postal workers, insurance salesmen, construction workers, contracters, nurses, and on and on -- are going home at night and heading to Youtube after clicking on their computer and checking their email.

What I DO believe, is (as someone else already said) ... content is king ... LOCAL content.

And I agree with Mr. Roseblum's thesis -- you put 30 cameras on the street and you're going to get so many local news options that you might even have something left over for the Saturday and Sunday shows that are now little more than throw-a-ways.

[Fearmonger]

You want local?

laTube.com
The local video sharing place to argue, hook up, show off or spread lies.

ChitownTube.com

NYTubeyourass.com

LasVegascaughtYOUwithyourbimboontape.com

Burbonstreetshowyourtits.com

What's next?

[ January 02, 2007, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: Fearmonger ]

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by Another side:
I don't believe the middle-class of my community -- the teachers, postal workers, insurance salesmen, construction workers, contracters, nurses, and on and on -- are going home at night and heading to Youtube after clicking on their computer and checking their email.Oh, I do agree with you there. I am looking at the future, not the present.

If this were true for today's audience, then "Snakes on a Plane" would have been a massive blockbuster. If the internet really did have that leverage now, "Serenity" would have smashed box office records, and there'd be another Firefly series already.

But it is the way we're headed, because tomorrow's middle-class IS swapping YouTube links today...

[Another side]

None of those sound like news operations ... or even news-oriented.

[Michigan J. Frog]

Rosenblum, your constant pushing of what you euphemistically call the "VJ" or "backpack journalist" is destroying quality television news. I am sure you sleep well at night, because your "clients," GMs and NDs desperate to cut the bottom line, tell you you're a genius.

But you aren't.

And the public is less well-served because of your crusade.

Frankly, I wish you'd picked some other industry on which to inflict yourself.

But that's not fair to other industries. The best solution?

I wish you'd just go away.

[Consider This]

Originally posted by Vulcan:

If the internet really did have that leverage now, "Serenity" would have smashed box office records, and there'd be another Firefly series already.
I think the very existence of "Serenity" demonstrates how much leverage the Internet does have. How many TV shows cancelled before airing one full season spawn feature-length films?

Because of its modest (by Hollywood standards) budget, "Serenity" didn't have to become a blockbuster to succeed. And I'd love to see figures for its DVD sales among fans in the Buffyverse.

Similarly, people shooting news on small cameras and showing it on their blogs don't have to win a large cross-section of Middle America to make money the way a TV station would.

The definition of "success" is different with New Media. Even if tomorrow's middle class doesn't swap YouTube links in the same numbers as today's middle class watches television, some enterprising people will be able to build enough of an audience for their "narrowcast" to prosper.

It also means enterprising reporters won't need TV stations if they want a platform to tell their stories.

And, Frog, blame Rosenblum if you want but if he hadn't come along, someone else would have.

[Fearmonger]

The sad truth is what we used to know is now headed for the junkyard. I don't know who is right here but radical change is in our future. We will always provide quick and dirty information content to the lowest common denominator. Will the public demand excellence? Somehow I don’t think so.

Britney's shaved beaver shots rule now!

[Basically A Nice Guy]

Originally posted by Vulcan:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Another side:
I don't believe the middle-class of my community -- the teachers, postal workers, insurance salesmen, construction workers, contracters, nurses, and on and on -- are going home at night and heading to Youtube after clicking on their computer and checking their email.Oh, I do agree with you there. I am looking at the future, not the present.</font>[/QUOTE]I have seen the future of the resume tape... and it is YouTube.

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by Basically A Nice Guy:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Vulcan:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Another side:
I don't believe the middle-class of my community -- the teachers, postal workers, insurance salesmen, construction workers, contracters, nurses, and on and on -- are going home at night and heading to Youtube after clicking on their computer and checking their email.Oh, I do agree with you there. I am looking at the future, not the present.</font>[/QUOTE]I have seen the future of the resume tape... and it is YouTube.</font>[/QUOTE]mcarp, is that you..?

[The Mockingbird]

You see what the progression is for stations hiring VJ's, right?

Sure, they may have 50 guys on the ground when they switch over, but how long do you really think that's going to last? The numbers will be whittled down through attrition.

Eventually, you'll have 4 one man band guys at local shops. By eventually, I mean about 10 years.

2017 is going to positively SUCK for anyone who hasn't gotten out of the industry.

[Spike]

And yet none of this has anything to do with Rosenblum wrecking local television newsrooms. He's not migrating them to the web. The product itself is still an over the air newscast watched on a television set. He's not making the product any more technologically advanced. He's not improving it in any way. He's simply convincing television managers that the quality of the newscast doesn't matter and collecting a fee for showing them how to make an inferior product at a reduced cost.

I have no problem whatsoever with Rosenblum training one man bands to shoot and edit their little home movie projects for the web. I have no problem with him training one man bands to make bad reality television shows to sell to cable. I DO have a problem with him collecting a fee for attempting to degrade the quality of local television news through deceit and misrepresentation.

[Spike]

Originally posted by The Mockingbird:
You see what the progression is for stations hiring VJ's, right?

Sure, they may have 50 guys on the ground when they switch over, but how long do you really think that's going to last? The numbers will be whittled down through attrition.Nope, even that is more optimistic than the way it has worked at WKRN and KRON. WKRN didn't have anywhere near the 50 one man bands Rosenblum promised. A whole bunch of people left when the switch was made, and guess what? They weren't replaced.

Now, if I remember correctly, they have fewer than 20 VJs. Not 50. Not even half that. They have just about the same number of reporters on the street at any one time as their competitors, except that their competitors also have photogs who take some of the workload off the reporters so that they can do a better job. The other guys are playing to individual strengths, while the one man bands are constantly struggling with their weaknesses.

50 VJs my ass. That's just another one of Rosenblum's lies.

[Fearmonger]

I don’t think that it’s possible to get reporters, producers and photographers to embrace cross training on every job and do it for the same paycheck. We also know that quality will bottom out in a hurry.

The truth is that local TV news is losing its market share every day, and TV news will be a loser. The jobs as we know them just won’t exist anymore.

So they bring in a new bunch of low paid, My Space, self-trained VJs to create content and the old crewmembers that have not adapted will get the boot. I don’t have a clue where things go from there. Survival will dictate along with supply and demand.

The old crew is going to take a beating for sure. Can the old crew somehow redeem themselves by taking their experience elsewhere? A reality we forget to notice is the source for the news that we watch and read. That source is either on the Internet or we created it ourselves. We don’t watch TV either except to see what the competition is doing. Many of us will wind up running blogs or working for established bloggers. like Druge and TMZ.com.

If you refuse to do the blog thing, I’d be looking to move to book and screenplay writing or entertainment show hosting. The jobs are changing because of corporate needs to make obscene profits with minimal investment.

You guys are all pissed and want to kill the messenger who is assisting stations in this unholy transition.

[2:30]

It's not about killing the messenger, at all. The messenger isn't the problem - it's the idiots who believe his swill - and there obviously are plenty of suckers right on this board. All he's doing is trying to make a living by telling the suckers with power what they want to hear, which is that you can do news without paying for expensive people to do the newscasts.

Sorry, but it's not about filling time cheaply. It's about filling time well enough that you bring viewers in - doing it so they know that if they miss your shows, they'll miss something worthwhile.

Putting more cameras on the street is nice, but cameras do not equal content. Pictures don't equal content. Stories equal content.

You don't get that on video blogs or youtube. You don't get it on VJ stations, either.

[ January 02, 2007, 07:05 PM: Message edited by: 2:30 ]

[foxravens]

Originally posted by Fearmonger:
I don’t think that it’s possible to get reporters, producers and photographers to embrace cross training on every job and do it for the same paycheck. We also know that quality will bottom out in a hurry.

The truth is that local TV news is losing its market share every day, and TV news will be a loser. The jobs as we know them just won’t exist anymore.

So they bring in a new bunch of low paid, My Space, self-trained VJs to create content and the old crewmembers that have not adapted will get the boot. I don’t have a clue where things go from there. Survival will dictate along with supply and demand.

The old crew is going to take a beating for sure. Can the old crew somehow redeem themselves by taking their experience elsewhere? A reality we forget to notice is the source for the news that we watch and read. That source is either on the Internet or we created it ourselves. We don’t watch TV either except to see what the competition is doing. Many of us will wind up running blogs or working for established bloggers. like Druge and TMZ.com.

If you refuse to do the blog thing, I’d be looking to move to book and screenplay writing or entertainment show hosting. The jobs are changing because of corporate needs to make obscene profits with minimal investment.

You guys are all pissed and want to kill the messenger who is assisting stations in this unholy transition.OK Mr "Vlogcaster" (whatever the hell that is).
I've been reading your posts for a while now, and I've concluded that you know absolutely nothing about TV news. Nada, Zip, Bupkis.
Yet, you're going to offer your analysis?
Most of us here are professionals, people who have given a good part of their life to this profession.
Do us all a favor, put your "analysis" on your stupid blog, where it belongs. You're making yourself look like an even bigger clown, and I didn't think that was possible.

[Fearmonger]

We can complain all we want about the messenger and his message all we want but certain facts exist.

1. The TV viewing audience is smaller every year.
2. There are fewer and lower paid people than ever in TV news.
3. things are not getting any better and they won't increase resources to even try to bring viewers back.

and foxravens, go blow yourself!

[foxravens]

Charming...but you're still a clueless clown.
You know NOTHING about TV news or journalism of any type.
Spare us, we're professionals here.
Go clean your damn guns some more.

