In Lean Times, the Rise of TV’s One-Man-Bands

By Andrew Gauthier 

The Washington Post

Scott Broom turns his tripod toward the wall of gray mailboxes, adjusts the camera, walks into the shot and delivers his spiel.

“Here’s how bad it is for the U.S. Postal Service,” the WUSA reporter says as a handful of customers at the Garrett Park post office look on. Invoking the organization’s growing deficit, which he just looked up on a laptop in his car, he puts a stamp on an envelope and declares: “At 44 cents a shot, that is a lot of peeling and sticking.”

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Broom then thrusts the envelope toward the lens — and blows out the iris, which has to be reset so he can try the stand-up again. It’s one of the occupational hazards of being a journalistic jack of all trades More…

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