Yeah, I’m talking about me. Look, I know I can write about multiplatform, convergence, hyperlocal and backpack journalism with the best of ’em. And often, I’m harshly critical. But to be honest, from my first day as a local tv newser, in Grand Junction, Colorado, I’ve never had to lug my own gear and shoot my own stuff. I edited my own packages for a few years, but I was never, officially, a one man band.
So tomorrow (actually, later this morning) I’m going to get a taste of the future. (Or is it the past? Or the present? I get so confused lately as things in this business change so fast.) A few days ago my news director asked if I’d like to cover the inauguration. Now this was waaaaaay past the point of your standard have-a-hotel-room-and-sat-time-booked point. I jumped with “yes” before I even knew the details. Short version? Ride up to DC on a bus with folks who want to witness history; no hotel, no shower, not even a bag bigger than a ladies’ handbag. Just me, multiple layers, a coat, (hopefully, God-willing, a steady supply of decent coffee) and a laptop. I’ll Twitter and blog on the bus, and while I will have a solid, professional photographer with me, I’m bringing my old XL1S also.
As much as I’ve criticized the cutbacks and convergence, I must admit I’m excited. Not just your standard get to be there for the moment in history excitement, but the guerilla reporting excitement. The “we don’t need no stinking credentials for edit space” excitement. Down and dirty, figure it out as we go along.
I’ll be Twittering and blogging throughout. I hope to experiment with videoblog entries from the bus on our www.localnews.com
Washington Post Photo
site. I hope we can make this an ongoing conversation. I only wish I was going into it on more than an hour’s sleep (and that’s if I get to sleep in the next ten minutes).
UPDATE: tvnewser and webnewser report there will be other first time “guerilla” reporters on the Obama story: ABC’s JuJu Chang’s “unwired” and ready to try a new way to report. The story’s here.
column to the idea that beyond picking and choosing one’s own news stories, according to what you are truly interested in (perhaps it’s city hall, yes; convenience store shootings, no–or, maybe, the other way around), the even more important solution to struggling local news operations is the business model: you’re going to have to pay for it. “Free is not a business model,” Carr quotes Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research.
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