Reuters is equipping its reporters with gadgets enabling them to report without using a laptop. The experiment with ‘mobile journalism’ is going to determine the way the newswire takes its mobile reporting effort to the next level.
Reuters boyz and girlz are strutting around with some cool gear; a Nokia N95 (video) phone, a foldable keyboard as well as high qualitiy microphones.
The newswire is not the first to provide cutting edge technology to its reporters. The US media company Ganett has recently publicized a similar move, equipping its journalists with the tools necessary for them to report in a multitude of media straight from the scene.
“The early reports from Reuters mojos, are uneven, with blurry photos and choppy videos with poor sound quality”, Mark Glaser at Mediashift Idea Lab says. Reuters has created its Reutersmojo.com site to show the reports that its mobile crew has come up with. “The problem is that the events they cover — Fashion Week and the U.S. presidential campaign trail — are not hard news and we expect soft features to have a better production quality”, Glaser adds.
Among the people adding their own commentary on the Reuters initiative is Jay Rosen, the US media critic, who wonders if online news readers accept poorer quality if it comes from an important breaking news event? “I think you can do it two ways: send the troops out to report for the Web, but keep an eye on technology, and wait to outfit them based on observed need. Or…. outfit the troops based on where you see technology going, and then wait for the need to arise that shows the troops why you bought them all this stuff. It seems Reuters has chosen the second course”, he writes. “Either way, only when the tools and the news need for them come together will we know the potential” Rosen concludes.
Benjamin Melançon commented that the quality of a Reuters Mojo Report entitled the protest against toxic toys, was reasonable quality. “I think it was as good as most television news on-the-spot camera work. I’m not sure if my standards are low or what’s expected of online rich-media reporting now exceeds what we expect of television news reports.” But he also said that Reuters is linking from the raw footage to the finished product, but does not make it attractive for viewers to then link back to the original the the original video. That is potential lost, he believes.
Many citizen reporting sites hail the use of mobile technology. Two examples of people empowerment that has resulted in excellent news output are Common Ties and Skoops. The latter is a Dutch initiative that is expanding globally due to its immense popularity among users and the good uptake by newspaper editors.
Common Ties dedicates a lot of value to technology and people’s personal experiences. When its editors, who are professional journalists, spot a good written entry, they invite the writer to voice their story into a podcast. From what I have heard so far, it delivers on this goal remarkably well. The site has a lavish budget, which enables the editors to be picky no doubt. The site pays up to $200 per story and also hands out free microphones to people that decide to submit more stories.
Skoeps.nl, an international grassroots reporting initiative, runs on a remarkably simple formula; it invites people with a mobile camera phone to upload their film footage of news events and simply matches the footage with newswire or newspaper stories. Editors at newspapers scan the entries, and citizen journalists could hardly find a site where the task is easier and the (potential) reward better; all the reporters have got to do is uploading their footage, fill in the subject box and wham bam, chances are their minuscule effort sells for a handsome amount to a newspaper. Subjects range from the local fire to covering a street fight between skinheads and black youth. Skoeps, which is branching out to other countries including African nations, has spotted a niche in the market, because it often fills in where the established news media fails to turn up.
The Reuters initiative underscores the importance of this territory. As it sends its reporters to cover events where regular film crews cannot go, it aims to define its beat. A wise decision, because citizen reporting is all about competing with the established media by breaking the traditional boundaries.