In these tight budgetary times, many stations are talking about reverting to "one-man bands" to save money.  Call them VJ's or EJ's - I call them a mistake.

I encourage you to follow the lead of WNCN-TV in Raleigh instead.  They have hired nearly two dozen "Beat Reporters."  They are required to live in the targeted community that they cover.

It is a throwback to "the day" - when reporters on TV actually worked to cultivate contacts, and generate exclusive stories through those relationships.  It was a far cry from the typical TV reporter of this generation who is content to be handed a story assignment at the morning meeting and go blissfully on their way.

The WNCN Beat Reporters generate their own stories by working the officials and regular folk in their community every day.  They also feed VO's and VOSOT's to the station throughout the day, as well as work on their package.  The stories are also posted on the WNCN web site as they are finished - not waiting until after the newscast.

The impact on the content on both WNCN's web site and their newscasts is dramatic.  They both are filled with hyper-local content every day.  The station seems to be everywhere in the DMA.

So, if you are considering a change in your newsgathering process - I encourage you to expand your thinking far beyond the narrow confines of a "one-man band."   Step back and look at how making this change could make your news content stronger - both on the air and on the web.

Jim

This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 6:06 pm and is filed under Willi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.