The major television networks are likely to increase their news budgets substantially over the next few years in order to create new bureaus overseas, boost technology and widen coverage, the Wall Street Journal reported today.The newspaper cited a report by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. media analyst Tom Wolzien, which estimated that the networks will boost their news budgets 25 percent to 35 percent over the next few years. Currently each of the networks spends between $400 million and $500 million on their news divisions (CNN spends about $700 million), the Wolzien report indicated.
Meanwhile, TV news executives were acknowledging that some of the most potent footage to come out of the World Trade Center attack was contributed by amateur photographers. “You can put all the TV network cameras together and maybe you get a few hundred cameras,” CNN news chief Eason Jordan told today’s Los Angeles Times. “But there are millions of cameras across the United States, and hundreds of thousands in New York alone. The odds are that the average person, not the network TV professional, is going to get the image in a situation like this. And that certainly was the case with the two planes flying into the World Trade Center.