[ January 02, 2007, 07:52 PM: Message edited by: foxravens ]

[2:30]

1. The TV viewing audience is smaller every year.
2. There are fewer and lower paid people than ever in TV news.
3. things are not getting any better and they won't increase resources to even try to bring viewers back.
1. Wrong.
2. Wrong.
3. Who's "they"? Your knowledge of managment decision making isn't limited, it's non existent.

More than anything else, you remind me of the bloggers who confuse their opinions with news. P

[Fearmonger]

2:30 what planet is your market on?

People where you work have been getting regular pay raises over the last 10 years?

Your station is increasing resources to win back viewers?

Get you nose out of that white powder!

Of course Spanish speaking TV news is doing better than ever as we allow anyone to swim the Rio Grande and stay here.

[ January 02, 2007, 08:09 PM: Message edited by: Fearmonger ]

[foxravens]

I used to think you were just a fool.
Now, I'm beginning to think you're insane.

[Fearmonger]

Okay I'll bite what market are you in and we will show the growth or demise of the TV news audience there.

Come to L.A. where the local network O&O stations share video with each other rather than compete.

[ January 02, 2007, 08:17 PM: Message edited by: Fearmonger ]

[foxravens]

Sure, I'm gonna give YOU information like that?
Please.
You're clueless, man. I'm really not trying to be insulting, but I think you're too damn ignorant to know just how foolish you look here.
You do NOT know what you're talking about...you don't even have to admit it. Just remove yourself from this particular discussion because you are being totally unmasked.

[Fearmonger]

Just like I thought you have nothing to offer up showing that I'm somehow in error...

Like I said before, go blow yourself.

[foxravens]

Tell you what...post your home address and phone number and I'll give you the information you want.
God, you're a clown.

[Fearmonger]

My direct contact information is on my blog. I don't need to hide like you do.

[foxravens]

Not hiding, clown...just trying to get you from making an even bigger fool of yourself.

[Fearmonger]

Just produce a shred of evidence that things are great in your news market... graemlins/eusa_whistle.gif graemlins/eusa_whistle.gif :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Spike]

Hell hath frozen over. I'm cheering for Foxravens.

[Fearmonger]

Just so we are all clear here.

I know first hand how difficult it is to be a VJ. It’s nearly impossible to report, shoot and edit without some portion of the package suffering. I also hate this new trend along with the slow death of TV news. I want the stations to maintain quality if for no other reason as a public service.

We have to be realistic that the station owning corporations only care about profit and local news is not making the return they want. They’d run cartoons instead of news if they could make a better profit.

[ January 03, 2007, 03:54 AM: Message edited by: Fearmonger ]

[The Mockingbird]

This is why the government needs to regulate television stations more.

[Consider This]

Originally posted by 2:30:
The messenger isn't the problem - it's the idiots who believe his swill.
If by idiots you mean people who agree that you're going to see more one-man-bands, you have misidentified them. Look around. More stations are using the one-man model, at least in part.

If by idiots you mean naive station executives who fall for the Rosenblum pitch without knowing what they're buying -- again -- you have misidentified them. He's not leading stations anywhere they don't already want to go. What Rosenblum does is put a marketing spin on the idea that stations can use to sell the idea to viewers.

The VJ model might be all the evil things ascribed to it. But the only idiots in the conversation are the ones who think it's going away.

[2:30]

Consider-

No, I think I've identified them quite precisely. One of the posts over on tvspy said it pretty well - you don't get something for nothing in the news business. The pitch with vjs is that you get something (increased and better coverage) for nothing by having everyone do everything and you get it cheaper, because you fire your stars, who, in this model, are unnecessary.

It sounds great to a bean counter. They want to believe.

Anyone who's been around more than an hour knows better.

But I don't think station execs buy the pitch without knowing EXACTLY what they're doing. They're trying to preserve their jobs by cutting expenses, because their bosses look at expense lines first. They think they'll advance/survive on that basis, and blame any viewership decline on "the trend" - thus escaping personal responsibility.

I don't think it's going away - but I also don't think it's the monster concept that will have stations around the nation adopting it - for one big reason. It still doesn't work.

The technology isn't the important factor, the content is. Technology doesn't create content. Journalists do.

[Rosenblum]

You seem to think that the management of your stations and parent companies in the hands of a few idiots who simply mismanage their jobs. If only YOU were in charge.

This is classic from people who collect a paycheck and never had to meet a payroll or a bottom line.

I am not taking the stations anywhere they dont want to go. And more and more are lining up, so get ready.

Local TV news is in serious trouble and it is only going to get worse. If you have a solution to what is a real problem I am sure they would be delighted to entertain your answer as well. Do you have a solution? Didnt really think you did.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
Local TV news is in serious trouble and it is only going to get worse.Thanks to you.

[2:30]

I am not taking the stations anywhere they dont want to go. And more and more are lining up, so get ready. As station after station you consult for fails, I think they'll get the message. Your system doesn't work. Of course you know that it's designed to fail. You just don't care - you get your money for training people to fail, cash the check, and move on to the next sucker.


Local TV news is in serious trouble and it is only going to get worse. If you have a solution to what is a real problem I am sure they would be delighted to entertain your answer as well. Do you have a solution? Didnt really think you did. The "didn't really think" part sounds just like you. My supervisors hear my ideas daily. Fortunately for me - and our audience - they seem to like them. This is presumably why I'm still employed in television news.

When was your last job in the business? 1981?

[ January 03, 2007, 08:05 PM: Message edited by: 2:30 ]

[Rosenblum]

" My supervisors hear my ideas daily. Fortunately for me - and our audience - they seem to like them."

Please....share them for all to hear. The marketplace for ideas is wide open.

[Another side]

Originally posted by 2:30:
The "didn't really think" part sounds just like you. My supervisors hear my ideas daily. Fortunately for me - and our audience - they seem to like them. This is presumably why I'm still employed in television news.I'd kind of like to hear them, myself.

[ January 04, 2007, 02:52 AM: Message edited by: Another side ]

[The Mockingbird]

Are you offering 2:30 a consulting job? Because last I heard, they pay people to do that.

I'm not sure why, but some people think consulting is a good idea. There are Doctors that liked to use leeches for medicine, too, though.

[Another side]

Originally posted by The Mockingbird:
Are you offering 2:30 a consulting job? Because last I heard, they pay people to do that.
Not for discussions on Medialine, they don't.

[The Mockingbird]

Well, last I checked, in a discussion on Medialine, one does not have to offer a solution to point out a problem.

[Marty McFly]

Originally posted by The Mockingbird:
This is why the government needs to regulate television stations more.Please tell me you're joking.

[Another side]

Originally posted by The Mockingbird:
Well, last I checked, in a discussion on Medialine, one does not have to offer a solution to point out a problem.True. But then you probably shouldn't say you have one ... it only invites the question.

[The Mockingbird]

Originally posted by Marty McFly:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by The Mockingbird:
This is why the government needs to regulate television stations more.Please tell me you're joking.</font>[/QUOTE]Actually, no. The easing of station ownership restrictions has been one of THE worst things this industry has ever endured. Nexstar, Sinclair, these are very real examples of why the system needs to be changed.

On a related note, I notice Debtstar managed to complete the acquisition of another station last week, namely WTAJ-TV in the Altoona market. I'm sure viewers have lots of quality local content to look forward to, now that Perry Sook has his fingers in the jar.

This is the same company that filed for an extension to the FCC's deadline for full-power DTV broadcasting under the guise that it couldn't afford to build out those minimum requirements.

[Clever Login Name]

Best. TV-related. Thread. Ever.

[Vulcan]

Marty, there are too many people who look first to the almighty feds for a solution.

The problem is they are concerned too much about saving the status quo: the old newsroom model, and the way it generated news and information for the public.

Technology has changed, the competitive landscape has changed, and the way people expect to be informed has changed. Calls for the FCC to clamp back down on the Public Affairs function are really aimed at preserving a set of jobs and skill sets -- much in the same way unions and professional licensing organizations try to lock out competitors.

[The Mockingbird]

Actually, my calls were to end the giant Walmarts of broadcasting, which push quality out of the picture with their slash and burn bulk tactics.

[Vulcan]

Ah, but the thrust of this thread is how the "slash and burn" tactics (like Rosenblum's are accused of being) have altered or closed newsrooms.

I'm fairly certain a full, vibrant newsroom with two-person crews covering important issues is inherent in your definition of "quality."

[Spike]

Originally posted by Vulcan:
Ah, but the thrust of this thread is how the "slash and burn" tactics (like Rosenblum's are accused of being) have altered or closed newsrooms.

I'm fairly certain a full, vibrant newsroom with two-person crews covering important issues is inherent in your definition of "quality."You're missing the point. It isn't that continued FCC regulation would have prevented VJs. Not at all. The point is that continued FCC regulation would have helped keep the focus of the business on service to the community.

If stations were still largely family owned today, no doubt some of them would eventually try the VJ model too. But if they did, they might actually do it for the reasons Rosenblum sells, that they really think the experiment may produce better journalism. That's really the only way his system would ever have a chance of working even remotely like he describes. Only a family owned station with public service in mind would implement his "50 cameras on the street" model or allow reporters to take days or weeks to turn a story.

