Part Idiscussed the current state of ENG and the move to mobile journalism

Part IIlooked at Euronews’ adoption of smartphone newsgathering

Part III looked at how Euronews NBC adopted iPhone journalism

Journalism, even journalism principals, has always been closely tied to innovation, invention and technology. Pencils, for example, enabled far quicker, more accurate notetaking than quill and ink. Many reporters used to learn shorthand to achieve New York World publisher Joseph Pulitzer’s admonition that the three most important words in journalism are “accuracy, accuracy and accuracy.”

The telegraph did not just vastly increase the speed and span of news acquisition and delivery. It was a key factor behind the objective reporting concept, succinct writing and inverted pyramid/main-facts-first style because of the high cost/low bandwidth of telegraph transmissions—not to mention the business case for non-partisan reporting.

The telegraph also spurred the creation of the Associated Press wire service, whose reporters delivered the same, neutral story to all member newspapers whose news coverage was otherwise highly biased.

"AP’s Broadcast News Handbook" summarizes the history:

AP came into being in 1848 and pioneered the notion of using the telegraph to distribute news to more than one point simultaneously. The AP had decided from its birth that it would present the news fairly and impartially. Covering the Civil War was one of the first big tests for The Associated Press, and it was a trial of fire of “objectivity”—an AP invention which was still considered an oddity in those days.

SMARTPHONE ENHANCEMENTS

Since the Civil War, an unending string of technologies has enhanced newsgathering and delivery. Huge lead-casting Linotype machines, for example, replaced typesetting by hand. Decades later phototypesetting rendered Linotype obsolete.

(The main reason I was selected editor of my campus newspaper in 1967 was my pledge to switch production from hot metal typesetting to lower cost, higher print quality offset.)

Today journalism is in crisis partly because of technology. The profession needs to deploy new technologies to dig out of that hole, technologies such as smartphones to replace ENG cameras and IP cellular transmissions from the news scene to the newsroom and from the newsroom to consumers.

Which brings us to bonded cellular technology and how it might help save journalism. But first a look at other smartphone enhancements.

Smartphones without accessories can capture news video in a pinch. But to produce consistently high-quality video they need a little help from their friends, like grips, tripods, LED lights, external mics, apps like FiLMiC Pro, backup storage and batteries—plus, bonded cellular bandwidth boost.

The latter may be the smartphone’s best newsgathering friend. Bonded cellular technology is essential for consumer-grade smartphones—which only have single modems that connect them to cell towers—to fully replace ENG cameras that use microwave and satellite links and, sometimes, cellular bonding to link to the newsroom.

Just as the smartphone is a technological wonder, so is bonded cellular; just a lot less known. It’s about increasing the bandwidth between points A and B (A often being the field and B the station) by magically combining multiple cell phone connections, plus, on occasion, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, microwave and satellite links. Smartphone bonded cellular apps can combine as many as three signals while bonded cellular appliances used with ENG minicams can combine as many as 12 network links. (For example, LiveU’s LU600 unit can be configured to bond up to 12 links using internal and external modems, internal Wi-Fi and two Ethernet ports.)

Euronews, which claims to have cut the cord to ENG and SNG, supercharges its iPhone live shot transmissions using the LiveU brand app. Similar apps are marketed by Quicklink, TVU, LiveU, Dejero, AVIWEST and Soliton, to name a few.

Sadly, at the moment, bonded cellular technology is working more against smartphone newsgathering than for it. It’s true that the apps boost smartphone newsgathering performance. But higher-powered, bonded cellular appliances—used alone and as hybrids with legacy microwave and satellite—are helping extend the life of otherwise obsolete ENG camcorders and OB trucks. It’s acting like life support for the dying.

Smartphone bonded cellar should have been helping kill off microwave and satellite live trucks for journalism’s sake. Those dinosaurs on wheels—which are destined for extinction anyway— are hurting journalism two ways: 1) By diverting money away from reporting staffs and, 2) by abetting widespread coverage of low and no-news-value events.

