Pardon the link to a press release, but this bears watching. Reuters journalists have been trying out a Nokia smartphone that lets them write stories, shoot video and still photos, and record audio, and then edit everything and upload it right from the field. I first took note of this trend last December, when it was written up in the Online Journalism Review. Now it’s becoming a reality.
Reuters has put together a site showing off the work of their “mojos,” or mobile journalists. Check out “Robots R Us,” and note the high-quality video and sound. It’s easy to imagine watching this on your own smartphone.
The mojo tool of choice at Reuters is the Nokia N95. With a list price of $699, it’s not cheap — unless the alternative is to outfit a journalist with a laptop and a video/still camera. Compared to that, it’s ridiculously inexpensive.
The press release says that the N95 “provides everything journalists need to file and publish stories from even the most remote regions of the world.” Well, OK. But I suspect such tools are mainly going to be a boon for community journalism, as both professionals and amateurs seek to add more multimedia to their sites.
This just in: No sooner had I posted this than a blog item from the Guardian showed up in my inbox. The writer, Jemima Kiss, goes into quite a bit more detail than the press release does.
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First, let me admit my technolust. That thing is pretty cool. On the other hand, it looks like a great chance for newspaper publishers to demand more work from less staff.Community journalists usually produce quite a bit of copy every week. When will they find time to be photographers and videographers as well?
Interesting Network World article on how refugees and relief workers both now safely assume they can get Wi-Fi access at shelters … and bring along the technology to use it.Not directly relevant, but it’s interesting what people can do with a little equipment they grab as they’re fleeing their homes.
And how much money are these community journalists going to be paid?Back in the 1980s I used to work my butt off for some of the suburban Boston weeklies (who have since traded owners so often that I have no clue who owns my personnel records anymore). I didn’t get paid much, but at least I got paid. Bloggers working for the neighborhood Web site probably don’t.