A family owned station might be willing to make it a journalism experiment rather than a budgeting experiment. These corporate giants don't work that way. They can't see the point in a journalism experiment, because the monetary success associated with a successful journalism experiment results in goodwill, the monetary value of which is spread out over years of financial reports and isn't easily quantified. Thus, deregulation has contributed to Rosenblum's model being doomed from the start (not that I ever think it would be successful in local newsrooms even if it were given a proper chance, since it would still play to individual weaknesses instead of strengths).

Even so, though I understand what Mockingbird is trying to say, the bell has already been rung and can't be unrung. The FCC can't "reregulate" the industry to split up these ownership groups. It just won't ever happen, for so many legal, social and political reasons. While deregulation turned out to be the worst possible thing that could have happened to the industry, not merely from an employment standpoint but for the overall quality of the product and health of the industry, the damage is done. We're stuck with it.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
" My supervisors hear my ideas daily. Fortunately for me - and our audience - they seem to like them."

Please....share them for all to hear. The marketplace for ideas is wide open.Personally, I wouldn't share any ideas with Rosenblum. Why? Because if they ARE good ideas, he'll take them and repackage them as his own, like he has in the past. If they work, he'll take credit and try to use them to sell his inferior one man band system. If they don't work because he doesn't really understand what he's trying to do, he'll try to pass the blame off as somebody else's idea that he never thought would work anyway.

This isn't about whether 2:30's ideas are any good. This is about Rosenblum's ideas being bad. "You don't have any ideas so mine must be good" is not a valid argument. The VJ system doesn't suddenly become a success despite so much evidence of failure just because nobody can come up with another idea besides maintaining the hated status quo, which still works better than one man bands.

[ January 04, 2007, 09:23 AM: Message edited by: Spike ]

[Fearmonger]

We are in a free market capitalist system in America. If your skills are up to par you will find a new and perhaps better way to showcase them. You want the badly wounded local TV news system to be artificially propped up by un-American and anti-free market regulation or laws. You might just as well go on welfare.

We have to find a need and fill it. At let the free market work. I think that the VJ idea stinks for the most part and will eventually fall victim to the shrinking market too. We all claim to be creative so we need to find the best way for our talents and be able to make a living. This is no different than manufacturing and farming jobs being lost to new technology.

The strong will survive as they always do. The biggest problem we need to overcome is the glut of news and information on the Internet. Why be afraid to compete and learn new ways to lure visitors and needed revenue?

We don’t know how this will shake out yet and we are all afraid of the unknown. Put you helmets on and find a foxhole! Don’t look for a government tit to suck for security.

[ January 04, 2007, 09:54 AM: Message edited by: Fearmonger ]

[2:30]

My approach is simple: find out things before the competition, and get the stories on the air.

If you're a reporter whose copy I have to approve, it's equally simple: get it right, write it so someone can understand it, and make sure your attribution is clear.

If you follow those steps, you won't be needing some empty suit wandering around telling you how to save your newscast - because it won't be in trouble to begin with.

[Spike]

Originally posted by 2:30:
My approach is simple: find out things before the competition, and get the stories on the air.But obviously Rosenblum thinks that doesn't work, and that reporters need several days to work on each story while their competitors find out the information and get it on the air.

[The Mockingbird]

Originally posted by Fearmonger:
We are in a free market capitalist system in America. If your skills are up to par you will find a new and perhaps better way to showcase them. You want the badly wounded local TV news system to be artificially propped up by un-American and anti-free market regulation or laws. You might just as well go on welfare.

We have to find a need and fill it. At let the free market work. I think that the VJ idea stinks for the most part and will eventually fall victim to the shrinking market too. We all claim to be creative so we need to find the best way for our talents and be able to make a living. This is no different than manufacturing and farming jobs being lost to new technology.

The strong will survive as they always do. The biggest problem we need to overcome is the glut of news and information on the Internet. Why be afraid to compete and learn new ways to lure visitors and needed revenue?

We don’t know how this will shake out yet and we are all afraid of the unknown. Put you helmets on and find a foxhole! Don’t look for a government tit to suck for security.Well, gosh, Sally, I suppose we SHOULD make sure we let corporations have their good ol' American rights to operate in a completely unregulated business environment.

I know, we could just train illegal immigrants to use cameras, they'd probably work for less than minimum wage, and we wouldn't have to pay social security or unemployment insurance! That's a super swell idea!

Perhaps that you should consider that, despite it's rather spectacular slide toward mediocrity as a lofty goal, journalism in general is a craft that is practiced by professionals.

No matter how much certain tightwad executives would like to force that inexperienced square peg into the journalistic round hole, eventually, someone's going to notice it looks like ass.

VJ operations are like the Cargo Cult of news; they may look a lot like the real thing, but don't really work.

[Rosenblum]

Originally posted by Spike:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by 2:30:
My approach is simple: find out things before the competition, and get the stories on the air.But obviously Rosenblum thinks that doesn't work, and that reporters need several days to work on each story while their competitors find out the information and get it on the air.</font>[/QUOTE]Yes, this is right.
Reporters often do need several day to work on a story - a luxury the current resource poor system simply does not allow for.

Because we are always so strapped for cameras and edits and because we have a ravenous appetite for content, we are reduced to thinking that a car crash caught on the scanner is 'breaking news'. In point of fact, that car crash has little impact on people's lives, save for the poor bastards in the car or the traffic report.

Real breaking news, in-depth, informative, investigative pieces take time. And they take more than a few exterior shots, some b-roll, an interview and a stand up. That is the kind of stuff that audiences will respond to (if you want to bring them back). No one is sitting at home with a stopwatch madly flashing between all local competitors to see who got the story 'first'. Its always all the same stories anyway.

Want to grow your audience. Differentiate.

There is a reason we always take our stories from the newspaper - they have lots of reporters who have much more time to work a story. You will generally find morning meetings at local tv stations start with the morning paper as a primary source (as though no one in town has read it!), but I can assure you that no newspaper starts it morning meeting with a screening of a local tv news show.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
Want to grow your audience. Differentiate.Yeah, like KORN and WKRN have grown their audiences. Oh, wait, they haven't grown, despite your assurances on message boards way back in 2005 that the ratings would see a positive change by January of 2006. Wow. Here it is a year later, and they still haven't grown their audience.

Why is that, I wonder? They certainly differentiated their product. Maybe it's that they differentiated their product in a negative way. I think that's probably what you're leaving out of your overly simplistic little prescription.

Simply differentiating your product isn't enough. You have to differentiate it in a way that makes it more appealing to all or part of your market, in a way that matters. Pepsi gained market share by being sweeter than Coke. Some people like the sweeter taste, while others don't. They didn't increase their market share by simply being different in a way that nobody cared. They could have differentiated it by duplicating the taste, but simply changing the color a bit. People wouldn't have cared.

They certainly wouldn't have gained market share by simply introducing drastic cost saving measures that wrecked quality control. The quality control problems introduced by the VJ system are the soft drink equivalent of inconsistent mixing so that 7 out of 10 cans of Pepsi taste bad. It's the equivalent of some cans being watered down or having rat hair introduced into the mix.

With VJs, the cost has decreased, but the quality has decreased as well without any appreciable improvement in ratings. By your own benchmarks from over a year ago, they have failed. They're nothing but watered down Pepsi with rodent excrement.

[Another side]

Originally posted by 2:30:
My approach is simple: find out things before the competition, and get the stories on the air.I'd agree to an extent: if the stories are important, entertaining, and in-depth. If you're trying to beat the competition to the rollover accident west of town ... then, no.

[2:30]

Side, we agree entirely.

But the snake oil salesman obviously hasn't been in a real newsroom in a long time.

Reporters often do need several day to work on a story - a luxury the current resource poor system simply does not allow for. In a well run newsroom, if the story is good enough, you find the resources. It happens all the time.

Its always all the same stories anyway.
On bad stations, sure.

Want to grow your audience. Differentiate.
Anyone with a brain can spot the problem with that: differentiation can be good or bad, and, in the cases of the stations he's done in the US - it's been all bad. It's not enough to differentiate - you have to make your station BETTER than the others.

His can't be.

[Fearmonger]

2:30 has the perfect Bolshevik solution. Force the news corporations to lose money in order to support his ideal news programming even if nobody watches it. Maybe the government should buy out all the news organizations that are in trouble too. That ain’t gonna happen even with Komrade Pelosi in charge of the House. Of course she could KONTROL the content if she could somehow pull it off.

Somehow I think that 2:30 is also dismayed that news has suddenly been handed to people who don’t have a Left Wing agenda as the people who formerly had a 50-year lock on control over information.

Democracy has hit the information highway like an atomic bomb. It was fun watching John Kerry’s political campaign scuttled by a whole new technology in the hands of the Swiftboat Veterans. The Big Three Networks and major newspapers would have embargoed that damaging information for sure. The playing field is leveling out with new voices and ideas.

Learning new things while trying to predict what the fickle public wants is what’s in the cards for all journalists. Of course the people always want the information colored their way. I don’t think the truth is very popular. Many people here on Medialine don’t want to hear the truth about the crisis in local news.

The glamorous, fashion plate lady reporters are taking the biggest hit here. They can write, fumble with all the video equipment as they produce their stories. Little or no time is left for hair, makeup and checking their clothing before they do a standup. They will all begin to look like unmade beds. The days of the sweet smell of hairspray and perfume in the news trucks is coming to an end.

[ January 04, 2007, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: Fearmonger ]

[Rosenblum]

While I don't subscribe to his politics I certainly could not agree more with Fearmonger.

We are, for the first time, about to enter into a world of free market and free press in television and video journalism. This has not happened before. Technology, EM broadcast spectrum limitation, government licensing, cable monopolies have all kept competitive forces at bay, as has the hitherto high cost of actually making the product.

