VJs Coming to the LA Times

In a Recent post at his blog Michael Rosenblum congratulates Tim French for his new job at the LA Times. Tim's new job as Rosenblum tell's it...

"...he will both be a VJ, but will also work on a team that is going to train, as I understand it, more than 100 LA Times staffers to be VJS."

Goodness...that's enough to give Britney Spears a nervous breakdown.....nevermind.

Anway does LA really need 100 more camera totin’ newbies chasing after celebrities, amblulances or even, God help 'em, real news?

Doing the math in the LA Metro area the 100 VJs would be 1 for every 170-thousand people. So if we added a VJ system here in the Greensboro DMA we'd only need 9 VJs at the local paper.

And as Michael says...

"Well, Los Angeles is a big town, and it’s nice that at least one local media
company things you can cover LA with more than 11 crews! I think the LA Times is
going to give the local news guys a stroke. And about time. "

I doubt the local TV Guys give a shit. They have more than 11 crews on the streets. (We have more than that here in little ol' Greensboro). And anyway. 100 VJs would produce way more TV than could be broadcast in any given news day...much less be watched online.

Some stories BEG to be covered as a video story as well they should…but 100 stories a day…even 50…hell even 25...most people don't have time for that.

At some point, regardless of the economy of a one man crew, 100 staffers with cameras waters down the product to the point it’s not worth it, both for the viewers trying to wade through a muck of mosty average video and for the company that ends up with a drowning business model.

I will watch closely to see what they DO choose to show as video stories because sometimes organizations like the LA Times and other historically print journalists forget (or don't realize)that although every story can done in print NOT every story can be done (well) in video.

Only Video Stories done well, that are interesting and somewhat entertaining really matter because the rest won’t be watched.(and this isn't about quality..it's about good content) I mean just look at what get's numbers on YouTube and other video sites.

I can shoot the hell out of a City Council meeting and get all the right shots and all the right interviews but that doesn't hold a candle to a great story where people area actually doing things and not sitting on their asses.