This is a very easy-to-use application that takes account of the demands placed on journalists in the field,” said Nic Fulton, Chief Scientist of Reuters Media. “By running on handheld devices, rather than on bulkier laptop computers, the mobile journalism application enables us to create complete stories and file them for distribution, without leaving the scene. This saves us time and benefits our audience by ensuring that they receive high quality news that is absolutely up-to-date.”

You can see the whole toolkit here and example of the Reuters reporters work can be found at Reuters Mobile Journalism. As anyone who has been watching my videos over the last few days knows, I can, actually anyone can, make these amateur videos. However, for me, every time I make one, I keep thinking I have to learn to do this better.

At ConvergeSouth 2007 Brandon Gross and Saskia Wilson-Brown from CurrentTv, were carrying a little $100 Flip Video camera with an hour’s worth of low quality video capabilities. I said I was ready to trade up, and they were saying no, these hand-helds are the future, people are accustom to watching them. Maybe, but for me I have gone through that stage. I want to shoot better videos. However, whether I, and the other amateur videographers, want to go through the learning curve is another question that is yet to be answered.  

 Thanks to Josh Catone at Read/Write Web and Sam Harrelson for the pointers.