All this is now about to change. Youtube and Current.tv are but the leading edge; the tip of a very big iceberg that is going to change how all of us do business.

Some of you clearly don't like the VJ approach. Fine. Trust me, the marketplace will sort it out much better than your rantings here. And its not a case of it will or wont work. It will find its proper place as broadcasters adjust to the new economic and technological realities.

What I am selling, by the way, is not just 'vj' or Final Cut Pro classes. That is the part that you see because it effects you directly and is the leading edge, but trust me, the shift is far deeper and far more fundamental. And a shift is necessary if broadcasters, geared to a very different market reality are going to survive. And some may not. That is all part of the very creative and constructive hand of the free market.

So good luck to you. Of this I am sure, you are going to need it.

[2:30]

Fearmonger, are you on drugs? Or suffering from a doughnut overdose?

2:30 has the perfect Bolshevik solution. Force the news corporations to lose money in order to support his ideal news programming even if nobody watches it. I don't force anyone to do anything. I propose solutions within my newsroom. If my supervisors didn't like those solutions, I'd be unemployed. If the audience didn't tune it, I'd be unemployed. Obviously neither of those has happened.

I won't bother with the "but you, on the other hand..."

Finally, however, our snake oil salesman has said something that makes sense. Not his crap about youtube or the video blogs, but that the marketplace will sort it out.

Luckily for Snakey, and unluckily for some reporters, crews and audiences, it won't happen until he gets a few more checks for his final cut pro classes mislabelled as a new paradigm of journalism.

The market reality is that people who don't serve the market get stomped by their competition. KRON and WKRN prove that nightly.

[Roy Hobbs]

It seems that many markets, expecially small markets, have that 4th-in-a-three-station town news outfit that's pretty much a joke, e.g. the station that has no truck or does no packages because there are no reporters.

2:30, would you say that's how badly KRON and WKRN are perceived?

[Another side]

Originally posted by 2:30:
Side, we agree entirely.

But the snake oil salesman obviously hasn't been in a real newsroom in a long time./[qb]

Reporters often do need several day to work on a story - a luxury the current resource poor system simply does not allow for. [QB]In a well run newsroom, if the story is good enough, you find the resources. It happens all the time.Well, we don't agree entirely. I agree with Mr. Rosenblum on the need for time available for reporters to spend a few days to craft a meaningful, well-researched, multiple-sourced story that can be of some benefit to the audience. Local news' primary downfall is it needs the story NOW. If not for the 6, at least for the 10. And as soon as it looks like the story won't/can't be ready for the 6 or 10, then the reporter is pulled from the story with those grating words, "Well ... let's just have him front a vo/sot."

Your response also brings up another problem (in my view) that Mr. Rosenblum's proposal appears to address, or at least capable of addressing: who determines whether "the story is good enough" to pursue?

Typically, it's newsroom management and producers ... because producers have shows to fill, first and foremost. For that reason, producer-run shops in my opinion, are self-defeating over the long haul. Their whole thing, in today's typical newsroom, is immediacy -- they HAVE to fill the show.

So often, very often, a reporter's idea of a good story sitting out there never gets written (unless the reporter wants to do the leg work on his or her own time and can convince both the desk and a photographer to help.)

But if you have 25 (again, my number, picked solely out of the air)reporters hitting the street every day, and some of them are following the story ideas they've been developing over the past week or two, while others are working on the producer/desk-directed schlock that typically passes for "news" in producer-run shops, then everyone wins: The shows are filled, the desk and photographers aren't needed, and the reporters appreciate the autonomy that allows them to do their job -- find and gather relevant or entertaining stories. And in Mr. Rosenblum's model, they can shoot it and edit it themselves.

Again,I'm not saying it would work, that it's the perfect solution, because I have no way of knowing (I'd almost PAY a practicing KRON reporter to join this discussion, by the way) but I'm not ready to dismiss it as simply the underhanded sales pitch of a snake-oil salesman, either. There's too much of an upside if the nay-sayers are wrong.

[ January 05, 2007, 01:32 AM: Message edited by: Another side ]

[2:30]

I'm not a fan of producer-driven shops myself, and think the desk driven model works a bit better...but only a bit better. You really need both sides working together, and that's where the ND, A/ND and ME come in.

They have to hammer the pieces together in a way that works on all levels - shows, budgets and coverage. To a degree it's unfortunate that the puzzle gets put together most often with the pieces in that order... but that system does work.

Who decides? Here, the ND and ME get together, and also consult the EPs. If we have to plug in a feed piece or run extra VOs for a couple of days to cover a reporter who's off on a special project, that's what we do.

From what I've seen, the suggestion that you get extra reporters out of the vj model is nonsense. At best you get a small number of extra cameras. That's different, and not good enough.

[ January 05, 2007, 06:36 AM: Message edited by: 2:30 ]

[writer2]

Fascinating discussion.

[Original Cynic]

While Rosenblum touts this idea of more cameras on the street and reporters having more time to do stories etc. etc. That is never how it ends up. Just ask the folks at WKRN and KRON. Day turns..almost every day. The only thing this has accomplished is getting twice as much work out of people for the same amount of pay. There are never twice as many cameras on the street because half the newsroom quits and they are not replaced.

[Rosenblum]

While KRON certainly had its financial problems long before I got there, and having nothing to do with the VJ move, KRN in Nashville is rather a different story. I also think that KGTV in San Diego is going to be a very very different result, as will several other stations that are just about to embark on this.

Of course, KRON was hardly the first station to do this. We have done this in Europe for more than 5 years now with great success. Even Young would not have committed to this without seeing several successsful working models, and the people from McGraw Hill spent a great deal of time in Nashville before they committed to the model.

I can assure you that when done properly (and this is obviously very important) this results in more reporters on the streets, more time for each reporter, a greater range of stories, the ability to take risks, content more driven by the reporter than by the producers, and an overall better product. But you have to commit to the model completely. Halfway measures are not an answer and using this to simply cut costs is a pathway to disaster; and I have no hesitation in explaining this to prospective clients before we start.

[Original Cynic]

Who is doing it properly?
Do you really think tv stations are doing this to get more coverage? NO! They are doing this to save money and you KNOW that.So who do you think you are fooling?

[2:30]

Even Young would not have committed to this without seeing several successsful working models, and the people from McGraw Hill spent a great deal of time in Nashville before they committed to the model.
Young would have done anything to cut expenses. They're drowning. McGraw Hill is a bit different. It looks like they're shopping their stations, and how do you do that and get top dollar? Cut your expense line, because you don't care what happens after you sell the sucker.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Another side:
I agree with Mr. Rosenblum on the need for time available for reporters to spend a few days to craft a meaningful, well-researched, multiple-sourced story that can be of some benefit to the audience. Local news' primary downfall is it needs the story NOW. If not for the 6, at least for the 10. And as soon as it looks like the story won't/can't be ready for the 6 or 10, then the reporter is pulled from the story with those grating words, "Well ... let's just have him front a vo/sot."Not every story needs that kind of treatment. But for those that do, there really is a simple solution. Gannett has been fielding what they call "backpack journalists" at some of their stations. It's the same thing as Rosenblum's VJ, just under a different brand. The backpack journalists turn one or two stories a week.

What? But isn't that what Rosenblum is selling?

Actually, no. Gannett is not trying to replace entire newsrooms with backpack journalists. They are using them to complement the staff of conventional crews. They get the best of both worlds. The backpack journalist has time to work on those stories that need legwork without taking up too many station resources. Meanwhile, the beast still gets fed by the conventional crews. Win/win.

And the other thing Gannett is doing right is that they aren't trying to force a square VJ into a round hole. Gannett figures there are a small percentage of people who can do this well, and they offer them a place. They aren't opening a position and then putting just whoever they can find to take the job into it. They know they won't be able to find enough brilliant backpack journalists to replace the whole newsroom, but those they do find have a place if they want it.

Here again, that's one of several reasons why Rosenblum's VJ conversions will never work. His system ignores the fact that the number of people that can do this well is quite small, instead assuming that anyone can be trained to do it. That results in staffs of people who are constantly battling their weaknesses, instead of journalists who are able to play to their strengths and allow the slack to be taken up by collaborators who are strong in their weaknesses.

Originally posted by Another side:
So often, very often, a reporter's idea of a good story sitting out there never gets written (unless the reporter wants to do the leg work on his or her own time and can convince both the desk and a photographer to help.)And a better solution to that problem already exists as well. It's called a reporter driven newsroom, and it uses beats. Rosenblum has now tried to make the beat system part of his model, but he doesn't understand it well enough to make it work. The funny part is that, despite his branding efforts, you don't need VJs to have a beat system. You can have a successful reporter driven shop with a successful beat system while using conventional crews.

In fact, it works better with conventional crews, because beat work takes time. Time that VJs don't have. Good beat reporters actually use the time while their photographers are editing to work their beats and set up the next day's story. Done right, it results in the same kind of work you would get from a VJ working on a story over a period of several days. That's because the conventional beat reporter IS working on the story over several days. He's actually working on several stories at any one time, but turning one or two of them today. It's a much more efficient model than this mess Rosenblum is selling.

Hell, if any news directors are interested, I can show you how to set something like this up. For a fee, of course. That's at least one thing I learned from Rosenblum.

