Starbucks: The new newsroom?
"With most editing, ad placement, layout, and design done on computers anyway, it's conceivable that the newsroom as it exists today could be eliminated, with folks working from home, their car, or even the local Starbucks."
-Editor and Publisher
A special report in the May 21 issue of Editor and Publisher details the trend among print journalists to spend more time outside the newsroom now that their tools of technology allow them to post multimedia content from wherever they can find a Wi Fi connection (including a local Starbucks).
The mojos - mobile journalists - are equipped with backpacks worth more than $14,000 (that's some expensive equipment!) of tech toys, which include laptops, video cameras and digital audio recorders. Some of the mojos even post directly to Web sites without editing.
This seems the print version of a TV news live shot. The immediacy is great but will accuracy, detail and depth get lost in the process (as they tend to do on TV)? One New York print reporter said his new mobility even allowed him to spot and do a story about an eight-foot statue of Paul Bunyan in someone's front yard.
Now there's some enterprise reporting - fit for cable.
Comments
Im a former reporter living in Boise, Idaho. I was heading home this summer from my job in PR when I spotted a wildfire in the foothills. My old reporter instincts kicked in and I followed the smoke and in just seconds was on the fireline. I snapped off 300 photos in about 30 minutes. I got to my car, loaded the photos up on my laptop, not to mention vid clips and emailed them to a local television station that ran them in real time.
Almost overnight journalism as I knew it had changed. The craft has passed