What happens when anyone anywhere in the world has the power to be a TV reporter? On one level the revolutionary changes afforded by “small format” video can be exhilarating. Michael Rosenblum, a former network producer and publisher of the newsletter The Videojournalist, envisions a whole new “grammar” of television. Because the costs of TV production are declining so dramatically, there will be “a much larger creative pool to submit their work for broadcast, and a much broader scope for what television might ultimately produce.” “Videojournalists” will be able to concentrate on reporting, instead of primping for stand-ups and moving around bulky crews. Print and TV may meld. Already, the Christian Science Monitor has asked several reporters to spend half of their time turning newspaper pieces into TV stories for the new 24-hour Monitor Channel.
The technology can even eliminate the on-scene journalist altogether. A New York-based company, Globalvision, is putting cameras in the hands of local residents on six continents who will provide footage for a program covering human rights. Instead of the normal journalistic approach–where a reporter who often doesn’t know the language parachutes in–the stories can be reported from the inside out. Tibetans taping Tibetans. South Africans taping South Africans. In fact, this is exactly the direction in which the major TV networks are moving. They have closed many foreign bureaus, bought footage from various sources and packaged the story from the comfort of home.
But who are the people shooting the pictures? And what aren’t they showing? In New York, local TV aired amateur footage of the police beating demonstrators in Tompkins Square Park. It was very dramatic and led to a round of city and federal investigations. But the perils of turning over the news-gathering process to partisans have only begun to be understood. Vigilante taping may open a new world of pictures, but the prospect of vigilante editing is simply dangerous.
The eight-millimeter video camera–“Hi8” in the trade–is rapidly descending in price. Some now cost less than $2,000. In the near future, amateur video won’t look like amateur video anymore. It will look professional. Then anyone could call himself a TV journalist, but what would that mean anymore?