Originally posted by Another side:
But if you have 25 (again, my number, picked solely out of the air)reporters hitting the street every day...WKRN has 21 VJs (I was slightly inaccurate earlier). Increasing them by four would not make a difference in their product. Why? Because the system STILL would play to their weaknesses. You would do better with 15 reporters and ten photogs instead, working efficiently within a well crafted beat system.

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
I can assure you that when done properly (and this is obviously very important) this results in more reporters on the streets, more time for each reporter, a greater range of stories, the ability to take risks, content more driven by the reporter than by the producers, and an overall better product. Oh, there it is. The typical consultant's excuse for why his changes didn't work. "It WOULD have worked, but they didn't follow my insane, unworkable instructions to the letter. It's management's fault."

I expanded on this greatly in the other thread, but it's really very simple. Any business system MUST take into account the psychology of the workers AND managers involved. If it fails because nobody implemented it the way you prescribed, your system failed to take into account these important factors and is, itself, a failure.

Plus, we told you. We told you this would happen. And you wouldn't listen. So you don't get to use this excuse.

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by Spike:
Plus, we told you. We told you this would happen. And you wouldn't listen. So you don't get to use this excuse.A lot of people told him it wouldn't work. Very few of them put forth cogent arguments about why there were flaws in the system.

You can't ignore that the majority of those whining and weeping about the VJ-threat were doing so out of self-preservation, fear, and a lack of understanding. Most only knew of Rosenblum's vision third-or-fourth-hand.

People like you he listens to. Still wants to. But don't turn this into a "WE told him so!" soapbox. I recall a lot of flames being thrown, but few shedding light.

And once more -- I AGREE with your point about the psychology of implementation. If you go back, you'll see that I argued that myself three years ago. That's not a reason to ditch the whole program. It's a signal that one needs to refine the pitch, and get more buy-in about the benefits of embracing this whole and not implementing it half-assed. I'm talking about convincing the bean-counters that this is a cost-neutral shift toward quality, not a cost-cutting shift away.

I'm not yet impressed with his "buy-in" rate so far, but at least he recognizes this as the obstacle that is getting in the way of a true test of the paradigm. I'd still love to see "Blast Gold" run against a REAL defense, with the number of players for which it was designed.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Vulcan:
People like you he listens to. Still wants to. But don't turn this into a "WE told him so!" soapbox. I recall a lot of flames being thrown, but few shedding light.It's not a soapbox. I just do not accept his typical consultant's excuse that his system would work, if only, if only. It doesn't work. No more excuses.

And as for previous discussions, I don't recall you being a major contributor to the long series of discussions on B-Roll. There were several of us there, including me and NYC Street, who were advancing very cogent arguments against him, and he poo-pooed every one of us and said we were simply afraid of change. There was even a pattern to the discussions, where the more emotional types would get the thread started, then Rosenblum would pop in with a bunch of lies, then those of us who knew what we were talking about would spank him thoroughly, and he would disappear for a while, only to pop up again a few months later when he thought maybe the environment had grown more favorable to him. We hashed all this out. Did he listen? No, he just kept on pushing the snake oil.

He was warned. He did it anyway. Now it's failing. He doesn't get to use excuses.

[Vulcan]

I was there, often under my real name. Don't go there much at all anymore.

[Rosenblum]

Personally I got tired of the b-roll discussion. Same old stuff from the same 2 or 3 people, who apparently are here under different names. Ironically, several of the cameramen from b-roll got in touch with me offline and I started advising them on how to shift their business and move into independent production. I even met with two of them last month in Chicago. They are doing quite well.

A major change is coming to this business, the likes of which it has not seen since its inception. It is going to be very radical and very far reaching. It is not the end of the world, but it is going to be a very different world. People like Spike are frightened and angry. They are angry that their world is changing and they seem powerless to stop it. So they search for an 'evil agent' who is responsible for all this. If only 'he' could be unmasked and stopped, then all would return to normal.

There is no 'evil agent' here. This would happen with me or without me. All I have done, really, is catch the wave. That people are willing to pay me for this is, believe me, no burden. But this is going to come to pass with my assistance or without it. What I do, more than anything else, is articulate the change and try and walk the clients into a new world. This is more than consulting, this is very hands on. But this is also an open market for ideas, and believe me, if you think you have a better idea, hang out your shingle and see if someone will pay you for it too.

That, by the way, is how the marketplace measures the value of an idea.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
People like Spike are frightened and angry. See? When he can't defend his failures, he simply says his detractors are "frightened and angry."

Except that I no longer work in the local television business and probably won't again. Thus, I have nothing to be frightened of. Oh, no. I guess that excuse doesn't work.

But angry, yeah. Wouldn't it make you angry to see someone intentionally trying to screw over good people just to make a buck for himself?

That still doesn't mean I'm wrong.

[Diplomat]

One of WKRN's VJs took a hidden microphone into a funeral that was closed to the media and used some of the sound in his report. (It was the funeral of Matthew Winkler, the minister who was killed in West Tennessee.) He did not have the family's permission to do that.

He must've been asleep for ethics class. Sadly, the WKRN management defended the guy's conduct.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Diplomat:
One of WKRN's VJs took a hidden microphone into a funeral that was closed to the media and used some of the sound in his report. It wasn't just a random VJ. It was their "Faith and Ethics" VJ. Oh, the irony.

[Diplomat]

Originally posted by Spike:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Diplomat:
One of WKRN's VJs took a hidden microphone into a funeral that was closed to the media and used some of the sound in his report. It wasn't just a random VJ. It was their "Faith and Ethics" VJ. Oh, the irony.</font>[/QUOTE]Indeed it was.

I don't know if you read the blogs in which he and the GM defended the conduct, but it was quite sad.

Spike, I talked to several of our fellow newspeople in town as well as friends of the Winkler family and they were all appalled. That seemed to be the reaction of everyday people I talked to as well. A few pointed out the irony just as you have.

[Another side]

Spike: Several points and clarifications:

1. I have no problem with "follow the instructions or it won't work" stance. Are there short cuts to be discovered, modifications to the system (Gannett?) to be tried? Sure. But the label says "Use as directed" and if you don't and you fail, the manufacturer is not responsible.

2. My reading of Mr. Rosenblum's position, as it pertains to local news operations, is different than yours. Your reading is that he's arguing anyone can do it and do it well; my recollection is people who can't or won't do it -- he referred to them as "deadwood" -- will be left by the wayside.

3. Your change in arguments is startling. Up to now, it's been "It won't work, it will hasten the downfall of local TV news." Now, your argument is, "Gannett tried it a little differently, and it's working for them." If your new position is that the concept might have its good points with a little manipulation of the suggested structure, then we're on the same side. And I have to add: if you and the other doomsdayers are correct -- that giant corporations are interested in nothing more than net profit ... why does your Gannett example ignore the potential danger of their limited success (if any) causing them to expand the concept until there's nothing but VJ's/backpack journlists left, having replaced all the singularly competent reporters and photographers, as that's been your basic argument throughout two threads on the subject. If you think Gannett isn't interested in the bottom line, or if you believe that Gannett is some principled, journalistic oasis, where only those with a true calling roam, then you don't know Gannett.

4. As someone who HAS been paid specifically to change producer-driven shops into reporter-driven shops, I'm with you on the value of the latter over the former. But my experience has been, it's not nearly as easy as you make it sound -- not if you're going to "use as directed." Producers -- not "stackers" but producers who care -- will fight you tooth and nail, and I don't blame them ... they're giving up a lot of the power and influence they have over "their" show in hopes of contributing to the common good. It's no small concession. Further,reporters who have never worked a beat don't know how, and need to be trained -- a lengthy process. And once they're trained, both you and the reporter suddenly realize it's not something they're going to be very good at. It's no one's fault, really, it's just not their strong suit. So you have two choices: send them to the desk for a VO/SOT to front, or explain kindly to them their strengths are not particularly useful in a reporter-driven news operation. Then you search and replace.

Beat operations can be particularly hard on photographers, too, but I've gone on too long already.

As much as I hate to again pick a number -- any number -- because you place undue weight on it ... let me say ... you give me 25 people in a mid-market shop who can find, write, shoot and edit stories that are important or entertaining, with, admittedly, different degrees of competence, I can see where the talented and gifted keep us going while the inexperienced and struggling learn the ropes. Not everyone will earn Emmys, nor is everyone expected to.

5. I share your indignance over companies and corporations that screw the working man in favor of ungodly profits. But let's not pretend it only happens in television -- it's a fact in Big Business. And television is nothing if not Big Business.

6. Finally, I probably don't have to say this because you're a very bright guy. But I will. The fact that some idiot snuck a tape recorder into a private funeral to steal sound has nothing to do with the value -- or lack thereof -- of VJs to a local news operation. There are idiots everywhere.

[Consider This]

Originally posted by Another side:


The fact that some idiot snuck a tape recorder into a private funeral to steal sound has nothing to do with the value -- or lack thereof -- of VJs to a local news operation. There are idiots everywhere.This is important. That person is a sleaze. Not because he's a VJ. Because he's a sleaze.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Another side:
But the label says "Use as directed" and if you don't and you fail, the manufacturer is not responsible.All right, since you want to make a drug comparison, what if the label says, "Directions: Swallow two tablets with four gallons of water"? Obviously any patient still willing to take the drug is going to read that and say, "DAMN! That's impossible! I'll just take them with one tall glass of water."

If the instructions are impractical, the product is impractical.

