
The coronavirus crisis will end, but the distributed newsroom is here to stay - rbanffy
https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/04/the-coronavirus-crisis-will-eventually-end-but-the-distributed-newsroom-is-here-to-stay/
======
PragmaticPulp
If there's one thing I've learned from years of managing remote, distributed,
WFH teams, it's to never underestimate the efficiency of in-person
collaboration.

WFH is almost unanimously popular among the HN comment section demographic.
These thought pieces declaring an early victory for WFH tend to get upvoted
because they tell everyone what they want to hear: WFH good, offices bad.

WFH is challenging. People who are new to WFH tend to assume that their
workload will go down, that their efficiency will go up, and that they'll be
happier if they leave their homes less. For some people, this is true.
However, for most people it takes a lot of time and deliberate effort to reach
the same levels of in-office productivity while working from home.

Coronavirus quarantine isn't even a good representation of WFH for many
people. People with young children at home are struggling to balance childcare
with their dayjob. People are struggling to resist the urge to binge Twitter
for Coronavirus news and opinions all day. We're all going stir-crazy from the
isolation. Many people's workloads have decreased as business has slowed down.

The author is exactly right that Coronavirus will force companies to refine
their WFH workflows and tools, but I think it's not accurate to declare this
an early victory for WFH. Ideally, we emerge from this with more options for
those who prefer to WFH, but I don't see Coronavirus quarantine convincing the
majority of companies or people that WFH is inherently superior.

~~~
ashtonkem
It's entirely possible that this will be bad for WFH in general, as many
people will mentally conflate working from home with an unpleasant and scary
time.

Personally I think the push for WFH is much smaller and noisier than most
people think. People who don't want WFH, like me, tend to be pretty quite on
the subject because "the status quo is fine for me, thanks" isn't something
you can get fired up about.

~~~
baron_harkonnen
Why do all of the discussions about WFH center around what employees want? I
started my career with my own office (at two different jobs) and transitioned
form cubicles to open office. Each step in this process has been notably worse
than the previous and no one argues about that at all.

The reason WFH hasn't taken off has nothing to do with want works best for
employers. WFH hasn't taken off because having a physical presence has been a
huge part of how companies not only control employees but show off their
status. Startups had to be in SF because VCs wanted to see an office.

Now that everyone is forced home more companies are seeing that having an
office is a liability, and is not nearly as necessary since everyone has had
to learn to do remote work so the cultural inertia has shifted immediately.

I suspect we'll see a change to WFH, not because workers like it, but because
it is cheaper and production doesn't change (not to mention it quickly reveals
whose "production" is really just physically presenting in an office)

~~~
npo9
> I suspect we'll see a change to WFH, not because workers like it, but
> because it is cheaper and production doesn't change (not to mention it
> quickly reveals whose "production" is really just physically presenting in
> an office)

I’m unconvinced and very skeptical that on the average across all people that
transitioned to WFH due to COVID-19 there is “no change” in measurable
productivity.

~~~
ashtonkem
The relative merits of WFH productivity wise are debatable. Being forced to
WFH unplanned and against your will, during a stressful pandemic? If you think
productivity isn’t down per hour* I have a bridge to sell you.

*A lot of workers are surely working more hours to compensate, or out of boredom. This presents a whole different set of risks.

------
lifeisstillgood
A generalist (a half decent you-tuber) would be able to set up something
better than 'default microphone' at home - I seem to recall late night US talk
show hosts doing monologues from their hallway.

But these guys relied upon a team that was 'just there'.

The corporation had done the work - the knowledge on how to make a TV
programme was implicit in the whole organisation, not in one persons head.

I think this is the real 'reveal' \- it is possible to have much smaller
corporations, you just need much higher skilled (perhaps broader-skilled)
employees.

In HN terms, very very few companies need vast Spark-enabled data centres
replicated across multiple time zones. You can go a very long way with the
data centre equivalent of pro-sumer.

~~~
wayoutthere
I don't think you're entirely wrong, but most corporations spend the majority
of their specialization on the revenue generation side of things. In media,
this means sales and ad tech. "Making a TV program" is something that has been
outsourced to studios for a long time.

It's also a nightmare trying to hire for broad skillsets. Increased
specialization is the only way to scale on the business side of the house.
Even YouTubers have agents and managers who handle the money side of things.
The influencer management companies largely act as a studio from a
distribution standpoint, and most are owned by major studios at this point.
There is no free lunch; those YouTubers have a huge centralized infrastructure
with an army of specialized people, it's just funded by management fees paid
by the talent instead of a corporate budget.

Don't discount the level of professionalism behind most YouTube content; this
shit has been heavily controlled by established media interests (Comcast/NBC,
Disney, etc.) for at least 5 years. It just looks different than the old media
model, but it's all owned by the same players.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
So, those kids doing a billion views, aren't just managed by two pushy
parents, but have been bought by Disney?

I beleive you - but would love to read more about it - any references?

