Destination: Dubai
Instead of seeing it as a threat, corporate media is taking the technology that enables so-called 'citizen reporting' – which I'm still not sold on –and using it for journalistic good. Take a look at what Paul Gough reports in today's Hollywood Reporter -- where the slogan should be "It's not just for Hollywood anymore."
After two decades of cutbacks in international bureaus, ABC News is bucking the trend by creating one-person operations that will dramatically boost its coverage in Africa, India and elsewhere.For years – and even with the prominence of global issues on our national agenda – the news industry has been cutting its foreign news bureaus, as reported nonstop in MediaLand, like this February article from the Christian Science Monitor:The small offices, staffed by a reporter-producer with the latest in hand-held digital technology, cost a fraction of what it takes to run a full-time bureau. But the work they file will be featured not only on ABCNews.com and ABC News Now but also occasionally on such ABC shows as "World News Tonight" and "Good Morning America."
The mini-bureaus are being opened in Seoul; Rio de Janeiro; Dubai; New Delhi and Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Nairobi, Kenya.
It is ironic in this era of globalization, as international affairs rise to the top of the agenda, that some media companies are forsaking the responsibility to inform readers, listeners, and viewers of what is happening in the world, and analyze what it means.The conventional wisdom in media circles is that new technologies are making it harder for the news industry to compete for consumer's time – blogs, streaming video, podcasts, etc. But here is one news entity that is using the strengths, capabilities (and, yes, cost-effectiveness) of the new technology to make their content more robust. Maybe rather than focus on adding another glitzy graphic or upgrading a broadcast into high-definition, news outlets can appreciate the bigger-picture benefits and applications of new technologies.Faced with declining circulation, rising costs, and competition from the Web, some large newspapers are closing foreign bureaus and slashing budgets for travel. Recently, The Boston Globe announced that it would close its last three foreign bureaus – in Berlin, Bogotá, and Jerusalem – after three decades of reporting from staff members based overseas.
The Baltimore Sun is closing its bureaus in South Africa and Russia after closing its bureaus in Britain and China earlier.