Originally posted by Another side:
Your reading is that he's arguing anyone can do it and do it well; my recollection is people who can't or won't do it -- he referred to them as "deadwood" -- will be left by the wayside.He has said both. Actually, when he talks about "deadwood," my understanding is that he isn't talking about people who can't do it or do it well, but people who he thinks are too stubborn or set in their ways to change. There's a difference. The implication is that these people could do it if they didn't have such a bad attitude.

They'll be pushed out in favor of 23 year olds at lower salaries.

Originally posted by Another side:
3. Your change in arguments is startling. Up to now, it's been "It won't work, it will hasten the downfall of local TV news." Now, your argument is, "Gannett tried it a little differently, and it's working for them." How can you possibly expect to keep up with the discussion if you aren't paying the least bit of attention? I wrote this (http://www.medialine.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=000085;p=1) way back on December 13:

"Now, there ARE stories on which the VJ one man band concept actually works. Unfortunately it does NOT work as a wholesale replacement for the conventional two person system used in most newsrooms."

That has been my consistent argument all along. One man bands have a place. They do NOT work the way Rosenblum is trying to sell them to television stations. I haven't changed arguments at all.

Originally posted by Another side:
And I have to add: if you and the other doomsdayers are correct -- that giant corporations are interested in nothing more than net profit ... why does your Gannett example ignore the potential danger of their limited success (if any) causing them to expand the concept until there's nothing but VJ's/backpack journlists left, having replaced all the singularly competent reporters and photographers, as that's been your basic argument throughout two threads on the subject. This is actually a good question in some ways. What they're doing now seems to work. I actually expect them to expand it, too. But they're going about it in a much smarter way than Rosenblum, trying it slowly to let it find its own balance instead of trying to force it into the market unnaturally. As they try it and evaluate it, they'll see its strengths and weaknesses and adjust accordingly. Rosenblum's system is an all or nothing deal, where what Gannett is doing leaves plenty of room for finding the best mix.

What will keep them from going all VJ? It's simple. They'll see and understand the limitations before replacing everyone and realize they can't get a decent product on the air if they do it. These other stations changed everyone over to Rosenblum's system before ever seeing the limitations, and now they're paying for it.

And by the way, what Gannett is doing is not a modification of Rosenblum's system. Rosenblum's "system" is nothing more than replacing everyone with one man bands. He has just branded it. What Gannett is doing is to experiment with one man bands, which Rosenblum didn't invent.

Originally posted by Another side:
Further,reporters who have never worked a beat don't know how, and need to be trained -- a lengthy process. I agree with you about the producers, but this line is wrong. It's not a lengthy process. I witnessed a station's change from a producer driven shop to a reporter driven shop, and the speed with which the reporters figured out how to make it work was astounding. We started turning major, exclusive stories the first week after the change, beginning with a local police chief who we discovered had bugged his offices to spy on his subordinates.

Even the weakest reporter in the shop began bringing in two solid stories each day immediately after we changed. And the thing is, we didn't actually train any of them. We just told them how it was supposed to work, and damned if they didn't go right out and do it.

The lengthiest part of the change is that they need a month or so on their own to develop their beats and assemble their contacts before making the official change. During that time you have to give them a few "beat days" to get out to meet people. A month is not a long time.

And while I agree with you about the producers fighting the system, that's just a handful of people. It's much easier to handle them and get the newsroom to "use as directed" than it is to convert everyone over to a proven unworkable system like Rosenblum's. The directions on this prescription are actually possible to follow, whereas Rosenblum wants you to swallow four gallons of water.

Originally posted by Another side:
The fact that some idiot snuck a tape recorder into a private funeral to steal sound has nothing to do with the value -- or lack thereof -- of VJs to a local news operation.I'm not so sure about that.

One of the recurring arguments that NYC Street made on B-Roll was that Rosenblum's system would put so much unnecessary pressure on VJs, and on the newsroom in general, that the journalism would suffer. Mistakes of fact would be made. Lapses in judgement would occur. People in a somewhat desperate situation would make desperate moves.

Extrapolating, an environment where those kinds of lapses are happening tends to create an atmosphere of incompetence. Even really good craftsmen often find themselves doing bad work in a bad environment. That's why so many experienced people on this very board advise people moving up in the business to aim for shops that have good reputations for quality work, so that they'll be in a (relatively) positive environment.

Add that Rosenblum teaches his students some peculiar things when it comes to working methods. He tells them that they should be more agressive than their colleagues. But while aggressive reporting is good, he takes it to the point of a "whatever it takes to get the story" attitude. They should step in front of other cameras to block them, for example. They should ignore many of the unwritten rules of etiquette in competition.

It is a little bit of a jump from stepping in front of someone else to secretly bugging a funeral, but not much. Rosenblum has created an environment where people are being told to do whatever it takes to get the story, while also being subjected to tremendous pressure to turn product under deadline while doing the job of two people. It's a pressure cooker that steams the brain and leads to more severe lapses in judgement. Where someone once might have thought of something so stupid and checked himself after more careful consideration, this system discourages the careful consideration and causes people to do things they otherwise wouldn't.

So, while this guy might have done the same idiotic thing in a conventional newsroom, I suspect it's more likely a symptom of the deterioration of the collective mindset there, especially when you see his news director and general manager vigorously defending what he did instead of admitting it as a mistake. In other words, it's just another sign the place has gone to hell.

[Rosenblum]

Yes yes...

I am very busy destroying quality television news. The work never ends!

The most recent and newest accusation, in a fairly long list is...ready for this....

"Add that Rosenblum teaches his students some peculiar things when it comes to working methods. He tells them that they should be more agressive than their colleagues."

Boy, THAT is gonna make for some really bad reporting. Imagine that? Get aggressive! What ever happened to those genteel old days of reporters having 3 martini lunches with their 'sources'?

I like this one also:

"But while aggressive reporting is good, he takes it to the point of a "whatever it takes to get the story" attitude."

Hoo boy! You better not go there! Pushy pushy pushy!

And what is wrong with it? Well, we all know its a slippery slope, don't we?

"It is a little bit of a jump from stepping in front of someone else to secretly bugging a funeral, but not much."

And of course, not much of a jump from there to rape and murder.

It seems to be fine with Spike when Gannett turns to VJing, because they do it in a more genteel and refined way. (The fact that Gannett charges their prospective Vj candidates $1000 personally for training with no guarantee of a hire does not seem to bother him). When I introduce VJs into the newsroom it is 'debasing' the product. (As though the product could get any more debased than it is).

Yes yes... here is comes. Too pushy. Too aggressive. Too money grubbing.

Too bad!

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
The most recent and newest accusation, in a fairly long list is...ready for this....

"Add that Rosenblum teaches his students some peculiar things when it comes to working methods. He tells them that they should be more agressive than their colleagues."

Boy, THAT is gonna make for some really bad reporting. Imagine that? Get aggressive! What ever happened to those genteel old days of reporters having 3 martini lunches with their 'sources'?

I like this one also:

"But while aggressive reporting is good, he takes it to the point of a "whatever it takes to get the story" attitude."

Hoo boy! You better not go there! Pushy pushy pushy!Okay Michael. Simple question: In your opinion, was sneaking a wireless microphone into a funeral good journalism or bad journalism?

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
(The fact that Gannett charges their prospective Vj candidates $1000 personally for training with no guarantee of a hire does not seem to bother him). What Gannett has done recently is offer training sessions open to something like 20 individuals, who would pay for that training. The way it is advertised is that these people are attending for the purpose of getting the training, not primarily to get the job, and that the training itself will have some value even if they don't get the job. They're making jobs available IF there are people in the class who they think are good enough for their newsrooms. I don't think they guaranteed that anyone would be offered a job.

It concerns me a little that they are dangling a job offer out there as an incentive to enroll in their program, but not much. That's because this isn't the only way you can get a job with them. They've been accepting tapes for several open positions around the country for several months now, which they haven't been able to fill. Apparently there are quality problems with training received elsewhere (like yours, perhaps?) that leaves the VJs who apply to Gannett not competent to work for them. So they came up with this solution to increase the pool of qualified candidates.

This isn't unusual in the business world. Some airline pilots pay significant amounts of money to training academies owned by their potential employers, with no guarantee of a job.

Further, you charge for your training, do you not? Either you charge the individuals who come to your classes, with no guarantee of a job or even a job available to offer someone; or you charge the companies who pay you to train their employees. I don't see how you have any room to complain about them charging for training, unless you're admitting the training has no value. At least these people are getting trained to a particular standard and have a shot at a job afterward.

And they'll probably make it through with their ethics intact as well.

[Rosenblum]

"Okay Michael. Simple question: In your opinion, was sneaking a wireless microphone into a funeral good journalism or bad journalism?"

-Ever hear the expression 'straw man'?


"And they'll probably make it through with their ethics intact as well."

-Ever hear the expression 'slander'?

For all your pretensions about quality journalism, your journalism about me...stinks.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
"Okay Michael. Simple question: In your opinion, was sneaking a wireless microphone into a funeral good journalism or bad journalism?"

-Ever hear the expression 'straw man'?You didn't answer the question.

[Rosenblum]

What are you, an idiot? What do you think?

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
What do you think?I think you don't know, and you're having to think about what you should say in response, and whether you've already given a response elsewhere that would contradict the response here. Otherwise I can't figure why you would respond three times without answering the question.

So, again, is that reporter a major "go-getter" for the station, willing to do what it takes to get the exclusive, even at a funeral?

[Spike]

Also:

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
"And they'll probably make it through with their ethics intact as well."

-Ever hear the expression 'slander'?Yes, but unlike you I actually know what it means.

[Rosenblum]

Three answers for you.

