BBC IS Going To Start Live Broadcasting Field Reports From iPhones

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The best camera, as they say, is the one you have with you. The BBC seems to be embracing this fact, and so it’ll be rolling out a special app to its reporters hat will allow them to report on breaking news in the field, right from their iPhone.

The new iPhone functionality will go live to BBC employees later this month, and allow their field reporters to upload video, pictures or audio, then upload it directly to the Beeb on either 3G or WiFi.

According to the BBC’s head of news operations, Martin Turner, “Reporters have been using smart phones for a while now but it was never good quality… Now it is beginning to be a realistic possibility to use iPhones and other devices for live reporting, and in the end if you’ve got someone on the scene then you want to be able to use them.”

This is very cool, but what is slightly disappointing is that the BBC isn’t home baking a new app for this. Instead, they are just paying for a new license so their reporters can use the existing app — Lucy Live — to broadcast live footage on the air over WiFi or 3G.

How much cooler would it be if the BBC made their own app, released on the App Store for free. That would be a huge asset to the BBC: an official app encouraging and giving wider exposure to the kind of citizen journalism that can happen when everyone has an internet connected video recorder in their pocket.

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