Grounded In Reality

In addition to being writers, the next wave of pro journalists will also be videographers and audio techs. Today’s half-second news cycle is demanding that reporters evolve into multimedia producers who can publish text, audio, and video on the fly. The old school system of deploying multi-person camera crews to cover news is coming to an end. It’s too clunky and slow. Arming reporters with internet-enabled recording tools is the only way publishers can keep up and cover maximum ground (not to mention scoop the average college kid with a camera phone and moblog widget).

In a sign that publishers are adapting, Reuters and Nokia just completed a cool experiment to illustrate the emergence of mobile reporting. Reuters armed several of its reporters with gadgets that make publishing stories from the field a breeze. The centerpiece of the toolkit is the Nokia N95 smartphone – a video-shooting, photo-snapping, GPS-mapping, web-surfing device that also happens to let users email and make calls. Participating reporters were also given a Bluetooth keyboard to crank out text-heavy articles, as well as a microphone and tripod to assist with A/V production.

Check out this video interview with Google’s Vint Cerf to see the toolkit in action. The quality is a bit jittery, but it’s a good example of where things are headed: instant, raw, behind-the-scenes, and comment-friendly.

Next steps for Reuters and Nokia? They are planning to use the kits to teach journalism students about the importance of mobile reporting. Interesting that Reuters didn’t choose to use a multi-media press release to communicate this story.