1. No, I don't think its good journalism
2. Having taught journalism at both Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and NYU I know what slander is.
3. To answer my own question, yes, you are an idiot.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
1. No, I don't think its good journalism
Too aggressive, or not aggressive enough?

[Rosenblum]

Fundamentally unethical.

Is that the end of your personal inqusition?

And now I would like you to answer a question or two:

1. What is it that drives you on some kind of personal vendetta against me?

2. What is your own personal professional experienced in journalism, and particularly with the VJ model? Or are you just making this stuff up as you go along?

[Spike]

But you do tell them to be aggressive, right?

[Rosenblum]

You've gotten your answers, now please give me mine.

[Spike]

1. I have answered that several times already.

2. My qualifications are not at issue here. I'm not the one selling a product.

[Rosenblum]

Those are pretty evasive but they speak volumes. Typical.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
Those are pretty evasive but they speak volumes. Typical.Too bad for you that they're irrelevant to your failures at WKRN and KORN.

Would you characterize surreptitiously recording funeral audio as aggressive reporting?

[ January 06, 2007, 11:19 PM: Message edited by: Spike ]

[Rosenblum]

Lemme guess.
You are a marginally employed cameraman working the overnight (who else would be up at this hour)? at a third rate station.
How am I doing?

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
Lemme guess.
You are a marginally employed cameraman working the overnight (who else would be up at this hour)? at a third rate station. If I were, I would still have more actual local newsroom experience than you.

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
How am I doing?Not even close. Which you would already know if you were paying attention.

[Rosenblum]

"If I were, I would still have more actual local newsroom experience than you."

I'll take that as a yes then.

[Spike]

Not even close. Which you would already know if you were paying attention.

[Another side]

Spike: Your arguments are becoming not only silly, but less cohesive than when these threads started.

And, as a result, you're starting to get snitty -- you wonder how I could possibly remain in the discussion if I don't "pay attention." I can tell you this: I pay attention enough to know that you also believe all news directors are liars and all sales people are leeches. I'm starting to wonder if the there are people you DO respect and like. And don't tell me you like liars and leeches -- no one does.

And, oh yeah, that a VJ who snuck a recorder into a private funeral did it BECAUSE he was a VJ.

And that causes you to attempt to ridicule accepted age-old journalistic attributes, such as aggressiveness and an unfailing determination to get the story.

And if you truly believe you can convert a producer-run news room into a reporter-based news operation in just a month, then we're talking about two different things.

I'm starting to question your credibility, and I, too, wonder if your problems with Mr. Rosenblum (you described it as "hate" -- I know that because I'm paying attention) go beyond your surface objections to VJs in the newsroom.

My opinion is, you would help yourself a lot, and those of us interested in the topic at hand, if you'd knock off the personal insults and name-calling that do nothing to expand the value of your otherwise informative and articulate posts.

[Original Cynic]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
Fundamentally unethical.

Answer this rosenblum-
Is it unethical to cover an important issue in a news story and not give the other side of the story in the same pkg or even on the same day?

This is what you told the folks at KGTV. That it wasn't necessary. They are also under they impression that you would like them to insert their opinion in their pieces. Is THAT ethical?

[Rosenblum]

1. An attempt to 'balance' each and every piece can sometimes destroy the impact of the piece. Overall balance in a broadcast is essential.

In the very first VJ piece I ever did, I spent a month in a Palestinian refugee camp (Jabalya) living with a family there. I sold it to MacNeil/Lehrer. If you want to understand why people strap explosives to themselves and walk into cafes, spend a month living in Jabalya. When I screened the piece for Robert MacNeil he asked me where the 'balance' in the story was. "Where is the Israeli side of the story?" he said. I told him that by injecting an interview with an Israeli military or govt. rep to counter every claim made by the Palestinians would destroy the power of the piece. He agreed. It would have. That does not mean that the Israelis don't have a perspective or that their side does not get told. But it does mean that within each piece you don't always have to keep saying, 'but on the other hand', so long as you maintain balance overall in the broadcast.

2. Personal opinion? So long as it is clearly labeled as the opinion of the reporter, I have no problem wih putting it into some stories. In fact, I think that it is a good idea. There is nothing wrong with introducing a little passion and personal authorship into journalism. When I look at the work of some of the best journalists of our time, from David Halberstam to HL Mencken, their opinion on many issues comes through and is quite clear, though is labeled as such. I think it make for more powerful work and it makes them better journalists overall.

Let me add to this further, because I think this is a very important point.

Often the most powerful, moving and compelling journalism we produce, even in television is advocacy journalism. There is nothing wrong with this, indeed it reflects the real power of the press. As Mencken said, 'the job of the journalist is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable". This is no bad thing.

My mentor in this business was Fred Friendly. He and Ed Murrow moved a nation once when they went after Senator Joe McCarthy on See It Now. In the midst of the Red Scare they showed enormous personal courage in attacking McCarthy on air. Bill Paley, the Chairman of CBS was so cowed by McCarthy that he refused to buy ads for the broadcast so Murrow and Friendly purchased a quarter page in the New York Times at their own expense. If you have never seen the program, you should take a look.

At the end of the broadcast they invited the Sentaor to respond and offered him time. He did, but it was too late. McCarthy was finished. That was no 'balanced' piece. It was advocacy journalism, plain and simple, and we have a great tradition of that from Upton Sinclair to the present. It is no crime.

[ January 07, 2007, 09:55 AM: Message edited by: Rosenblum ]

[2:30]

News flash: Rosenblum is secretly channelling Geraldo Rivera and Roger Ailes.

It's OK to inject opinion into your news stories? Uh, no. Not in the real world of local news.

Maybe that's fine for PBS long form, and yes, it's hard to "balance" a story about a serial killer, but if what you're looking for is credibility and appreciation in your market, leave the advocacy to the poseurs and pols.

[Rosenblum]

Uh.. news flash: if you will note I said if you identify it.

Bigger news flash. You have lost audience because what you are offering is often banal, boring, insipid oatmeal. Journalism can and should be aggressive, robust, engaging, make you think.

[Another side]

For the record,"See It Now" was not a typical news operation, nor did it seek to be. It was a series of documentaries. And documentaries do not generally pretend to present all sides.

Local news is another story.

[Rosenblum]

I appreciate that, but let us also bear in mind that Edward R. Murrow is effectively the standard bearer for broadcast journalism. His visage and words are writ large in the lobby of 524 W. 57th Street and it does not say in parenthesis (did documentaries for the most part).

We can and should be a challening and robust medium. And, to go back to the point of the thread, when you have a limited number of cameras and crews on call, and a rush to fill the news hole each day or night, the best you can often do is simply respond to the news - respond to the fire, the car crash, the press conference.

If you put more cameras in play, you buy your reporters more time to do more complex and deeper stories. This not only allows for different stories, it can, if we are wise, change the relationship between journalist and viewer. Instead of being reactive, we can, for the first time, become pro-active. That is, we can to some extent set the agenda. We can raise issues that are important and confront elected leaders and say "look at this. How are you going to respond to this?"

I don't think this is a bad thing at all. I think, rather, it can enhance our mission and purpose and service to the community.

[Fearmonger]

Spike, you're a prick.

As for the overall huge changes in news gathering and publishing free for all, I anticipate many established rules won’t be followed out of ignorance or malice.

On my blog I offer my opinion and I make that VERY obvious. I make the rules there. If my visitors can’t figure that out they are just not very smart. I could never get away with that stuff when I’m doing things for my TV news clients.

I don’t have a problem requiring VJ’s to have special training to be hired. How’s that different than requiring a degree? I hate the idea of unemployed job seekers paying for training by a potential employer. Most of these kids are not trust fun babies. I’d like all the junior colleges to offer VJ classes but I think there may be a shortage of qualified teachers.

I think there are many things that pioneers of the VJ concept who are armed with lots of new technology will yet discover and new standards will fall into place.

I hope that somehow we all learn enough tricks of this new trade to provide an interesting and desirable product to be proud of creating. So far I will confess to not being impressed with results. Nobody is impressed with the product of early local TV news. They learned how to make great film/video reports happen over time.

[ January 07, 2007, 10:20 AM: Message edited by: Fearmonger ]

[Michigan J. Frog]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:

Bigger news flash. You have lost audience because what you are offering is often banal, boring, insipid oatmeal. Journalism can and should be aggressive, robust, engaging, make you think.Biggest news flash of all: Making people do more work by making them report, shoot, write, and edit their own stories does not allow for the time nor energy to be "aggressive, robust, (and/or) engaging."

Originally posted by Rosenblum:

If you put more cameras in play, you buy your reporters more time to do more complex and deeper stories.Yeah, you keep saying this, but I have yet to see it actually happen in real life. What does happen is, the "VJs" have the same deadlines but are now required to meet them while doing the work previously done by two people.

Of course, by the time that reality sets in, and having collected your consulting fee, you're already off to find your next management sucker.

[ January 07, 2007, 10:32 AM: Message edited by: Michigan J. Frog ]

[Fearmonger]

Perhaps unleashing an army of VJs to cover smaller portions of a story may help. Somehow these things need to be put seamlessly into a new broadcast. I've not seen a KRON TV broadcast other than what's posted on their website.

I could envision myself going to a courthouse getting the records and video of court exhibits and other visuals. I'd grab any interviews along the way to or from the courthouse. I'd return to the station scan a couple of key documents slapping them on a package.

Because of my specialty (public records, courts and cops) I'm confidant I could do this better than most. I still need some additional training on Final Cut Pro and the apple computer. I know I can get free training on FCP at any Apple store. I don’t yet have an Apple computer or FCP.

