Doing It All for Television News   

When a grand jury in New York City cleared a police officer in a fatal shooting two months ago, journalists rushed to the neighborhood where the killing had occurred. Television camera crews filmed the protests that erupted; reporters conducted interviews.

Lynda La Vergne of New York 1 News did both.

The assignment was among the first for La Vergne, one of 20 reporters at the new 24-hour channel who also handle the video and audio for their stories. The Time Warner-owned cable channel assigns its reporters (dubbed "video journalists" or "veejays") to shoot, edit and report.

La Vergne, like other veejays, shoots with a 20-pound Sony Hi-8 video camera. For stand-ups, she uses a tripod. During interviews, she balances the $15,000 machine on her shoulder with her right hand while peering through the lens, then holds out a microphone with her left hand. "You don't want to make your interviews too long," she says. "Your arms get tired."

The method has its critics, who argue that the footage looks amateurish and that the non-union veejays are filling roles that should go to experienced crew members. "Who are these people – Superman or Superwoman?" scoffs John Haygood, a cameraman at the network-owned WCBS. "[New York] is the mecca of broadcasting. This isn't 'Adventures in Babysitting' " and shouldn't be a training ground for inexperienced photographers, he says.

But La Vergne, a former WCBS producer, says that while "we're not as artistic and creative as other camera people who have been doing this for years," she and her colleagues are all experienced reporters and producers and may soon be giving competing stations "a run for their money."

One advantage to working without a crew is mobility, says Paul Sagan, the channel's vice president for news. Although Sagan sends teams to cover complex stories and to stick together in tense situations, he says reporters working alone can be more flexible about assignments.

"If they need to stay longer, they stay," Sagan explains from a converted Manhattan bus terminal that serves as headquarters. "If they need to shoot something at night, they just change their shift. They don't have to worry about coordinating."

The reporters also "know what they need and know what they have," he says. "With a crew, you don't know if they were rolling every time you hoped they were. They may have perceived the story differently than you." From the field, La Vergne observes that her interview subjects "tend to feel more comfortable" when she's talking to them alone with her camera rather than with a four-person ensemble.

Some observers believe reporters working alone could dramatically change television news, if only because of the lower costs. "With the pervasiveness of amateur video, why in the world doesn't it make sense to stick a camera in the hands of a real reporter?" asks David Bartlett, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. The networks have already issued camcorders to some overseas stringers, he says, and the Associated Press plans to use veejays after the launch of its Washington-based television service in early 1994.

"If you're running around in a war zone, you don't want to be connected to somebody else by seven feet of cable," explains Mark Smith, director of the upcoming service. But he cautions that the AP won't make "one-man bands" a standard. "If you're interviewing the president of France, you need a sound, tech and lighting person, and a producer and talent, the whole ball of wax."

Sagan says many of NY1's critics are "closeminded about how the technology has changed." Bartlett agrees, adding that "reporters not willing to be versatile journalists have a great deal to fear. The world is passing them by."