Los
Angeles, CA—Local news coverage here is as lame is it gets anywhere! The entertainment capitol of the world and
the second largest television market puts out pathetic minimalist crap
instead of comprehensive news. It's downright shameful!
What
used to be called print media has now been forcibly moved to the Internet and they now must adapt
to publishing quality video or simply become history.
I
don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re at the bottom position and pay grade in your news
organization there’s no excuse for you being unable to make a broadcast quality
news story if you come upon breaking news.
If you can’t put together a watchable story on your iPhone you need to
get out of the news business.
You
don’t have to be pretty or an award winning cinematographer to create a great
news story. You do need to be capable of
using a little investigative effort and get some watchable video and simply
tell your story. What’s most important
is that you never waste an opportunity to assemble the elements of important
news breaking around you.
The
new iPhone 6 plus with it’s improved camera and large screen allows anyone that
can make a decent selfie still shot, to shoot, edit and make a really watchable
news package! Unlike the predecessor,
smaller iPhones the larger 6plus screens are very adequate to professionally
edit captured video in the inexpensive iMovie application.
I’m
not going to train in this story you but will give you a few solid tips.
Always
hold you iPhone horizontal and NEVER vertical.
Get close as you possibly can to the action so that you can get both
usable sound and video. If you’re too
shy and don’t get close enough you efforts will be wasted.
Always
be sure to add your own voiceovers to your captured video during the editing
process. Doing that while you shoot is
almost never a good idea.
As
you learn how to do this you will discover tricks and accessories to improve your stories with
things like lavaliere microphones. There are lots of new devices including those that serve as
tripods when needed.
If
you have a camera drone and can get it deployed and operating over breaking
news such as a natural disaster or a civil disturbance that could swing your
career into high gear.
There
are those amazing options for live broadcasting from your iPhone offered by Livestream.com
or Ustream.com. They must rely on a
good 4G Internet signal. You could for
example be on vacation in Europe during breaking news and actually get video
back to your newsroom.
Again,
I’m going to bash L.A’s lame news coverage.
They can’t seem to do a crime story these days that was not totally created and controlled by the
appointed police propaganda officers.
I
don’t understand why the reporters in this market won’t routinely check things
like court records or take the effort to identify and seek out victims and witnesses
for interviews. What they call
enterprising journalism here is getting a really worthless sound bite from a know-nothing
neighbor saying, “it's so scary!”
Despite
so many wonderful new tools the quality of electronically gathered coverage has
declined significantly over the last two decades. The competiveness and energy
has dwindled as newsrooms have lost viewers and readers in droves.
The
new technologies should be helping significantly but the news organizations are
so painfully slow at adaptation. Perhaps
it’s that the ageing suits running the news business are simply a bunch of old
dogs incapable of learning new tricks. They desperately cling to the things
that worked for them when they were young.
The
tools of computer assisted reporting, instantly obtaining quality video, the
exciting GoPro cameras and now the inexpensive camera drones have made amazing
leaps and bounds. Unfortunately the
suits running news refuse to embrace new technology and instead reject
progress.
If
you’re working in a newsroom or hope to pursue this line of work, you simply
can’t wait for the news bureaucracy to adapt to progress. It’s you that must learn how to create and
then demonstrate your abilities.
The
camera drones have made a big splash and the novelty has brought with it massive
ignorance and contrived controversy.
If
you have a camera drone use it. Get the
video and worry about what your bosses will say later. It’s better that they see your amazing images
even if they are two cowardly to use them!
Why
wait for someone else to do this and steal your thunder? If you make something spectacular with a
drone camera your bosses will soon be fighting to use what they did not have
the testicles to allow earlier.
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