As a music festival blogger who frequently hauls a computer and digital SLR camera around in a backpack, I have often wondered what the ideal setup would be for mobile reporting--especially since I expect to be adding a video camera to the arsenal in the not-distant future.
So when I got a chance recently to hear war correspondent Kevin Sites talk about his experiences as a solo digital journalist covering global hot spots, I went to hear his lecture at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
A former network television news reporter and producer, Sites had spent 12 months in 2005-06 producing Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, an original news program for Yahoo. He visited every conflict region in the world--a week to 10 days in each location--filing daily multimedia news reports.
He illustrated the talk with examples of his produced pieces, such as one in which he does a first-on-the-scene reporter standup after a missile strike in Tyre, Lebanon, and another where he provides post-story impressionist narration over raw footage of a funeral in Gaza. He also went to Iraq, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Nepal, and elsewhere.
When reporting, Sites carried a pack containing his digital news-gathering tools: Sony HDR-HC1 high definition digital camcorder with wide angle converter lens and SteadyShot image stabilization, Samsung SC-X105L digital camcorder with "headcam," high-definition digital still camera, 12-inch Macintosh Powerbook, Hughes R-BGAN satellite modem, Thuraya/Hughes portable satellite phone, and Palm Treo GSM mobile phone. And, yes, a notebook and pen.
Total weight: less than 18 pounds. His support team back home kept a second loaded backpack on standby in case of loss, theft or damage.
He compared his opportunity as a multimedia Internet journalist to his former career as a television reporter. "On TV, I was limited by the format of a television package--a minute and a half of video, sound bites, B roll and a reporter standup."
In the Internet format, there is no limit on length and with multimedia there are many ways to explore the story. "It's more like newspaper reporting, but you have technology married to narrative form, and the result is richer story," he said.
He also said he got better access to stories by working solo rather than with the big footprint of a video crew.
In the beginning, however, he often didn't know which of his tools to use first. "Anytime something moved I was taking notes, and anytime nothing was happening I was shooting video," he said.
As he got better at it, he learned that notetaking is the spine of every story, making it easier to establish trust with his sources than if he had them on camera. Later, he might ask the same questions again on video.
Rather than try to tell big-picture story, he said he would focus on small stories--profiling a soldier or a rape victim, for example--as a way to illustrate the bigger context. The series of these pieces he produced over the course of his stay in each region added up to a rounded story, he said.
Sites talked about the difficulty of producing reports late at night after a full day of reporting--an issue that might resonate for festival bloggers. His goal was to file an 800-word piece every day, but frequently when he started writing after midnight the words wouldn't flow.
He would also be editing video and stills at that hour to make his morning transmission deadline.
While the Hot Zone program was groundbreaking as a way to produce original journalism for the web, it gained only modest advertiser support and Yahoo is not committed to continuing it. Sites said the company has shifted its news focus to a search model in an effort to compete with Google.
Sites ended his talk with a summary of some general lessons that may apply to our less dangerous form of blogging:
* Use all dimensions: text, photography, video. Each is suited to different aspects of the story and combining media tells a richer story.
* Storytelling is what it is all about. Give the reader/viewer a context for understanding the issues.
* Don't get in the way of sources. As much as possible, let your subjects speak directly to the reader.
* "Shoot on green." Automatic modes and rough cuts provide sufficient quality for the immediacy of the web.
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more testing
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