Los Angeles, CA-- Do you have a cause, perhaps a beef with your government, school, employer, homeowners association or even the news media?  Do you have something you need to promote or sell?  You can unleash that beast in your smartphone and get results!  If your voice is not being heard you’ve apparently found yourself helpless in calling attention to your situation.  Don’t expect others to speak up for you, but now you can speak up for yourself through technology. Yes, you can tell your story to the masses on your own terms.  It’s far easier than you may think.   Your smartphone has a powerful video camera and video editing system.  You just must be able to tell a coherent and compelling story.  You use that smartphone to shoot, write, edit and create your story just as any seasoned TV journalist or vlogger would. You simply sign up for a free Youtube account.  An important part is creating the tags or search words that...

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Los Angeles, CA —Journalism school may give you building blocks and give you the polish to craft a news story, but the future of traditional reporting is beyond bleak. In the end journalist show us in print, photos, audio and video what’s going on in our world.   Can someone that never paid tuition to Northwestern or Columbia or sweated those final exams steal your job?   It’s already happening! There is no special magic to TV news reporting.   At the most, it’s all about monkey see, monkey do!    The way to get compensation for reporting has changed dramatically.   It’s your audience that determines how well you’re paid.   Balancing sensationalism with truth to gain and maintain an audience is the difficult challenge. This past January I took a part-time model and turned her into reporter to cover the Shooting, Hunting Outdoor Trade show in Las Vegas. I could have done this all myself but it’s much easier when there are two people sha...

Los Angeles, CA —Like most of my blog visitors I love music.   I have my favorites from Gershwin to The Doors .   The artists that have entertained me deserve all of the reward for their work.   Every musical recording is a labor involving numerous people that worked so hard to create. The music industry exists because of intellectual property rights.   Without these rights so many of the hits we enjoy everyday may never have pleased our ears. My video host  YouTube has settled most copyright issues with the use of music within the USA.   Advertising and iTunes links have solved many of the problems. There was also a surprising discovery made by the copyright holders in the form of increased sales when a video featuring their products was popular legitimate sales of the music increased too.   Old forgotten hits suddenly were reanimated into moneymaking popularity once again! As many of my visitors know I’m into the camera drone technolog...

Los Angeles, CA —As a blogger and multimedia journalist I occasionally put up videos here on Crimefile News. Currently time and lack of funding precludes me from putting up more video.   Getting people to watch your video no matter how good it is challenging.   You need to tease people with hot button words we’ve all seen.   “You better watch this video before the censors take it down!”   “Watch Ms. X destroy so and so in this video!”   “Watch Mr. X meltdown under tense questioning!”    “This video will make you break out the tissues!”    Frankly these are getting very old.   They’ve been used and abused and I refuse to fall for them anymore. The truth is that Internet viewers are incredibly impatient and loading videos for some can be a slow process.   When you add in that many videos turn out to be a disappointment that don't deliver on the promised hype you better be creative rather than deceptive. Putting i...

To my visitors:   From time to time I get requests to post the writings of others.  Unfortunately some of these people are really promoting their personal businesses rather than providing information suitable for Crime, Guns and Videotape .  I want more news in Crimefile News but I can’t be everywhere to do it myself. This is where some of my skilled visitors come in. I want your stories.  They must be up to journalistic standards.  I don’t want rewrites of published news stories.  They should contain video or at least pictures taken by the contributors. That means getting interviews of your newsmakers, vetting the information properly and avoiding libel.  Diligent use of public records is a must.  There are few limits on subject matter if the material is compelling and interesting.  Submitting stories about government policies, crimes, courts, corruption or your latest gun are acceptable.  Perhaps the actions a local he...

Covington, KY —A federal court jury just awarded former Cincinnati Bengal’s cheerleader, Sarah Jones $338,000 over anonymous third-party comments posted to a Scottsdale based website, thedirty.com . The site operator, Nik Richie took a well-deserved litigation beating when he did not screen or delete the nasty comments.   The posts defamed the woman with malicious and unfounded allegations of sexual activities with the entire football team. Richie’s unsuccessful defense was to suggest that Jones should have take the unknown third part posters to court instead of him.   Bloggers everywhere have been watching his case.   Jones had a rather sticky brush with the law related to a sexual relationship with an underage student when she was a teacher.   Reportedly Jones is still in a relationship lad who is now 18 and plans to marry him.   Often people post allegations about others that I cannot or won’t try and verify.   Some are true...

