Journalists getting the ‘mojo’

I’ve just been reading Jeff Jarvis’ excellent column in The Guardian and whilst it’s naff all to do with radio and I did say something about it. To summarise… Jarvis writes about new media and about journalism, he’s great, he speaks sense and writes far better than I ever could. So, it’s worth reading. (check the blogroll folks)

Anyway, this week he’s writing about a neat adaptation of a mobile phone that Reuters are using for reporters in the field - the ‘mojo’ lets them record audio and video and upload from the field. This is exciting stuff, especially for geeks like me. You don’t need laptops, ISDN, satellite trucks or all the hugely and expensive pieces of kits we once had to use to get something back to the office or studio. Jarvis says this is great because it’s far less threAnd there is the first fundamental change brought on by the mojo phone:

It’s small, unobtrusive, unthreatening. You don’t feel as if you’re
talking to a camera and, in turn, to thousands or millions online.
You’re talking to a phone; how silly. Other Reuters mojo journalists
told me they had the same experience: It makes recording people more
casual and perhaps candid and certainly easier.

Of course you get the same with a little MP3 player and there’s evidence that these can work and that’s great, people are relaxed, they don’t perform and you get a good story. The risk of course in all of this is that sometimes you may lack the credibility or authority that you really need - we have had this HHB flash mics, even though they cost the same as portable recorder, because they’re small and look simple people do wonder how ‘real’ you really are! The issue is also in all of this rush to get content ‘out there’ do we miss out that crucial stage that we used to have… thinking about what we say, giving the story space to be told rather than letting the audience work it out themselves?

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