FASTER, CHEAPER AND ONLINE

If journalism is to ever rebound, video newsgathering must be much cheaper, much faster and delivered primarily online. That’s not going to happen with expensive and wasteful legacy equipment, inefficient workflows and outmoded delivery methods.

Here’s what’s tricky. Bonded cellular vendors make most of their profit from those high-end appliances that prop up ENG. They have less financial incentive to push their cheaper smartphone apps as ENG/SNG replacements.

Although most bonded cellular vendors do quietly tout their smartphone apps and small appliances as replacements for ENG/SNG trucks, Saint-Grégoire France-based AVIWEST is using a bigger megaphone. In a 2016 webinar co-hosted with its U.S. distributor, VidOvation, the opening slide showed ENG and SNG trucks to be obsolete. VidOvation’s Jim Jachetta warned vendors who may feel threatened by bonded cellular, “if you don’t change or if you don’t adapt, someone will do it for you. Someone will drive you out of business.” Jachetta told me that many of his customers are already replacing their microwave and satellite trucks with at least, their ENG camera-mount appliances.

“Many VidOvation and AVIWEST customers have reduced or eliminated their satellite and microwave ENG trucks in favor of the AVIWEST bonded cellular and IP Uplink,” Jachetta said. “In other cases, it is taking a long time to convince them! They are used to traditional workflow and it is difficult to take on change.”

AVIWEST’s Florian Kolmer is even more audacious. He agrees that an important reason for television news departments to deep six their legacy live trucks is “to divert huge amounts of money from ENG trucks to reporters.”

“The only way for media to get more audience and survive despite reduced ad budgets is to have efficient workflows targeted to online media and have [many] more reporters in the field,” he said. “We have customers who moved away from ENG cameras, satellite and entirely rely on smartphones and MOJOPRO applications, both for live and editing. With the appropriate training for their journalists, it became very professional and viewers don't notice it is made with smartphones over bonded cellular.”

It seems that Kolmer, a techie, may care more about journalism than many news directors. Kolmer checked the important boxes: Bonded cellular can cut video production costs in order to hire more reporters and more efficient workflows can help video news providers cope with smaller budgets.

Which is what Deborah Turness is attempting with NBC’s Euronews. Can she succeed where many other attempts have failed to use technology to deal with the journalism crisis? One standout failure is the newspaper industry’s ill fated “pivot to video.” The lesson: amateurish, half-hearted attempts to stick video news online while laying off reporters had no chance of success.

“If you want to inspire some dark laughter among publishing types, just mutter the phrase ‘pivot to video,’ wrote Simon Dumenco in AdAge’s “Why the ‘Pivot to Video’ has Failed.”

According to the Columbia Journalism Review, “Hundreds of journalists have lost their jobs while shiny-object-chasing publishers are no closer to creating cohesive video strategies to replace the traffic those writers were producing. Publishers who pivoted to video have forfeited the majority of their hard-won native audiences in only a year of churning out undifferentiated, bland chunks of largely aggregated ‘snackable’ video. That’s no one’s idea of success.”

Deploying video and cutting the cost of producing that video needs to result in more boots on the ground, not fewer. It should result in more “shoe leather” enterprise reporting, not more mindless aggregation and endless tweeting.

NBC News Group Chairman Andrew Lack, who has strong journalism credentials, made it clear in a memo that he wants to expand newsgathering with Euronews, not cut costs to trim reporter staffs.

“We plan to marry the power of the NBC News brand and the talent of our people with a formidable news asset in Europe in order to create an international offering that will strengthen our news organization and change the landscape of international news,” Lack said. “By joining forces with Euronews and their nearly 500 journalists, our audience on the broadcast network, on MSNBC and our digital platforms will benefit from a greatly expanded news gathering capability.”

READING TEA LEAVES

It does not take a tasseographer reading tea leaves or a fortune teller peering into a crystal ball to divine where news reporting and presenting are headed, despite print and broadcast executives clinging to legacy workflows and technologies.

