system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:Why do TV news camera people carry around gigantic shoulder mounted cameras when there are so many smaller options?
gpt
It's certainly be possible to make broadcast-quality cameras much smaller and lighter than those used by news crews, but there's not much point.  Even a 1 inch sensor will have ample performance and the high-quality, high-ratio zooms required will be expensive but not very large.

As long as you have a guy who's one job is to be the camera man then that's all he's going to be carrying about anyway.  Having it large has advantages:

 * Carrying a large camera makes it obvious that you're media (mostly, but not always a plus);
 * Large, heavy objects are more stable so there's less camera shake;
 * Shoulder-mounting is a comfortable way to shoot so the camera needs to fill the space between your shoulder and your eye;
 * There's space for large, discrete controls for everything.  Cameramen don't want to be delving through a maze of menu options to change their settings;
 * You can have a big, comfortable and high-quality viewfinder; and
 * You can comfortably attach big video lights.