In lean times, TV reporters must be jacks of all trades

Going it alone: Scott Broom of WUSA is framed by the camera shot he set up while reporting a story last week in College Park. (Susan Biddle For The Washington Post)

The new multimedia world "has forced us to make a tremendous investment in training," Horlick says. "Whether you're talking about WUSA or The Washington Post, we're all looking at how to best utilize our resources."

But many veterans view the practice as a step down. Gary Reels left WUSA in 2008 for several reasons, but among them was the prospect of becoming a one-man band and taking a 40 percent pay cut as Channel 9 renegotiated deals with its unions to allow reporters to shoot and edit their own footage. Most reporters and anchors at local stations have been forced to accept salary reductions of 5 percent to 30 percent or more.

Quick, easy coverage

Reels says he specialized in big, long-running stories but "that whole style of reporting has pretty much fallen by the wayside. True reporting, uncovering, digging takes more time. Part of the problem with local television news and network news is they're getting away from substance. They're not covering the statehouse, the city council, the county board. They do whatever's quick and easy."

Broom doesn't dispute the point. "Say you're investigating a crooked politician," he says. "If you're on a deadline, you're driving, you're shooting, you're editing, you may not have time to make that last phone call that's going to get you a breakthrough."

But Broom relishes the advantages. He recalls when Bruce Ivins, the government scientist suspected in the 2001 anthrax attacks, committed suicide last summer. While television crews camped out on Ivins's front lawn in Frederick, Broom knocked on other doors with his handheld camera, found a former colleague and "got some material others didn't have," he says.

A coat-and-tie journalist who has worked in television news for 27 years, Broom had to reinvent himself -- with the aid of a three-day boot camp on shooting video -- when he joined the Gannett station in 2007. Now he wears a black jacket and black Channel 9 cap and rarely goes to the newsroom. Instead he cruises the area in an unwashed white Honda hatchback, its front seat filled with a Dell laptop, police radio, tripod and Sony HVR-V1U video camera.

One reporter's story

Broom's assignment this past Tuesday was to get local reaction to reports that the Postal Service lost $300 million in the fourth quarter of last year and might eliminate Saturday delivery. He Googled various post offices and settled on the one in Garrett Park, nestled in a picturesque gray town hall alongside commuter rail tracks. While driving there he called a press officer for permission to shoot inside the building, which functions as a social center because the town has no home delivery.

By 11 a.m. Broom had just set up his tripod when 87-year-old Robert Calvert, who walks with a stoop, emerged from the post office. After saying hello, Broom clipped a microphone on Calvert and positioned him in front of the camera. Calvert, it turned out, had been a book publisher and was once the biggest user of the Garrett Park facility. When they were done, Broom shot video of Calvert walking to his car.

Inside, Broom struck up a conversation with Traci Whittier, who was mailing a package. The interview was rather bland until Broom brandished his BlackBerry and asked if she had one.

Whitter took out her iPhone and said she does all her e-mail on the device. Broom's handheld camera was pointed in the wrong direction, so he pretended not to hear and had her repeat the line. Whitter added that "I do love the post office. My iPhone can't mail a package."

Gold, he thought. Broom had been there for 35 minutes and already had the contrast between a man who says he remembers two-cent stamps and a mother whose Apple phone reduces her need for snail mail. He did one more interview and had enough for his 90-second report.

But Broom still had to shoot interior shots, zeroing in on such details as envelopes, a postage meter, a clerk taping a package -- all visual elements he would need to cover his narration. From the Honda, he uploaded raw video for an early Web version of the story -- "it establishes a presence so it's Google-searchable," he says. Broom had hoped to drive around looking for a mail carrier, but got distracted by other issues -- someone had hacked his Facebook page, and Facebook is incorporated into many of his reports -- and spent the rest of the afternoon editing on the laptop.

Transmitted by computer

At 5:30 Broom set up his computer on the back hatch of his car, hooked it to the camera, checked the audio and video settings and did a live shot from the post office through the video service Skype. Once on the air, his piece looked good, though the interior shots were a little dim. He began with quick sound bites from Calvert and Whittier as examples of "a real generational divide."

The juggling act is constant. A few years ago, Broom could have spent the afternoon hours reporting while other staffers dealt with shooting, editing and packaging. A one-man band is cheaper, quicker and more nimble -- but cannot produce the deeper sounds of a small journalistic orchestra.

Broom knows the Web is the future, but even in an era of shrinking audiences, television remains lucrative for local stations and networks alike.

"Sometimes you feel like you're riding a dinosaur toward the tar pits -- but the dinosaur still makes money," Broom says. "That's why we have to go digital without turning our backs on it."

Kurtz also works for CNN and hosts its weekly media program, "Reliable Sources."