WUSA Looks To Create One-Person Multimedia Journalists

From the Washington Post’s Paul Farhi:

The march of technology and the shrinking economy are beginning to take a toll on the traditional means of television news-gathering: the TV news crew.

Under a new agreement reached this week with its labor unions, WUSA, Channel 9, will become the first station in Washington to replace its crews with one-person “multimedia journalists” who will shoot and edit news stories single-handedly.

The change will blur the distinctions between the station’s reporters and its camera and production people. Reporters will soon be shooting and editing their own stories, and camera people will be doing the work of reporters, occasionally appearing on the air or on in video clips on Channel 9′s Web site.

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