Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab has an interesting series on changing journalism, both in terms of what the digital backpack journalist uses and how they use it.
NBC news journalist Mara Schiavocampo opened up her 30-pound reporter’s backpack (a custom job with wheels) for them in a two-part interview about her work.
In addition to the newsroom standard issue Sony HVR-V1U HDV camcorder and a bunch of other expensive stuff, she uses an Apple MacBook Pro (in the image above), edits with Final Cut Pro and totes an extra MacBook battery for staying power.
She shoots video while hooked up to a pair of Apple earbuds instead of more traditional headphones, saying that “they don’t completely isolate microphone input the way over-the-ear or noise canceling headphones would but they save space, cost and weight.”
I’m always interested to see what journalists carry around, though as a freelancer most of the time it’s a question of what you can afford and what is wise to take with you on the street in a bad part of town at 2 a.m. while getting the goods on a new trash service — which tends to rule out most of what the bigwigs use.
