Stations Must Embrace Personal Tools

Terry Heaton writes:  "... Web researcher Gordon Borrell says, "The deer now have guns," and he's right. With a PC, a $100 web camera, a $200 piece of real-time TV production software that includes a teleprompter, free blog software, FTP access to a server, a small digital camera, editing software, and an imagination, anybody can be a TV station, a newspaper or a multimedia news operation. In order to do so, however, the person running the enterprise needs to know how to do everything.  ¶  And here's the amazing thing about that. Those who are learning all these new tools and languages, including simple HTML and CSS, are able to go beyond what specialized professionals can do. In an institutionalized specialization paradigm, the only way to compete with these citizen pioneers is to add more specialists to handle the flexibility that technology has given them. This is the conundrum for the mainstream media.  ¶  The "quality" argument pales in comparison with a creative mind at the helm of a control panel like this. ..."  Link: Donata Communications.