Paxety Pages

It was just like the consultants teach - anchor lead, then turn to a shot including the live reporter as the anchor introduces the reporter, take a shot of the anchor alone as she pitches to the live shot, take the live shot for the reporter to read the lead to his package, take the reporter's package, come back to the live reporter for a tag, take the chroma two-shot for the end of the tag, take the anchor shot for her inane question, take the reporter for a response, not necessarily an answer from the reporter.

To do all of that they had an anchor, a reporter, at least three camera people in the studio (or robotic cameras), a camera in the field, a director in the studio, an audio person in the studio, a technical director in the studio, a graphics operator in the studio, a producer in the studio, probably a field producer, a technical person in the studio to roll the tape, and whatever engineering people were required to send and receive the package over the satellite.

Some in the blogosphere think videoblogging can take the place of all of that. I don't think it's possible for one person, or a few people, operating a blog to hope to deliver the way the networks can.  But what about something else.

The networks use all of those people, but the only real information delivered to the audience came in the reporter package.  It takes (at least in a non-union shop) only two people to produce that.

It seems to me the audience would be better served with a web page containing a paragraph leadin to the package, and a link so the viewer could watch on demand. Maybe without all those fat anchor salaries, the networks could afford to hire reporters who could do some real reporting.