I butted heads over that attitude for years at my university because the TV and radio faculty were shocked, shocked, that I would even consider teaching students to use any equipment that was not “broadcast quality.” The result of such an attitude is that no gear is purchased, and people do not learn the techniques, and the organization suffers.

In my post about Jerry Wolford’s Ku Klux Klan story, I repeated his hope that someday he’ll get “a real camera.” But in my opinion, the footage he shot with a $1,500 Sony HDR-SR1 looks absolutely great.

I hear you about the living room devices, though. I don’t know if Jerry’s video would look good on my big TV. Maybe not!

I want to make clear that I’m not advocating expensive equipment for casual use by reporters.

I’m advocating something even more radical: expensive employees who know what they’re doing.

And if a paper is going to devote an employee’s time to doing video, the additional cost of semi-professional gear is a minor issue.

With increasing bandwidth and more living room appliances like AppleTV, quality will become increasingly important. Already YouTube and other online portals are making efforts to increase the quality of content because that’s what consumers want.

Quality is irrelevant when novelty is the driving force. But for long-term, repeat audiences we have to do better than most papers are now. That doesn’t mean doing TV. That means doing story-telling.

But for reporters who are shooting companion clips that complement their stories … They still need good training, but I think they should skip the $10,000 in equipment.