~~~
wayoutthere
I don't have references because of the intentionally opaque way this stuff is
negotiated; but the level of consolidation was one of the most eye-opening
things I found when building a video product in the space back in 2016.
Rooster Teeth (owned by Otter Media, which is WarnerMedia/AT&T) is a good
example here; they have their fingers in a lot more YouTube pies than is
obvious at a glance.

But yeah -- the real money in video is still in negotiated campaigns that
target a specific channel or set of channels. There are only so many ad
buyers, so there are benefits to centralizing ad slot sales as well as SSP
activity.

Those kids doing a billion views have a magic combination of personal
charisma, work ethic and well-connected, pushy parents in the media industry.
Things were different pre-2015 but the level of sophistication required to get
big in online video is much higher than people think. There are a lot of
talented, charismatic people out there making videos; the ones who find
financial success are the ones who can amplify their voice above the crowd
(which really just takes money).

------
michaelcampbell
I've seen a lot of people, both professionally and personally, say that this
pandemic is going to change so many things. I don't buy it. The in-office
culture is not only more beneficial to many aspects of many types of work
(absurd cost-saving "open office" plans notwithstanding), but more
importantly, middle management has a vested interest in it.

There's no way this is ever going to be seriously disrupted in my lifetime;
middle management has too much information gating ability and justification
making ability to ever let the power of being in control of the working class
by using offices/on-location work places wane.

~~~
foobarian
It's got nothing to do with middle management. As long as WFH is not mandatory
by fiat, people are going to work on-site to be competitive for
promotions/bonuses, because in-person work is just more efficient.

------
tyingq
I've been watching my local news, and I'm surprised how little the stations
seem to be doing for their on-air folks that are working from home.

They all seem to be using a mish-mash of cameras and microphones. Some good,
and some not.

The station should have shipped them all kits with high quality gear, software
to blur the background where needed, a list of tips (e.g, don't let your kid
play Steam when you're on-air,etc.), and so on.

~~~
sandworm101
>> The station should have shipped them all kits with high quality gear.

Have you seen how big a professional camera actually is? There are basic
physics reasons why they need to be so big. They are complex machines backed
by a team of experts.

[https://petapixel.com/2019/12/03/this-video-explains-why-
tv-...](https://petapixel.com/2019/12/03/this-video-explains-why-tv-cameras-
are-still-so-huge-and-expensive/)

A film/tv studio is a factory and, just like a steel mill, what it does cannot
be replicated in the home. What we are all watching from these in-home shoots
is sub-par footage more akin to 1980s soap operas than modern studio footage.

Watch the various Linux Tech Tips episodes about their storage woes. When you
film/edit on 4 or 8k raw footage, just editing together a simple youtube
segment requires racks of servers, another thing not practical in homes.

~~~
tyingq
Sorry. That's not what I'm suggesting. Many local news stations are having
their reporters work from home using whatever crap home equipment they happen
to have.

I'm suggesting the station help them with better webcams and mics, and
tips/help for their setup, like where to put the table lamp.

There's clearly room for improvement, as some of the reporters have decent
audio and video (for home equipment), and others don't. Some are barely
audible, pixelated, washed out / overlighted, etc.

In short, I mean "higher quality home/consumer gear plus some training".

~~~
pwg
> I'm suggesting the station help them with better webcams and mics, and
> tips/help for their setup, like where to put the table lamp.

The issue is likely the suddenness of the shift.

The news studio likely had whatever number of 'field' cameras/mics/lights they
use for those "on site" shots, plus a few spares of each to cover for the
normal damage that would occur from "in the field" use.

But they very likely did not have enough spares to give the twelve on-air
personalities that make up a typical broadcast their own local gear, _and_
still have enough "field" equipment to do those "on site" shots they want to
do anyway.

The problem is very likely simple logistics. They had not, ever, planned to
have every on air personality who normally works the studio all working from
home at the same time, and so they simply did not have enough spare equipment
to outfit everyone all at the same time.

------
ck2
for the love of [deity] some startup please sell the networks a high quality
webcam solution on a private network with low latency/lag and multi-path
routing to keep it online because I cannot stand to watch broadcasts anymore,
it's total amateur hour

all these reporters are using potato cams with some highly filtered high
latency public streaming service and it might as well be some kid in his
basement - speaking of which why do you not even have a backdrop, we don't
want to see your ugly bookcase or oddly posh kitchen

~~~
lostapathy
The bigger issue with webcam quality is lighting, not the camera itself. Once
the camera has to start making trade-offs due to lack of light, quality goes
downhill fast, even on great cameras.

~~~
ghaff
I agree with that. The biggest problem I see is people backlit by a window.
Personally, I have a higher-end webcam but the biggest difference I see is
people who have good front lighting and the webcam at a reasonable angle
versus those in obviously dim rooms, backlit, and webcams looking up at the
ceiling.

------
Merrill
The distributed newsroom is proof that good quality video is pretty easy, but
good quality audio is really hard.

~~~
lostapathy
I think it's more proof that average quality video is tolerate, but average
quality audio is really hard to sit through.

~~~
diag
It's amazing what a few blankets and a USB microphone will do for audio
quality.

~~~
lostapathy
Right. Basically anything you do that isn't the microphone built into the
webcam will be an improvement.

