If the first place new technologies find their ‘home’ is pornography, the second is generally politics. (Not that the two are that closely related).
An article in yesterday’s NY Times brought this point into sharp focus.
The demands of a campaign spread across the country, long hours, lots of primaries and lasting more than a year now has serious financial ramifications. Between Obama and Hillary alone, more than $100 million will be spent on getting the nomination. Rudy blew through $40 million for no delegates, while Mitt spent nearly $30 million of his own, and another $30 million from donors to withdraw. This is serious money.
Those costs are reflected in news coverage costs, from CNN to MSNBC to NBC and beyond. As the campaign that never ends goes on and on, so does the cost of coverage for television news outlets under endless pressure to cut costs - while at the same time having to feed more and more outlets.
It was one thing when CBS News just had to feed Walter or Dan at 7pm. It is quite another when the web requires constant, almost live updates. And the TV news organizations are not alone in this. As newspapers start to gravitate toward video, they will also find that feed the voracious appetite of the web is a very expensive proposition.
The result has been the arrival of the small-camera equipped Off Air Reporter.
I put this in bold because this is one of those new professions that technology creates.
Mr. Conroy, whose job title is “off-air reporter,” (because he does not normally appear on television) is one of many young journalists hired by the networks to follow the candidates across the country, filing video and blog posts as they go. Originally hired to cut expenses — their cost is a fraction of a full television crew’s — these reporters, also called “embeds,” have produced a staggering amount of content, especially video. And in this election cycle, for the first time, they are able to edit and transmit video on the fly.
Well, there you have it.
Not from me, but from The NY Times.
If you are wondering where the VJ jobs are. Here is one.
Get your applications in.
There will be many more slots opened in the coming months and years.
