(Fayetteville, NC). A Satellite News Gathering van belonging to Durham TV station WTVD caught fire Sunday evening. The van was parked at the station’s Fayetteville news bureau.

According to the Fayetteville Fire Department, the van was heavily damaged but not destroyed. No cause has been determined. Captain Jay Leonard with the Fayetteville Fire Department says the fire does not appear to be suspicious.

These instructions assume you’ve already uploaded your clip. If you need help uploading your clip, check out these tips.

Uploading your video to b-roll.net TV is only half the fun. After your beautiful clip is in our system, we want to make sure it’s entered into the correct category.

When you’re uploading your video, you are asked what “channel” you’d like the video to be in. Please keep in mind that this is not the contest categories. You must edit your clip to enter the b-roll.net AWARDS.

Step 1) Login in at: http://b-roll.net/tv and go to “My Videos.” This will take you to a page filled with all of your uploaded videos.

Step 2) Select the clip you want to enter in the contest, and click on the “Edit” button. This takes you to a page letting you change the title, description and keywords.

Step 3) At the top of the “Edit” page, you will see a blue box with “b-roll.net AWARDS” at the top. Follow the directions and “Click here to enter this video in the contest.” This will open up a pop up window for category selection. If you don’t see the pop-up, you may need to temporarily remove any browser pop-up blockers.

Step 4) In the pop-up window is a list of the 10 categories that you can enter. Select a category and press “Submit.” If you don’t get any error messages, and the system says “Your video has been entered!” than you have been successful.

Please keep in mind that you can not have more than 2 videos in a single category. If you need to remove a story from a category, select “NONE.” When you’re done, you can close the pop-up window by clicking on the “X” in the top right corner.

Step 5) After you refresh your Edit page, you should see “This video has been entered...” in the blue box.

Step 6) If you look at your “My Videos” page, all stories that are officially in the contest will say “This story is entered in…” followed by the category.

At 12 noon ET on 1/10/09, voting begins in the b-roll.net AWARDS. The system will lock out any additional entries and prevent you from changing categories. Please double check that your story is in the running. I’d hate to have you lose your change to win the b-roll.net AWARDS!

Check out: http://b-roll.net/awards for all the rules and latest updates.

Voting will begin in 3 days, 3 hours, 15 minutes.

The kickoff of the 2009 b-roll.net AWARDS is not far away.  Start uploading your clips now so you’re prepped for the commencement of the contest on January 1, 2009.

If your goal is to follow in Darren Durlach’s footsteps and be the next b-roller of the YEAR, or even a BEST of b-roll.net, be sure to upload something from at least 4 of the 5 core categories. Those categories are: Spot News, General News, Feature (Soft), In Depth, and Live Shot / Standup. You must have an entry in at least 4 of those categories to qualify.

For more rules and information, check out the b-roll.net AWARDS page.

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 12, 2008; Page C01

The march of technology and the shrinking economy are beginning to take a toll on the traditional means of television news-gathering: the TV news crew.

Under a new agreement reached this week with its labor unions, WUSA, Channel 9, will become the first station in Washington to replace its crews with one-person “multimedia journalists” who will shoot and edit news stories single-handedly.

Read the entire article.

Thanks: AKinDC

We want to see those stories!

Here are the basic rules:

1) UPLOAD your best work produced between January 1 and December 31, 2008 at b-roll.net TV.
2) ENTER your clip in individual categories starting at 12 noon ET on January 1, 2009.
3) VOTE. All registered members of the b-roll.net FORUM will be able to vote using our 5-point scale in two rounds of voting. During ROUND 1, voting will narrow the clips to 10 entries per category. In ROUND 2, b-roll.net FORUM members will vote again for their favorite entries from the narrowed field of clips.
4) WINNERS will be announced at the end of the second round, and the b-roll.net AWARDS trophies will be presented.

The official rules for this year’s contest are online.

Thanks to Fujinon, Zylight and Anton/Bauer for committing to sponsor the AWARDS again this year. The contest is just over 3 weeks away. Start collecting and uploading your best work now!

“[Tonight's] game between the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders will be broadcast live in 3-D to theaters in Los Angeles, New York and Boston. It is a preliminary step on what is likely a long road to any regular 3-D broadcasts of football games.

The idea is a “proof of concept,” says Howard Katz, NFL senior vice president of broadcasting and media operations. “We want to demonstrate this and let people get excited about it and see what the future holds.”

The several hundred guests at the three participating theaters Dec. 4 will include representatives from the NFL’s broadcasting partners and from consumer-electronics companies. The event will be closed to the general public. Burbank, Calif.-based 3ality Digital LLC will shoot the game with special cameras and transmit it to a satellite. Thomson SA’s Technicolor Digital Cinema is providing the satellite services and digital downlink to each theater, and Real D 3D Inc. will power the display in the theaters.”

Read more at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122749333275552323.html

UPDATE:

From AP

LOS ANGELES – The first NFL game broadcast to theaters live in 3-D fumbled, then recovered Thursday night.

