Ever since the Second Coming of Christ oftelevision , news has been a vital part of programing . Likeradionews , it allowed audiences to get news as it was break rather than give birth to wait for the paper . But TV also had the advantage over both radio and newspaper of being able to beam celluloid footage of a newsworthy case into the audience ’s living rooms .
However , the trouble with former television receiver news show was that film footage was n’t uncommitted until hours after an event occurred . Thus watching tidings break on the boob tube simply consisted of a talking capitulum behind a desk in a studio apartment report what was happen – not much better than simply listening to the coverage on the tuner . Live footage on television was a rare effect indeed , reserved for immense , planned events , like the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953 . hot feeds film planning , boastful equipment and racing circuit provided by the telephone company to channel the feed .
It was n’t untilelectronic news gathering(ENG ) developed in the seventies and ' 80s that television set word crews could quickly set up hot television signals to send out back to the studio apartment and into citizenry ’s homes , drastically changing the face of idiot box news . ENG refers to the electronic technologies that reserve news gang to report from distant emplacement outside a studio . Before ENG came about , television set tidings footage snap outdoors of the studio apartment was commemorate on film , which had to be bestow back to the studio for time - consuming processing and editing before it was quick to air . Editing for example , involved manual clipping and spicing of the picture show by a trained employee . Often , an lynchpin report a late - weaken fib on the 6 o’clock news would have to end a chronicle by promise the hearing " film at 11 . "
The BBC attempted to streamline this appendage as early as 1962 with the Mobile Film Processing Unit using three different vehicles – a processing truck , an editing motortruck and a truck for convertingfilm projectionto television . The truck would race to cover a story and then send out the footage through microwave links to the studio . But it turn out that this so - name " three - ring carnival " of trucks did n’t work so well and was more trouble than it was worth , only live a few years [ source : Higgins ] .
The real advancement that ushered in the historic period of ENG was videotape . We spoke with Jonathan Higgins , an expert in the field of ENG and author of two books on the subject , who helped explicate how ENG changed news reporting .
How Electronic News Gathering Changed the News
Although it had been around since the 1950 ’s , videotape technology improved throughout the 1970s and ' 80s . It originally used expectant 2 - in - wide mag tape and required bulky equipment . Then come the Sony U - matic in 1971 , which used 3/4 - inch tape , and then last the Sony Beta in the eighties that used 1/2 - inch broad taping and became the industry banner . This also resulted in smallervideo cameras .
Videotape did not have to undergo the cumbrous processing of celluloid . Although at first , editing videotape was just as difficult as redact film , this too was solved by advances in taping decks throughout the 1970s and LXXX , which allow simple electronic redaction . And , as opposed to film , videotape was cheap and reusable . Videotape also resulted in more thoroughgoing news coverage because it meant crews need less time to process and cut , giving reporters more time to hide a story .
By the fourth dimension videotape technology win , the capableness for microwave contagion was well set up ( and used in the 1960s by the BBC ’s ill - fated Mobile Film Processing Unit ) . But the public toilet of videotape at long last allowed gang to more well apply microwave oven links to quickly send their footage back to the studio apartment . It even made live feeds more possible , as in the constabulary shootout with the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974 . Also in 1974 , KMOX , a station in St. Louis , Mo. , was the first to abandon flick and shift only to ENG . Stations all over the country made the switch over the next decade .
ENG technology also faced dramatic advancements during the digital old age of nineties and 2000s . Videotape was gradually desolate in favor of digital television transcription , which made edit out even easier and even allow journalist without particular applied science training to edit the footage on a laptop . TV crews also began using digital signal for their microwave transmission instead of analogue . Perhaps most importantly , however , is how work party began usingsatellitelinks to conduct their provender instead of country - base tie-in . Because a panorama of the sky set up a bloodline of mass for the microwave ( see sidebar ) , this earmark video feeds to be instantly sent half - way around the world . For more on this expression of ENG technology , study " What is digital satellite news assemblage ? "
