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- 25 September, 2006 -
- Convergence, Journalism -
- Tags : Convergence, Journalism
- 0 Comments
One-man bands used to be the rage television newsrooms, but with equipment getting smaller they are putting the camcorder and computerized video editing system in a backpack and putting the videographer out on the road. KTHV channel 11 in Little Rock hired a backpack journalist in June and now has promoted him to weekend anchor and is looking for a new hire to don the pack.
Yahoo has been using backpack journalist Kevin Sites to visit “Hot Zones” around the world. In his gearbag he carries a Sony handheld High Definition camcorder, a second Samsung tapeless camcorder, a 12″ PowerBook, a satellite modem, a satellite phone, and a Palm Treo 650.
A lot of the arguments behind one-man bands were budgetary where you were able to cover the story with only one position rather than two, but I can see where a “backpack journalist” could actually cover remote stories better as the case of Yahoo’s Kevin Sites. I’m not really sure how being a backpack journalist provides much benefit in the case of a local TV station like KHTV.
