Now, A Penny for My Thoughts

Maureen Dowd’s column about me and my outsourcing concepts was published in this Sunday’s New York Times (“A Penny for My Thoughts?“).  I only wish her column’s format permitted greater detail. Its brevity has bred misunderstanding.

The most important point not included in her column is that I simply do not believe in or practice uncontrolled, long-distance news reporting – a concept which is patently flawed.

What I do believe in is a modern-day revival of the “legman/rewrite man” news reporting system pioneered by Charles Chapin (“the greatest city editor who ever lived”) around the turn of the last century, shortly after the introduction of the telephone.

The reporting system refined in those days has current applications. When coupled with process engineering and today’s technology, the resulting “collaborative journalism,” as I call it, can result in a lower cost editorial product which retains the nature, mission and value of local reporting.

At its core my system recognizes that the heart, mind and soul of a newspaper (or a web “newspaperless”) must live in the community which is being covered.  I completely agree with the multitude of comments I have received which point out that nobody thousands of miles away can possibly understand the nuances of local issues (or for that matter, even the basics of local issues).  Really, isn’t this completely obvious?

Further my system recognizes that the only way to gather information about a news event is to actually be there – “boots on the ground” is the only way to go.

My system thus borrows from yesteryear’s “legmen” – that is, field observers – to witness local news and events. These observers are not reporters in the modern day sense, because they don’t write. They observe.  And unlike their counterparts in the last century, these observers don’t just use telephones to call in facts afterwards.

My system deploys live video streamed by field observers back to the News Desk. Editors at the News Desk have assigned these observers to cover breaking news or budgeted pre-scheduled events, and these editors monitor and direct the observers working in the field. (Sounds a bit like Nevada controllers piloting drones over Kabul, doesn’t it?)

In this manner, a few editors can direct and monitor a small team of photographers/observers to blanket an entire city’s events with a very efficient allocation of resources. In a small news organization, editors may end up being assignment editors/rewrite “men”/beat reporters all rolled up into one – all without leaving the news desk.

This labor division puts inexpensive “eyes” and “ears” on the street, directed by the veteran “brains” back in the news room. It more akin to local television news than the traditional print newsroom.

The field observers’ job is to gather information through still photography, through video (and its embedded audio), and through any published documentation or other physical objects available for the media at the scene. The observers are in two-way communication with their News Desk editor and are directed by the editor at crucial moments as to what aspect of the event must be covered.

Editors can even conduct what television refers to as “live remotes,” and in this manner the knowledgeable editor can, for example, directly interview a government official after a speech, or a police official at a crime scene.

Everything I have described above is designed to occur within the actual community being covered. Please notice that outsourcing has, to this point, not even been mentioned.

So far, my concept has simply reconfigured the newsgathering process. It has eliminated reporters and segrates the assignment, field observing, editing and writing functions and introduces video technology into traditional newsrooms such that editors can virtually “be” at news scenes.

It is at the conclusion of the newsgathering process at which the outsourcing function kicks in.

At that point, if all has transpired correctly, the news organization will have issued a public live raw video feed of the news event on its website. The editor in the newsroom will have directed the field observer to gather all on scene facts and interviews deemed necessary. The editor will have, often in real time, watched the unfolding local developments live while researching background issues online and conducting supplemental telephone interviews.

When the editor has an information package (video and audio from the news scene, still photography, supplemental interviews, and online background research) which is sufficient for the first report and has prepared the writing assignment, the actual writing can begin – you guessed it – by the offshore writing staff.

(Of course, the offshore writing staff is already prepped. They already “attended” the local event virtually, online.)

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