Chicago, IL —When I learned the Better Government Association took up an investigation of the infamous and wildly popular (among cops) Detective Shaved Longcock blog, I knew it was going to get interesting so I wrote about it. Without quoting or even paraphrasing a single passage or story DSLC was branded by the Sun Times and BGA as racist.    But is it racist to call attention to the reality that murder, rape and armed robbery is almost the exclusive province and behavior of Chicago’s African-Americans? Is that disturbing and sad truth somehow racist? DSLC was biting and edgy as he used off color satire and humor to express his opinions.    It was in fact only the shock factor of DSLC that gained readership, attention and finally now some debate. A polite and politically correct society avoids the discomfort of discussing touchy problems that could possibly offend anyone.    Until we can discuss and debate the African-American culture of ign...

Los Angeles, CA —As a private investigator, investigative documentary producer/film-maker I’m always waiting for one of my blog visitors or their businesses to send me out on a special assignment. As a result of this blog I’m often retained for various professional assignments. Most of the time I can’t share the details of those assignments with my readers. However there are times when I can. My visitors are my assignment managers and they have the ability unleash the Crimefile News monster on a story. Technology and the Internet forced the new media and bloggers to find non-traditional funding sources. Blog visitors can pay their favorite bloggers to cover and profile whatever they like. I’m ready to take my state-of-the-art sophisticated video tools on the road to cover any event for anyone. Contact me for details and I can provide cost estimates and give you an idea of what to expect. I can do a single story or a series depending upon the nature of the assignment.

Los Angeles, CA —With the death of that young Internet giant Andrew Breitbart people are discovering what gave this genius the power and those financial rewards. At a young age Breitbart began with two startup blogs, The Drudge Report and The Huffington Post taking them to incredible heights and readership. Those sites are user friendly, technical marvels that have all but destroyed TV news and mainstream paper publications. They began with the printed word, then soon added photographs and now there are significant amounts of quality video. Those wonderful flat-panel TVs we own can now deliver Internet content that’s far more diverse and reliable than what CBS, NBC or ABC brought us. Unfortunately there are still not enough ordinary folks have the equipment and skills to deliver video content. That’s rapidly changing. All that’s needed is someone with minimal skill, $5,000.00 worth of equipment and a decent broadband Internet connection. Now that really enables and facilitat...

Los Angeles, CA —They either loved or hated Andrew Breitbart subject to their particular political orientation. Breitbart began as a behind the scenes creative force behind both the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post . Soon it was his very own Big Government and Big Hollywood . Breitbart was a master at throwing hot blog content bombs and making waves on the World Wide Web. Breitbart rallied against the formerly all-powerful liberal and politically unified mainstream media in America. Breitbat made a huge difference in the information world during his short life. When you create an Internet news site the most difficult task it to publicize your offering so that the visitors learn of your existence. That can be painfully slow process. I’ve watched great writers and reporters come and go that could only establish double digit hits per day. I have watched less talented quickly gain tens of thousands of hit per day. It’s all about figuring out old-fashioned publicity stunts ...

Chicago, IL —Local government here had a solid lock on any information published. The criminal mob that runs the city somehow managed to turn the local media into City Hall lap dogs. In the past seven years cops in the Windy City found their voice on the Internet. They have the freedom through the cloak of anonymity and can expose corruption, nasty rumors along with bad government. These Knights of the New Media have shown little mercy as their own existence and exposure has grown dramatically in the last two years. In the beginning local politicians did not understand blogs or Social Media’s impact. Their public relations professionals soon understood the ramifications of actions by the police bloggers. The two most read police run blogs are Second City Cop and Detective Shaved Longcock . They both gained significant readership far beyond the ranks of Chicago cops. A peek at SCC’s web counter on a slow Sunday, show 900 visitors per hour. With that kind of readership advertis...

I get a lot of questions from fans of this blog about production on a shoestring budget. It’s not easy to take the time and commute to where the stories are and creating compelling content. At Crimefile News we are upgrading equipment so this is a great time to talk about this subject. Today the costs are only a tiny fraction of what it took to accomplish decent video production even a decade ago. Better and cheaper equipment is available everywhere. Costs: Blogging software: Free Camera: $150 to $4,000.00 Computer (MacBook Pro) $1,400.00 Video Editing Software: Final Cut Pro X: $300.00 Blue Snowball Microphone: $60.00 Camera LED light: $100.00 Tripod: $50.00 Training: Free via YouTube contributors. You can be in business for less than $2,000.00 or go whole hog getting a great camera like my JVC GY-HM100U, extra lights and a couple of good quality wireless microphones and still stay under $5000.00 in equipment costs. The goal here at Crimefile News is to give the special peop...