Clear news consumption trends:

• More video news, despite the print media’s calamitous pivot to video.
• More direct internet/OTT access to news, less demand for newsprint, broadcast, satellite and cable delivery.
• More nonlinear/on-demand access to news via the internet, rapidly decreasing preference for nonlinear/scheduled delivery via anchored news shows.
• Demand for more live and ultra-quick video reporting.
• Higher demand for real and vetted news, less demand for “fake” and hyped news.

Those television executives who seem to say, “I'll give up my OB trucks when you pry them from my cold, dead hands," may be taking their legacy equipment and workflows to the grave. There are simply too many internet news outlet startups and too many newspapers going online—all without making huge investments in traditional equipment and methods—for the television news golden age, now sputtering, to last another decade.

Linear video news delivery will make money, even if revenue flow continues to decrease, for the near, foreseeable future. There’s no reason to begin shutting down television news studios. But there are plenty of reasons to not put more money into them. Why NBC and Telemundo, among others, are investing millions on new, supposed “state-of-the art” news studios is baffling. Should the linear, broadcast model keep getting top priority and funding while digital, nonlinear delivery continues getting short shrift?

Consider one of several giant steps taken by the Swedish newspaper chain Mittmedia in connection with deploying smartphones and Bambuser’s low-tech, non-bonding, live video platform.

According to a Mittmedia press release, “All of the 550 reporters in MittMedia are trained to broadcast live—both in breaking news situations and planned broadcasts—and can therefore, with the aid of the hub, transmit with a range of different broadcasting tools. Among others; the app and the live video tool Bambuser Iris Reporter. During 2016 MittMedia had over one million live video streams.”

Good grief! A newspaper chain doing what Sweden’s local television news outlets should have done: Prioritizing online delivery and using smartphones with cheap streaming software instead of expensive mobile trucks that really aren’t all that mobile.

(Bambuser, however, may not be the newspaper chain’s best choice for live video. Sweden’s Bambuser does not do cellular bonding. The company is also weathering a serious financial storm despite the Associated Press being a financial stakeholder. A hint for MittMedia: replace Bambuser with a bonded cellular platform.)

Finally, a word about 5G. Won’t Bambuser be as good as today’s bonded cellular as 5G comes on board? In other words, will 5G kill off bonded cellular?

No, says Jachetta.

“5G is going to be quite different compared to 3G/4G: it will be deployed on higher frequency bands covering very small cells and not permeating into buildings,” he said. “It will also be more susceptible to obstructions such as buildings, trees, etc. Higher frequency bands typically support higher bit rates—this will be the case with 5G cellular. 5G will be a supplement to 4G and 3G. 5G will most likely not replace 3G/4G.

“It will be mostly deployed in places like stadiums or big venues, but it is not going to cover large areas or transmit long distances,” Jachetta continued. “It will not kill bonded cellular as most areas will be only covered with 4G and cellular networks usage is booming, so 3G is saturated for some time already and 4G is start to become saturated in many countries.”

On the other hand, in early 2017 Bob Kovacs—videographer, former Nextel engineer and TV Technology contributor—praised bonded cellular over microwave trucks for its “high-bandwidth return capability for cuing and IFB built into the system.”

In his article, “Bonded Cellular Shrinks as it Grows,” Kovacs wrote, “The big disadvantage of bonded cellular is that the digital link can vary widely from lousy to great—you might be sure you’ll get 20 Mbps, but find out that it won’t go higher than 3 Mbps.”

He added, “Bonded is quickly becoming passé, as wireless network speeds ramp up. 4G wireless networks are now common, and they theoretically have speeds as high as 100 Mbps.”

Two years have passed since Kovacs made that assessment and 5G deployment has begun. I asked him if he still thinks bonded cellular is still on the way out.

He does. Sort of.

“Bonding multiple wireless circuits results in a more reliable service, and that is always desirable,” Kovacs said. “That said, high speed circuits are continually getting more reliable, so the time may soon come when bonding gives you 99-percent reliability and not bonding gives you 97-percent. Is it worth the added cost and complexity to get the extra 2-percent of reliability?”

