NAMPA — Idaho News 6 has seen massive changes in the way news is gathered during its 50 years in business. On our anniversary, our Roland Beres takes a look back that amazing changes in technology that make covering the news both easier and more insightful
(verbatim of story that aired is below)
Yes a lot of things have changed, but one thing remains the same...
The who, what, where, when, why and how are all still keys to a good story.
But gathering that information has come a long way in 50 years.
(steve bertell) "looking back at news news gathering in 1974, it was almost prehistoric. And i say i use the 3 t's; a telephone, typewriter and a teletype. We didn't have internet, we didn't have a lot of the instant communication. So we relied on the ap or upi teletype for national stories."
And there were all sorts of cameras we've used over the years, first film. Then digital tape with multitudes of upgrades.
"take a look at this. This is our archive room! We've literally got hundreds upon hundreds these video tapes down here. All of which, we have to keep, because, let's face it, this is literally the history of idaho."
We have to keep old tape machines around just to play them if we need them.
And today, we have cameras so small they get a vantage point never before possible.
Our neighborhood outdoor reporter steve dent relies on a waterproof go pro to do much of his work.
(dent) 3:10 "you can put it inside stuff where you can't put another camera and so it's made it a lot- it allows for way more creativity, i'll say that."
... And did i mention he's got a drone.
(dent) "this is the moneymaker right here, the drone."
(dent) i actually do a lot of stories with just the drone and the go pro. And a lot of those stories are what you see when i'm out mountain biking or kayaking or hiking in remote areas where i don't want to bring the tripod and i don't want to bring the big camera."
This is our old microwave live truck.
And for decades it was the only way to go live around town, until this arrived; a cellular backpack.
And these days no body needs a big edit bay to construct a story.
Reporters can use a macbook to edit their story and then they can send it back to the station from anywhere there's internet service.
So with all this technology, the question is, what's next?
(dent?) "i mean, i kinda imagine at some time they'll have like kinda like a camera that where you just hit like your glasses and you use your eyes to shoot whatever you see is what it records, but who knows."
