[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG0unrDNyNs[/youtube]
Mark Jones, a highly accomplished journalist with KRON/4 in San Francisco explains what it is like to work as a videojournalist and why he does it.
Jones is no ‘kid with a camcorder’. He has been in the business for nearly 30 years, and among other things has 26 Emmy nominations. Many people think of the VJ as a kid who is going to drive the accomplished journos out of the newsroom. Nothing could be further from the truth.
5 Comments
Paul Evans March 24, 2009
For those who still believe what is happening to newspapers won’t affect broadcasters comes the following disheartening news:
• “Bernstein Research predicts a 20% to 30% drop in 2009 TV station ad revenue.â€
• “For the last reporting period, Nielsen Media Research said, CBS’s prime-time audience was down 2.9%, ABC’s down 9.7%, Fox down 17.5% and NBC down 14.3%.â€
• “According to Media Dynamics, the average price of reaching 1,000 households with a 30-second spot in prime time, has jumped from $8.28 in 1986 to $22.65 in 2008 — but effectively more like $32, because between 150 and 200 of those 1000 households use DVRs to skip past the ads.â€
• NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker recently admitted that he’s considering making NBC a cable channel. A CBS executive said much the same thing.
Find the full article as a PDF here: http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/chaos_scenario_for_media.pdf
Hopefully those TV shooters here understand what NBC and/or CBS going cable means — no more local affiliates. That means lots more professional TV guys soon will be competing with those VJs. Better hope those skills are all that matter. My newspaper experience tells me the corporate bosses may be willing to sacrifice a lot of technical expertise for a little cost savings. They will, however, assure you that it isn’t personal; just business.
In many ways it doesn’t matter if VJ is a bad idea, to quote pencilgod. It’s here; it’s not going away. I’m not sure the constant reminders of how much it sucks changes anything.
pencilgod March 17, 2009
How many times do I need to post you my work Cliff?
In my professional opinion his shooting is well below standard… anyone’s standard.
But then what do I know?
Stephen Press
2009 Best of b-roll International winner.
Cliff Etzel March 16, 2009
neither of you has proven your case other than SAY that how you do it is better.
What I’ve seen of so called Broadcast “Pro’s” so far has been to the contrary.
Next….
$ March 14, 2009
And the VJ award prize logo has the “VJ” with a camera on his shoulder!
The poorly framed, under exposed stand up was another good laugh.
Then the other standup where he is walking holding a camera and a laptop shot by someone else!
Yep, that’s VJ work all right!
But let’s be honest.
That was a biased BJ/VJ report on KRON.
BJ as in blow job.
What was the guy going to say?
He’s just trying to keep his job at a place that is failing faster and faster every day.
That was four minutes of wasted time.
pencilgod March 13, 2009
Not only was that was so badly shot it was factually inaccurate… good job of proving why VJ is a bad idea.