In any event, one way or another, 5G and bonded cellular are going to play key roles as smartphone newsgathering overtakes ENG.

The 360-degree, virtual reality video melody is so alluring that it has enchanted the likes of the Associated Press, New York Times,CNN, The Washington Post andmany other major news outlets. 360 video’s chief proponents are Google and Facebook, who provide cash to news outlets to post immersive, 3D video news stories online. It’s touted as the “next big thing” in journalism.

The Google-Facebook duopoly provides publishers and broadcasters cash to post 3D video news stories online. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg—the same one whose company many claimed facilitated theRussian fake newsattack on Hillary Clinton—is investingbillions in 360 video. The two social media giants get cheap news content to draw eyeballs to their own 360 virtual reality platforms.

Using a mouse, touchscreen or special goggles for the deepest immerse, news consumers can navigate inside digital scenes of ostensibly major news events. They can bypass a reporter’s selective—perhaps biased—shooting and editing and perform journalistic duties on their own.

The fact that even reputable news organizations are spending time and money to fiddle with 360 video signifies a desperation to cope with digital disruption. Even though consumers have already rejected passive, big-screen 3D for sports and entertainment programming, many online news providers are giving small-screen, interactive 3D a go.

The Associated Press puts the advent of 360 video up there with the invention of television: “The printing press allowed people to read each other’s ideas; radio allowed us to hear them; television allowed us to see them and immersive media is now allowing us to feel as if we’re actually with others as they speak” (from AP’s “A guide for storytellers in a world of immersive 3-D content.”).

“The era of 360-degree video is just beginning, but already we’ve seen its potential and begun to harness the strength that it offers our storytelling,” said Jaime Holguin, the Associated Press’s manager of news development. Indeed, the AP’s 360 video “House to House: The Battle for Mosul,” is held out as a shining example of journalism that “brought viewers to the frontlines of the battle against ISIS.”

STAGED? FAKED? “THE BATTLE FOR MOSUL” 360 STORY 

Be prepared to work your butt off searching for AP’s star 360 video story—“The Battle for Mosul”—to find what are supposed to be the most interesting or important scenes. You’ll need to constantly drag a mouse or move a finger on a screen, left and right, up and down. Many clips are so short you don’t have anywhere near the time to find whatever it is you might want or need to see. You are in control, but out of control.

You will not find any house-to-house fighting as promised in the headline. It may come off as unwieldy, even boring, compared with conventional 2D efforts by other news agencies like this piece by French station France 24, English broadcast,covering the same campaign.

The AP piece takes you back to the silent film era where you had to read subtitles to get part of the story. Scroll too far one way or the other, side-to-side or up-and-down, and you’ll miss AP’s captions. VR 360 advocates call this “dynamic storytelling.” It’s an expressionoriginally applied to using 360 video to immerse viewers in gaming and advertising experiences. Many news organizations apparently think if dynamic storytelling can sell products and video games, than it can also sell news.

The most dynamic scene in the AP’s 3D Mosul piece comes at 3:04 that shows Iraqi soldiers on a rooftop. One yells (translated into text) “There is a car bomb coming!” You very quickly hear audio of machine gun fire, you might see some smoke and muzzle flashes if you scrolled to the right place, but you never see who is shooting and what they’re shooting at. After 20 seconds the video and audio fades to black as the machine gun continues firing.

The next scene in AP’s example of dynamic storytelling jumps to some Muslim soldiers bowing to Allah in prayer. The car bomb storyline simply vanished. There is no video of the car either during or after its purported attack. No caption explains how the attack ended. It was a story with a beginning, but no middle and no end.

“I did not film the vehicle, as it was outside of the camera’s field of view.” Maya Alleruzzo, the AP’s chief photo editor for the Middle East, explained via email. What did happen to the car? Did it even have a bomb? Was anyone killed? I asked.

