I attended the Broadcast Education Association convention for the first time and spoke on a panel called, "News Chopper Chases: Life or Death for Ratings?" The panel included an actual TV news helicopter pilot/reporter in Las Vegas, Penn State prof and former news director (and Trojan) Thor Wesbotten, and former TV producer Sue Green, now teaching at ASU, who worked with two of those killed in the Phoenix TV helicopter midair collision last year. My role was to present the history of the first TV news helicopter at KTLA and show through historical footage that the element of risk was there from the beginning in 1958. ASU's Bill Silcock moderated the panel.
Unfortunately, this excellent panel spoke to a room mostly full of empty chairs. Why? The broadcast educators were flocking to any panel with "online" in the title. If we had called it," How to put your chopper video online" it would have been packed.
Most distressing news: a panel on online storytelling advocated eliminating the role of the on-camera journalist! Instead, we are supposed to post raw video and soundbites for the viewer to pick and choose. This isn't a good omen for the future of good writing that provides context and adds value to the images. It also means journalism schools won't have to worry about classrooms overcrowded with anchor wannabes. No one is lining up for a j-school education in posting video tidbits on the internet. Everyone under 30 already knows how to get on youtube for free and doesn't exactly consider it a paying profession.
One advantage of BEA is the opportunity to shop for new gadgets that TVM can use. I found a teleprompter company that is willing to experiment with the Thanaa font so that the Maldivians won't have to push pieces of paper through the prompter any more!
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