In this economy, companies have increased that kind of money-saving hiring. Why hire a reporter AND a photographer/editor when you can hire one person to do it all? Hard to argue with the bottom-line justification.
One of the interesting situations I've come across is at news events where there is no podium. Multiple reporters are standing up interviewing the same person. Suddenly the one-size-fits-all employee needs an extra hand to hold the microphone!
I've been asked to be that extra hand by a station with ONLY a one-woman-band, and I had to force myself to do it. I don't want to be a jerk, but why should I make it easier for that station to get away with hiring a single person? Eventually, they'll develop a kind of boom mike fastened to a metal cap with a chin strap that the "reporter" will wear. It will look foolish, but so what?
Then there's the question of the quality of the journalism being practiced. While an individual can crank out stories that way, he or she can simply not do an equally good job on all of the balls they are trying to juggle. How can you focus on what the interviewee is saying to your questions when you are focusing on focusing?
[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]
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