Alleruzzo replied with another email: “I am unaware of what happened to the car. My team and I left the roof quickly to film civilians fleeing on the street below.”

Her answer defied logic. Even if her 360 camera missed the shot, why not at least take a peek and see what happened to the car? Maybe shoot wreckage video with a 2D camera, or, at a minimum, ask one of the soldiers what happened.

So, I asked another, more detailed question:

“Could it be you were snookered by the Iraqi troops who may have wanted to conjure up some action (machine gun fire) for your camera? I could see the street in the direction of the muzzle flashes and I could not see anything. Usually those jerry-rigged "car bombs" are stopped or they explode. I don’t think they’re on joy rides. Had I been a reporter on site I would have looked, I would have at least asked questions about it and I doubt I would have gone down to the street where it could still present a threat if not fully disabled and disarmed. It seems like it was a fake attack.”

No response.

In the meantime, I had already left a phone message requesting an interview with Francesco Marconi, AP’s automation and artificial intelligence manager and chief 360 video advocate. He declined returning the call, so I copied him on my email exchange with Alleruzzo and asked for a comment.

Still nothing.

Finally, I emailed AP’s media director, Lauren Easton, asking for AP’s position on the piece. I explained that the machine gun fire appeared to be staged, that it is a fake or imaginary attack:

“Allerzzo’s response that she did not bother to look or ask about the results of the attack seems preposterous, but your office may have a more plausible explanation,” I wrote. “Also, the headline says the video is ‘riveting’ and ‘harrowing.’ Would you point out which scenes are ‘riveting and harrowing?’ Do you see any house-to-house fighting captured on video?”

Easton provided a one-line reply and declined further comment.

“AP stands by the video, which speaks for itself.”

If AP leaves the video speaking for itself, then it certainly was a faked attack. The video says so. The camera was positioned just above the machine gun and had a better view of the street. Yet the video shows no vehicle.

But the video isn’t finished talking. Thanks to the 360 shot, the camera picks up people on the rooftop and records what they’re doing. It turns out that besides the stationary 360 camera, there were at least four other cameras, all 2D, all being used the old-fashioned, non-dynamic pointy-and-shoot way.

All four cameras were to the ready before the solider yelled, “There is a car bomb coming!” and before the machine gun began firing. In other words, all four cameras were either filming or ready to film the action before the purported car was supposedly spotted.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

The video shows what the four photographers did. What appear to be two Iraqi soldiers (Figs. 1 & 2) are holding their cellphone cameras high, pointed in the direction of the street, before the warning was sounded and before the firing commenced. Neither rushes to the ledge, but, instead, both casually pan to their right, away from the line of fire.

Across from the two smartphone videographers are what are likely two reporters. One of them (Fig. 2) holds a DSLR still/video camera up high, maybe to shoot toward the street. It could be Maya Allerzzo herself. But instead of going forward to the ledge to get a better view, she crouches down and aims the camera lower, directly at the 360 camera. Then she begins crawling away from the action. If it was her, she could have used her DSLR camera to photograph or video the purported vehicle that was out of the 360-camera’s range.

Another cameraperson (No. 3) holds up a video journalist-style, two-handled camera rig, pointing it toward the machine gun. But instead of moving forward to the ledge, to get a better look at the street, the videographer turns and walks away, showing no fear of a bomb that could explode at any second.

Maya Allerzzo

Finally, as the attack segment ends, one of the two photographers on the right side of the video, No. 4, does walk to the ledge to get what would have been the best shot of any oncoming car bomb. But as soon as he gets there he pans the camera to his right, in the direction of the 360 camera and machine gun. Then the audio fades out and the video fades to black.

The story the video does tell is not about war action, but about journalism ethics.

THE TEMPTATION TO STAGE

OK, even conventional videographers and mobile journalists are tempted to shoot staged video (or semi-staged, where the journalist does not direct the action, but the news subjects act out for cameras they know are there). It’s just that 360 VR cameras really lend themselves to staged video because they are more difficult to place. They cannot be easily concealed because they have to be in the middle of the action, not at the periphery, keeping some distance, where they would act more like objective observers.

