ABC announces largest expansion of foreign news bureaus in two decades

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After two decades of cutbacks in international bureaus, ABC News is bucking the trend by creating one-person operations that will dramatically boost its coverage in Africa, India and elsewhere. The small offices, staffed by a reporter-producer with the latest in hand-held digital technology, cost a fraction of what it takes to run a full-time bureau. But the work they file will be featured not only on ABCNews.com and ABC News Now but also occasionally on such ABC shows as “World News Tonight” and “Good Morning America.”

The mini-bureaus are being opened in Seoul; Rio de Janeiro; Dubai; New Delhi and Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Nairobi, Kenya.

“Technology now makes it possible for us to have bureaus without a receptionist, three edit suites and studio cameras and so on,” ABC News president David Westin told The Hollywood Reporter. “The essence of what we do is reporting, it’s not production. Production is the way you get it on the air and to people, but reporting is the essence.”

Each of the seven reporters will work from home and travel around their region carrying a small DV camera and editing-enabled laptop. They’ll report, write, shoot and edit their pieces, though they also will have support from others at ABC News. Most of the work will be uploaded via broadband to New York, though they will carry a portable satellite dish for the field where broadband isn’t available.

Westin believes that the growth of India and the rest of the Far East make it important for ABC News to increase its coverage of the region; two bureaus are in India, one in South Korea and another in Indonesia. Westin has been considering opening a bureau in Latin America but said that the digital bureau in Rio makes it easier for them to cover the countries down there.

Westin said a second wave of digital bureaus is in the works, including one in Tehran, and at some point smaller markets.

Source: Reuters via Media Network Weblog