I mention court exhibits, which are the most overlooked visuals. Check out this story with the video done on one of my murder cases. (Obviously I did not report and investigate the same case.) http://crimefilenews.blogspot.com/2005/12/whatcha-ya-gonna-do-shoot-me-nigger.html

I knew I had a great story that would be self-serving for my innocent client and gave it to my pals. They won an Emmy Award for the story that’s attached.

[Rosenblum]

You should get in touch with Andy Cordan at WKRN in Nashville. He is also the police reporter there and one of the best VJs they've got (among many very good ones). His stuff is great.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Another side:
For the record,"See It Now" was not a typical news operation, nor did it seek to be. It was a series of documentaries. And documentaries do not generally pretend to present all sides.

Local news is another story.But this demonstrates the point I was clumsily trying to make. Did the Faith and Ethics reporter do what he did simply because he was a VJ? Of course not. But through his total "system," Rosenblum is trying to create an environment where the basic ethics of journalism, like maintaining balance and keeping personal bias out of the work, are ignored. In that environment, larger ethical lapses are not unexpected.

He's also creating an environment where the VJs are being taught an "anything for the story" attitude. Being aggressive is good, but too much aggression can be counterproductive. Being overly aggressive pisses off sources. It pisses off other crews from other stations, with whom, like it or not, you DO have to cooperate sometimes and who will have long memories when you ***** them over. Being overly aggressive even pisses off viewers.

So you've got a VJ in a situation where basic ethics no longer apply, and he's under pressure to do whatever it takes to get the story while also doing the work of two people on the same deadlines. He's in this situation because of Michael Rosenblum's "conversion" of the newsroom to his system and philosophy of news. You don't think that contributed to the lapse in judgement?

[Fearmonger]

Ethical lapses happen all the time. Did we forget Dan Rather's Bush/National Guard story? VJ's won't change ethics. That's tortured logic. God made editors, NDs and EPs to enforce ethical standards.

The VJ thing is an experiment and I expect the desired quality won't be there for a while.

I do expect some wonder kids to figure that concept out and bring it to a higher level that it is right now.

We need to figure a way to save jobs. Hopefully you'll get free training where you're at so you don't get canned and have to pay to take it from a potential employer down the road.

[Another side]

Originally posted by Spike:
But this demonstrates the point I was clumsily trying to make. Did the Faith and Ethics reporter do what he did simply because he was a VJ? Of course not. But through his total "system," Rosenblum is trying to create an environment where the basic ethics of journalism, like maintaining balance and keeping personal bias out of the work, are ignored. In that environment, larger ethical lapses are not unexpected.Perhaps. But you can't prove it by this example. Take Rosenblum and his system completely out of this scenario, and you still have a stupid human being doing something stupid and unethical. Rosenblum agrees with that -- you can't pin this one on him.

He's also creating an environment where the VJs are being taught an "anything for the story" attitude. Being aggressive is good, but too much aggression can be counterproductive. Being overly aggressive pisses off sources. It pisses off other crews from other stations, with whom, like it or not, you DO have to cooperate sometimes and who will have long memories when you ***** them over. Being overly aggressive even pisses off viewers.The first time (hypothetically)a reporter comes back to me with the excuse of "I didn't get the story because I didn't want to piss of the competition," then that reporter better have made the competition happy enough to give him a job because he's going to be looking for one. And it is nearly impossible -- impossible -- to "f*** over" the competition in the search for a story. They do their thing, we do ours, and we each get what we get. Screw the competition.

I don't remember now who it was that offered his idea of his plan to increase and keep viewers in a previous post. But his plan was something like, "Get stories before others get them, get them right, and get them on the air." Your response to that was "Yeah, but Rosenblum doesn't believe in that." But in this post, anyway, it appears to be YOU who has the problem with that concept.
I have no problem with a balls-to-the-wall aggressiveness, with a "get the story at all costs" mentality. Reporters should be dedicated to their profession, loyal to their shop and maniacal about today's story. And if they're so damned stupid as to think that means they can sneak a recorder into a private funeral to steal sound, then they're not smart enough to work in my shop.

So you've got a VJ in a situation where basic ethics no longer apply, and he's under pressure to do whatever it takes to get the story while also doing the work of two people on the same deadlines. He's in this situation because of Michael Rosenblum's "conversion" of the newsroom to his system and philosophy of news. You don't think that contributed to the lapse in judgement?

No. It wasn't a "lapse in judgment." It was an act of stupidity by someone who would have done something equally stupid in whatever other field of work he might have chosen.

In my new line of work (bail-bonds) I get a fair share of mothers and fathers who contend their offspring had a lapse of judgment. "That may be,"I tell them. "But when they showed up to court this morning, they showed up stupid. You better keep your eye on them."

The same applies, here. This guy is going to show up stupid again, sometime, somewhere.

[ January 07, 2007, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: Another side ]

[Spike]

Originally posted by Another side:
The first time (hypothetically)a reporter comes back to me with the excuse of "I didn't get the story because I didn't want to piss of the competition," then that reporter better have made the competition happy enough to give him a job because he's going to be looking for one.Yet another straw man. Nobody said anything about missing a story. You can be aggressive without being an ******* to other people in town.

I'll give you an example from Rosenblum's own discussions. Imagine a major press event. Yes, press conferences in and of themselves are boring television, but sometimes they are an important part of the complete story. You couldn't turn the story of the governor admitting he had taken bribes if you don't have the sound of the press conference where he admitted it.

So here we are at this important event. All the cameras are lined up across the back of the room. Rosenblum has said on more than one occasion that he teaches his VJs that it's okay to set up in front of that line of cameras, blocking them, if it will give them a better shot. He wants them to run around getting in the way of the other photogs. It's okay if they block somebody's shot of the governor's big admission.

And that's bullsh*t.

Just about any photog can tell you about working around people who think this way. There was one at one of my competitors who would intentionally block other photogs on a news scene. He would step into your frame. He would set up standups right in the middle of the scene, screwing everybody else. He would push his photog to piggyback on other people's interviews, or do it himself when he was one man banding. I'm sure you think that sounds like great television.

Except that it didn't last long. Most of the photogs and reporters in that market cooperated. We were competitive, and we didn't give away stories, but we also knew how to get what we needed without *****ing over everybody else. There was still a sense of a gentlemen's agreement on how to behave.

But this guy soon found himself edged out at every turn. We would step in front of him. We would step into his standups and live shots. We would horn in on his interviews.

And you know what was funny? It made him really, really angry when other people did it to him. He got into several arguments as a result.

I suppose that if you spend most of your career sitting in a newsroom and don't do much field work, you don't understand this kind of thing. I have worked at the local, national and international level, always in the field. The competition gets a little more aggressive after you get out of the locals, but even at the national and international level there are rules of etiquette. You don't ***** over other journalists, because they will team up to ***** you right back. You end up pissing in your own well.

But Rosenblum's definition of aggressive is just that. He disdains the way local television operations cooperate with each other in the field without having the slightest understanding why they do it. That's because he doesn't understand local television. And it seems that you don't understand fieldwork.

[ January 07, 2007, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: Spike ]

[Rosenblum]

"Rosenblum has said on more than one occasion that he teaches his VJs that it's okay to set up in front of that line of cameras, blocking them, if it will give them a better shot. He wants them to run around getting in the way of the other photogs. It's okay if they block somebody's shot of the governor's big admission."

Actually this is not true at all.

I can see now that you are a cameraman.. an 'old school' cameraman. not a reporter. not even close. (And many cameramen make great reporters,, but not you). Your journalistic skills are pretty close to nil. You just make stuff up and call it facts.

Ever attend one of my seminars?

What I tell the VJs is first, avoid press conferences at all costs if you can. There is not one person in a million who is sitting at home waiting for the press conference. They are also not journalistic events, but PR events provided for the media.

Second, if you must attend a press conference, because they are designed for conventional crews it might be one of the few times you would want to bring the big camera and put it on a tripod. Sports is another. Live shots a third.

Third, if you have to go with just the small camera, work the front of the room with the radio guys and then, since there's no camera to break down, tear after the subject as he or she leaves. Many a good soundbite was generated after the official event was over.

This, in fact is my advice on press conferences.

Not that you would know.

[ January 07, 2007, 03:26 PM: Message edited by: Rosenblum ]

[Spike]

Originally posted by Rosenblum:
Third, if you have to go with just the small camera, work the front of the room with the radio guys...Blocking other cameras. You have said on B-Roll that you train them to block cameras set up cooperatively in the rear of the room if it will give them a better shot. If they don't like it, I think your word for that situation was "Tough."

[2:30]

If you put more cameras in play, you buy your reporters more time to do more complex and deeper stories. Not. You get more house fires and car accidents. The number of cameras is not something that is reflective of the number of stories generated.

This not only allows for different stories, it can, if we are wise, change the relationship between journalist and viewer. I think that's known as consultant psychobabble.

Instead of being reactive, we can, for the first time, become pro-active. For the first time in your newsrooms, maybe. Not ours. Of course we have to remember that you haven't actually worked in any local newsrooms in 20 or 30 years. And it's absurd to say that you have to use a cheap camera to be pro-active.

That is, we can to some extent set the agenda. We can raise issues that are important and confront elected leaders and say "look at this. How are you going to respond to this?"
There's nothing wrong with doing stories about issues - but if you want to go into politics, why don't you get out of the news business or go to work for Fox.