Liveshot? Yes. Livetruck? Nope. Vol. 2, The Obama Inauguration Edition

Lauren Squires Goes Live by Skype

I should probably label these posts NSFW, since if your news director sees them, it could spell trouble:  another Skype-enabled backpacker doing it all and going live…no photog, no truck, no satellite window, nada.  (Can you hear the dripping sounds of local tv news managers salivating?)

Lauren Squires, a bureau reporter in Dubuque for KWWL/Waterloo got a big gig:  the inauguration of Barack Obama.  She traveled to DC with a local group of Iowans and, in keeping with the multiplatform ideal, she blogged, shot her own packages, and even whipped out the laptop to do liveshots via Skype: 

“I traveled (26 hours) via bus with the Dubuque Colts Drum and Bugle Corps. They were selected to play in the Inauguration parade. I was an embedded journalist, who slept on a gym floor with hundreds of members of the corps (Alumni and current members, marching and spectators).   I blogged from the moment we left Dubuque on Saturday to the moment we arrived back to Iowa. http://addins.kwwl.com/blogs/scribbles/ “

Check out her work.  And think about it.  Seriously.  Think about it.  One day soon you’re going to get that tempting offer–”hey, we’d like to send you out of town…”

FULL DISCLOSURE:  My attempt at backpacking my way through the Obama Inauguration, complete with laptop, blogging and Twittering, was, shall we say, somewhat less successful, with snowstorms and bus breakdowns.  Read about my sad saga here.

Obama Bus Blog Reveals Limits, Laughs of Going Guerilla on the Big Story

 

The "Obama Bus" in an iPhone Pic Filed by Joyella

Photographer Mario Alonso and I set out at 6:30 a.m. Monday for Washington to cover the Inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation’s 44th President.  We don’t have credentials, we don’t have a hotel room, we don’t have satellite time, an uplink truck, a fiber link–we don’t really even have a “plan.”  What our station did send  us off with was a check for $360–payment for two seats aboard Charter Bus #007… one of a fleet of three carrying a group of 130 South Florida Obama supporters to Washington to see their candidate sworn in today.

So far, our backpack/guerilla efforts have put Mario and me in both the “hero” and “goat” position.  We blogged and Twittered for several hours as the sun rose Monday, and even filed a video story from the bus, shot on mini DV, imported into a Powerbook and Final Cut Pro, and than uploaded via an air card.  The 30 second clip took nearly an hour to file, but it was in the newsroom in Miami in time to be the second story at noon, and that earned us raves.  

Ah, how quickly they forget.  With the “Obama Bus Crew” filing “packages” from the road, producers and managers back in the newsroom fell immediately back into the “we have a crew on the scene mentality” and began asking that we send tease video… and even calling at 4 with ideas on “elements” for the “6 o’clock package.”  Well, as you might have guessed, there never was a 6 o’clock package.  As the bus rolled through rural South Georgia, cell service was diminished at best, and the :50 clip we’d intended to feed made slow to no progress for more than 90 minutes until it became clear the video would not be in house in time.  We did a phoner.

A stop for dinner outside Savannah landed Mario and me in a Houlihan’s restaurant–with Wi-Fi.  Success!  Heroes again!  Not only did we feed the 6 o’clock “story,” we ran outside, shot nighttime standups for an eleven o’clock story, and did interviews and shot fresh cover video… all quickly uploaded, then downloaded in Miami thanks to high speed wireless.

Since then, the Obama bus convoy was sidelined by a shredded tire… and then a failed compressor that turned the interior “heat” to ice-cold air conditioning.  Passengers–and us–bundled up and contemplated tears.  The windshield froze over, and the bus driver had to pull off I-95 to deal with the problem–all shot on DV and snapped on my iPhone, enabling me to file pics and write up quick blog posts to combine with phoners for the morning show.  Ah, convergence!

What will happen in DC?  Who knows?  I veer back and forth between hating this assignment and loving it.  Please share your thoughts!

Mark Joyella and Mario Alonso Aboard the Obama Bus