Two satellite glitches blacked out the broadcast to theaters in Boston, New York and Los Angeles in the first half of the game between the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers.

And on a few occasions, a quick camera movement or a refocusing — and one ill-advised dissolve — had viewers pulling off their polarized lenses.

Read more at:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_en_bu/nfl3d

The Judge found that CNN discriminated against the TVS employees in a blatant attempt to avoid having to recognize and bargain with the employees’ collective bargaining representatives. This decision is the culmination of more than five years of struggle by workers and their unions to vindicate their rights at the D.C. and N.Y. CNN Bureaus.

For more than 20 years, CNN subcontracted the technical work of broadcasting news and programming from its D.C. and N.Y. Bureaus to a series of subcontractors. The employees of these subcontractors – who were always represented by the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA – provided the video and sound for many of CNN’s most recognized programs, including Larry King Live and Lou Dobbs Tonight. However, in 2003 and 2004, CNN terminated its subcontract with the last subcontractor, TVS, and announced that the network would hire its own employees to provide these services. CNN developed and implemented what it called the “Bureau Staffing Project,” which was a series of procedures for the recruitment and hiring of these new employees.

In his 169-page decision, Judge Amchan found that CNN was a joint employer with TVS of the subcontractor’s employees and, as a joint employer, the network was obligated to recognize and bargain with NABET-CWA over the decision to terminate the subcontracting relationship, as well as the decision to hire new employees. The Judge further found that CNN’s Bureau Staffing Project was a sham, used by the network to discriminate against TVS employees in order to limit the hiring of those employees in order to avoid having to recognize and bargain with NABET-CWA. In reaching these conclusions, Judge Amchan thoroughly discredited all of CNN’s witnesses and rejected each of CNN’s defenses.

The judge’s order calls for the following:

1. Reinstatement and full back pay for more than 110 employees. Training for those rehired, if necessary.
2. Recognition of the unions in New York and DC.
3. Dues to be remitted to the unions for those who were on check off at the time the contracts were cancelled.
4. Rescind, upon request, any departures from the collective bargaining agreements that occurred when the work was taken in-house.
5. Restore any bargaining work that has been outsourced since the end of the Team video contracts.
6. Posting of a notice at the two bureaus and the mailing of the notices to all employees at last known addresses who were part of the bargaining units when the contract was cancelled.
7. A “cease and desist order” to prohibit CNN from infringing on workers’ rights under labor law in the future.

Judge Amchan’s order is a comprehensive remedy that requires CNN to recognize and bargain with NABET-CWA, as well as reinstate more than 110 employees who were not hired as part of the Bureau Staffing Project, restore the employees’ working conditions as set forth in the now expired union contracts except for improvements unless requested by NABET-CWA, and to make whole all employees for any loss of earnings and other benefits.

J. Carl Mayers, president of NABET-CWA Local 31/Local 52031, said, “We were very pleased with this decision. It is a great victory for all union workers and would not have been possible without the hard work and courage of the members that were terminated by CNN as well as those that remained and never gave up hope.”

Ed McEwan, president of NABET-CWA Local 11, said, the decision by the ALJ “is a victory for workers, but one that took far too long to achieve because of our broken labor laws. Everyone in America should know that the network management we rely on to bring us the news are not above the illegal practices that they headline on a regular basis. From the very beginning we promised our members that ‘we will not forget.’ We didn’t, and we’re keeping up the fight until fairness is fully won.”

The decision is available on the National Labor Relations Board’s website on Monday, November 24, 2008 on page entitled “ALJ Decisions.”

###

Download a PDF of the decision by clicking here.

SOURCE National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA

From TVNEWSDAY:

“While there are claims that hundreds of millions of private sector dollars have been spent making Americans aware of the DTV transition, it seems that most Americans have no idea what it really is even if they have heard of it,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) said.

“The recent DTV transition test market of Wilmington, North Carolina demonstrated that even with extraordinary levels of outreach, some still did not know anything about the DTV transition.”

The House is not expected to vote on this until the second week of December.

See also: Broadcasting and Cable

The cameraman was present at a press briefing announcing the plans for a police raid on local bars. Cell phone records show texts from Shelton’s phone to the manager’s phone saying: “It’s you man. On the way to you man. Mickey’s. Clean it up now.” Club Mickey’s was later raided by Onslow County Sheriff.

According to jdnews.com, Shelton will receive a 30-day suspended sentence, 72 hours of community service and be ordered to pay fines and court costs of $250.

More from jdnews.com

Coverage from WNCT

Starting Monday, November 24, 2008, if you’re shooting near a “Federal-Aid” highway, you must wear a stylish green shiny vest.

Federal-aid doesn’t just mean federal highways, but any road that receives federal money. It is probably best to assume any substantial road is “federal-aid,” but then again, wear it around any road. Why miss the opportunity to show off your green!

There are many complicated regulations to this - you can read the entire statute here.

The b-roll.net FORUM is alive with discussion.

Broadcasting & Cable did a story back in January.

How is this affecting your newsroom? Are reporters complaining about having to wear the vest in their live shots?