Covid-19 Plants The Seeds Of A New Kind of Television News

Posted May 08, 2020

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Nothing accelerates technologcal change like a war.

And the War Against Covid is no different.

The First World War vastly accelerated the development of airplanes and automobiles. Both were there, but the war sped up their development by about 40 years.

Likewise in the Second World War which saw massive advancements in electronics, airplanes and communications.

Now comes Covid

Television news organizations have been faced with the problem of how to continue to report while remaining safe.

Most news organizations have been using Zoom and doing a lot of Zoom interviews.

At Spectrum News 1, the MMJs are pushing the boundaries of what we might call Hybrid News. News stories that are made in partnership with the subjects of the stories.

It's not a secret that everyone has an iPhone and that everyone is already making their own videos and posting them on YouTube, IGTV, FB Watch and TikTok.

So why not harness that power and make a partnership between the journalist and the subject. It is, after all, their story.

In this piece, Spectrum News 1 (Los Angeles) MMJ Itay Hod shoots part of the story outside, while the footage inside is shot by the subject of the story herself -all of it done on an iPhone.

It makes for both a safe story and a great story.

But more significantly, like pushing the boundaries of computers at Bletchley Park, Spectrum News 1 is pushing the boundaries of how news stories can be made.

This Hybrid model, I think, is going to outlast the virus - and get better and better as we work more woth it.

It is after all, a far more honest and intimate way to report.

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