Greenbuzz, a video production company blog, wrote that 360 video in journalism has been criticized for having potential ethical issues. “Some believe that the use of it includes creating a ‘staged experience.’ This idea brings up concerns over whether the full range view of 360 video is staged unnaturally. Unnatural staging could result in a change in the authenticity of the story.”

The Washington Post defends 360 video, citing Donald Trump’s complaint that the media never showed massive crowds attending his campaign rallies. “Turn the cameras around!" he told reporters in the press pen. "Show the crowd!" “But our cameras were already turned around,” the Postreported. “To be more precise, we used a 360 camera to record everything, all around. If you've ever wondered what it's like to attend a Trump campaign event, this is as close as you can get without actually being there.”

It’s not just mainstream media enticed by the 360-video siren’s song. So are journalism schools and media publications. The Columbia Journalism Reviewproclaims that “the future is now with VR journalism.” “In traditional storytelling, journalists can steer the camera, decide where to focus, and even suggest where the audience should direct its attention. In virtual reality, participants can choose where to look when, and which questions they want answered, by inspecting the virtual environment at their own pace and from multiple perspectives.”

Many journalism schools have climbed onto the VR 360 bandwagonX—some with money from the big social media players; among them USC. A University of Southern California press release proudly announced that “(c)urrently leading the charge for 360-degree and virtual reality-based journalism…is Associate Professor Robert Hernandez, now entering his third year of teaching his trademarked virtual reality journalism class called ‘JOVRNALISM.’”

But is what USC calls “jovrnalism” just a gimmick? Or even journalism at all?

Cutting to the chase: Yes, it’s a gimmick. No, it’s not journalism. The news 360 video king is wearing no clothes. It’s among indicators that traditional news media are lost in a digital disruption wilderness and are willing to try anything to get out. Even by prostituting journalism.

Traditionally, journalists do the work, not news consumers. Reporters—based on training, experience and professional standards—are “news consumer surrogates,” seeking out news sources and scenes on behalf of consumers, gathering the most important facts and opinions and shooting video of the most relevant images. They cull out the mundane and less relevant. Their stories become highlight reels so consumers don’t have to watch or attend the whole game.

A 180 FROM 360’S ROCKY SHOALS

It’s time to silence the siren song and get back to basic journalism. Video news outlets should not waste time and money R&D’ing 360 VR on actual human beings rather than on focus group subjects. Online video news providers should have let Samsung, Google and Facebook crash onto 360’s rocky shoals without taking mainstream media with them.

And they will crash. 3D, even with immersive interaction and with news topics, works no better on small screens than big screens; probably worse. The potential audience needs to be much larger than just geeks with goggles.

Most—if not all—of the same new outlets that push 3D video haven’t even mastered television-news-proven, 2D video. Check it out. Go to the Washington Post and New York Times websites. How many of their daily, primary news stories are available in old-fashioned 2D video as well as text? Usually zero. What non-360 video that does appear is usually provided by outside news agencies, like Reuters and AP, and often poorly packaged at that. (Hint: if you’re going to pivot to video then pivot decisively, don’t just lean awkwardly.)

360 news video never made any sense. At a time of massive news media budget cuts and personnel layoffs, outlets should have been looking to lower, not increase production costs. At a time when news consumers are demanding more speed and more live reporting, outlets should have not have been going to slower, less flexible camera systems. At a time when mobility is big, outlets should have been looking for light and agile, not heavier and clumsier.

The news media’s obsession with 360 comes at a time when there are newer, but admittedly more boring systems and methods that are worth expanding, such as smartphone newsgathering, bonded cellular IP instead of microwave and satellite field-to-station transmissions and drone newsgathering. (To its credit, AP does support smartphone newsgathering and bonded cellular via its partnership with LiveU Inc.)

In other words, when it comes to 360, it’s time for the news media to do a 180.