The impact that social media has had on the media business is debatable. It’s more realistic to talk about the impact online media has had on advertising in general, which, as a result, has impacted the traditional media business.

These days, journalists not only are reporting, but they they are video journalists, they’re Tweeting, blogging and overall, creating a ton of content because the demand for it is high. The deadlines of yesteryear, i.e. the 5 p.m. first edition deadline, doesn’t exist anymore. We truly live in a 24/7, 365 new tidal wave (notice I didn’t mention cycle).For broadcast journalists, their world is slightly different and arguably, exploding with video dominating web content. And, if you’re a social web-minded member of the media who just so happens to work behind a camera and who covers the most powerful person in the world, you have a pretty interesting job.

That guy is Jim Long, who is known online as @NewMediaJim and is a cameraman for NBC, covering President Obama and the White House.

Recently, Jim talked about his background in journalism; social media; what it’s like to cover the White House; the web’s impact on his business; and, the future convergence of the social web and media.

Q: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself, and how you decided to get into journalism?

I am a product of Washington DC.  My people go way back here.  My mom tells us that our great grandfather, a stone mason, helped build the Washington Monument. So my worldview was hewn from an upbringing in this Capitol city. I remember, as a child,  the watergate hearings interrupting my Sesame Street. Despite my dismay, those images and names were ingrained in my psyche. Folks around here have politics in their DNA. It’s inescapable – metaphorically and literally.  So  too perhaps, was my path to journalism. If nothing else, it was an unexpected one.

I was taking courses at Montgomery Community College – with the intent of working in audio production or radio – when I had the chance to hear the experiences of on of our professor’s students who had become a desk assistant for ABC News.  Her stories of the high-profile, high pressure world of a network TV newsroom ignited a fire in me.  It was at that precise moment that I knew the direction my career would take.  From that time on, I directed all of my energies toward pursuing that path.

Q: What’s it like seeing the most powerful man in the world through your lens just about every day?

I’ve been covering the White House in one form or another since about 1992.  My first “big” gig with NBC was operating videotape in our pool production truck for President Clinton’s first inaugural.  It’s easy to get caught up and enchanted by the trappings of power.  But at the end of the day, I have to push that stuff aside.  I have a job to do.  That job has a lot of moving parts and responsibilities – some technical, some editorial.  I have to focus on those things and not the prestige of the office.

Having said that, I’ve had some very unique opportunities working for NBC News.  My camera has been witness to history both here and abroad.  I would be lying I told you there was no buzz associated with climbing aboard Air Force One, or flying on Nighthawk support helo’s.  It’s the best job in the world.

Q: There is a lot of talk about social media impacting the media business. However, broadcast outlets seem to get it. How has social impacted your job and career specifically?

In general, I think TV is emerging from the economic turmoil of the past few years in a position of strength.   Social media in all it’s disruptive forms continues to have an impact on TV, making audiences more diffuse and fragmented.  Still, TV seems to have embraced these tools well and are using them to their advantage.

How has this impacted my career, and the careers of thousands like me specifically?  Fragmented audiences = fragmented revenues.  The size of the ad spend pie stays the same, it’s just divided into smaller pieces.  Combine that with smaller, simpler, faster video production tools, a two-tiered video work force and it’s easy to see the sun setting on what was once a solid, honorable way to make a living.  But in every disruption there is opportunity.  I just need a small slice of that pie.

Q: Where does the media in general or if at all, miss the mark when it comes to social media?

At this precise moment I can’t think of “media specific” examples of missing the mark, but as a social media technician, I’ve observed some overall themes.  I think companies who engage in social media often put the CEO’s or people with “star power” out there as their front facing brand ambassadors.  That’s fine if those folks are the kind of people who enjoy, well, being social.  I think the often overlooked champions of an organization are the rank and file working people.  They aren’t being paid to promote the brand, they just do it because their pride is real and it comes across in their Tweets, Facebook pictures, their YouTube videos.

Q: What are the parameters of using social media being in the job you’re in, specifically as it relates to covering the white house?

I have to break this question out into a few parts.  First and foremost I represent, and I hope well, a brand that stands for being accurate and fair.  My responsibility is to uphold that promise.  I work with the best people in the business.. for real.  It’s important that I do right by them and uphold the brand reputation that their efforts have built over decades. So I avoid anything that would give the appearance of advocacy or conflict of interest.  That’s particularly important in terms of how I use Twitter, but it also should be reflected in my Facebook posts and my blog.

Another important way to approach this question is from a operational security viewpoint.  There are things I see, information I’m privy to,  and sometimes even secret missions that require “no Tweet zones.”

I always need to be mindful of that.  That “super cool tweet” could jeopardize our relationship with the White House or worse, operational security.  I don’t want to be that guy.

Q:  Any additional thoughts about the future of the media business, media’s use of social media, best practices, tips, etc.?

From the 10,000 foot view, the future of media, TV in particular, is at once fascinating and frighteningly uncertain.  I know this.  I won’t be retiring as a network news cameraman like the larger-than-life figures who came before me.  Those jobs likely won’t exist in their current form.  I’m interested in the maturity I’m seeing in web video.  I think as Boxee, Google’s set-top-box and other “over the top” IPTV offerings come to the fore, we’ll begin to see the wheat being separated from the chaff in terms of video quality. Curation, quality and search become vastly more important as more and more people push web video to their 42″ HDTV’s.

So there may be opportunity here for new networks to emerge.  Think Revision 3 but topics other than the tech echo chamber.  The push-pull of economic, technological and regulatory forces driving these shifts bears watching though.  Good ideas and good products aren’t enough. I’m energized by these possibilities and I look to them as I figure out what’s next.  Meantime, I’m at the center of history… not a bad gig eh?