If Inspector Gadget Were a Reporter, He'd Drive a Star Car

By: Meg Campbell On election night last Tuesday, residents of Shelby, N.C., gathered as usual at the firehouse in the center of town to see results as they were posted. Right up inside the station, parked and streaming live election coverage, was the Star Car, the Shelby Star's new reporter-mobile that's designed to give newspapers a higher-tech way of getting multimedia news online fast.

A joint project of Freedom Communications' Shelby Star, Ifra and the University of South Carolina's Newsplex, Ifra's gee-whizardry journalism lab, the Star Car is tricked out with an array of state-of-the-art digital equipment that includes a mobile phone repeater station and hook-up with wireless laptops; smart phones; a dashboard-mounted video camera like the one the police use; wi-fi digital cameras, video cameras, and audio recorders; a scanner and fax machine; a mobile broadband router; and a range of directional antennas.

Reporters can use the mobile unit to transmit text, audio and video reports from the scene of a news event straight to the Star's Web site, which means real-time coverage that can compete with TV vans at a fraction of the cost, says Newsplex director Randy Covington. "Newspaper reporters have the ability to create content that is richer or deeper than the typical TV station" because newspapers typically have larger staffs and a better understanding of local issues, he says.

Until recently, newspapers lagged behind broadcast in speed and media formats, but this is changing as print journalists increase the multimedia components they incorporate into stories. And with emerging technologies such as the Star Car, they can also compete on immediacy. They can use the equipment to stream live podcast audio, as well as photos and text, to their paper's Web site.

Covington acknowledges that the technology to do this without a gimmicky Star Car is already available, but bundling it makes for greater efficiency. "You can cut down a tree with an axe or a chainsaw," Covington says. "A chainsaw's a lot faster." Plus, the Star Car "looks cool," says Star Publisher Skip Foster, "and that's a good thing."

That's because, in addition to being an efficient journalism tool, the new mobile unit is also an effective marketing tool, Foster says. Local schools are signing up to get visits from the Star Car, it's getting press from other media outlets in the area, and is wriggling right into the middle of big local events, like the elections, a big high school football game, and Wednesday's college basketball upset story, where local Gardner-Webb University beat basketball powerhouse Kentucky 84-68 in its own Rupp Arena.

"We're using it often and coming up with new ways to use it," Foster says, adding that reporters are on board with the car and embracing the new challenges that real-time, multimedia coverage presents. "If you have a tool like this, you feel like you ought to use it.

There's nothing like live," he says. "That's never been an option before, and it's great."