The Future of VJs
by
Deborah Potter www.newslab.org
We’ve
all read the stories about the sea change in television news. From
the ABC network news division to local stations from coast to coast,
VJs are taking over, the stories say. The “one man band”
reporter who shoots and edits once was found primarily in small markets
but is now common in the top 10. Right? Maybe not.
Research
by RTDNA and Hofstra University finds the use of VJs has indeed gone
up for the past several years but it hasn’t skyrocketed. About
a third of local stations now say they mostly use VJs. Three years
ago, it was a little over one in five. And the number of stations
that don’t use any VJs has gone down sharply, from 29% in 2006
to 18% today.
But researcher Bob Papper says the real surprise came
in answer to this question: Did you use VJs more or less in the past
year? Only 12% of news directors said they used them more, while 29%
said less. Those numbers aren’t at all what you’d expect
in current economic conditions, and even less so given that the survey
was in the field during the depths of the recession. Yes, almost half
of the news directors who responded said they expected to use VJs
more in 2010, but that’s what they always say. “Every year,
expected use of more goes up way faster than the actual use,”
said Papper.
The VJ experience
So if the numbers don’t suggest a “VJ revolution”
just yet, has the increased use of solo journalists made a difference
in television news? Mary Angela Bock, a former local television journalist
who now teaches at Kutztown University, has been trying to figure
that out. She interviewed more than 70 journalists and news managers
about their experience with VJs, and her findings don’t support
the claims often made about solo journalists.
Specifically, Bock finds little evidence that VJs produce
stories their stations wouldn’t get any other way, either by
expanding coverage or approaching stories more creatively. On the
contrary, she writes, solo journalists tend to “pre-conceptualize”
stories ahead of time.
Because they work alone, VJs will be more apt to look
for quick and easy access to story elements and they will be less
likely to stray from their pre-conceptualization. Instead of the smaller
cameras and simpler software making it easier to take chances, television
VJs see themselves as having less freedom to take chances with their
stories. That‘s not to say that video journalism is not opening
possibilities for new sorts of narratives; newspaper VJs are trying
to break new ground. VJs who do not produce a story a day can be flexible.
But organizations that demand daily filings on tight deadlines are
less likely to foster innovation.
The VJs Bock talked to complained that they’re
often assigned to easy, one-location features instead of hard news.
And that can leave them at a disadvantage when they start looking
for the next job, because their resume reels are stuffed with fluff.
It’s probably much too soon to reach a definitive
conclusion about how the increased use of VJs has affected local television
news, but as Bock writes, “the data…indicate that video
journalism can simply be a way for organizations to cut costs without
enriching the product.”
