International broadcast reporters are smart and savvy with a wide range of electronic gizmos, but domestic broadcasters need special help and new safety regulations to keep from barbecuing themselves with the gadgets, according to two recent reports.

“The new breed of reporters and technicians are smarter, skilled across the board and can work in the various forms of media,” said CNN International President Chris Cramer in a story reported by BBC Monitoring’s Foreign Media Unit in Amsterdam.

Meanwhile, in California, the state Occupational and Health Standards Boards have just enacted the nation’s first safety rules in the attempt to keep reporters from electrocuting themselves by raising satellite truck antennae into high-voltage power lines.

Radio, TV and web journalists work alongside each other at CNN,” Cramer told the International Broadcast Convention in Amsterdam. One example, he said, is a staff member who can report stories and fix the telecom links.

Cramer also cited new portable technology which allows filing of video reports from locations where it was previously impossible. “We will be constrained only by access and physics in terms of what we can get down a videophone,” he said.

In California, according to the LA Times, broadcast reporters are now constrained by news vans equipped with newly required “constant pressure” switches that “force broadcast workers to stand where they can see the antenna as they press the mast’s lift button.” The trucks must also be equipped with nighttime mast lights, warning signs and an audible alarm that sounds if the van is driven with the mast extended.