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Backpack Journalism With Leopoldo Castillo at Venezuela’s Globovision

CARACAS, Venezuela, 23 March 2011 — “Alo Ciudadano” is arguably the most popular program on Venezuelan television. Host Leopoldo Castillo and I discuss backpack video journalism during an interview on his show. (Photos by Tom Mittnacht.)

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New York Times Photojournalist Tyler Hicks in Afghanistan, 2008

WASHINGTON, DC, 18 March 2011 — While embedded with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24thMEU) in Afghanistan in 2008, I made a brief video of New York Times Photojournalist Tyler Hicks as he prepared and then transmitted images from one of the most unforgiving locales on earth to the Times photo desk in New York. […]

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American University Students at San Francisco Ocean Film Festival

PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C., 9 March 2011 — A film made by two American University students with whom I traveled to the Galapagos Islands has been selected for screening at the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival. Mark Petruniak and Chris McMorrow are heading to California to attend the show of “La Pesca Vivencial,” which they shot […]

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Yin/Yang of Backpack Video Journalism

WASHINGTON, DC, 26 February 2011 – The technological advances driving the revolutionary model that we refer to as backpack video journalism enable a single practitioner to exchange ideas and information as never before in the history of mankind. But there is a dark side to this methodology, which empowers lone practitioners to document and disseminate […]

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Essential QuickTip #7: Hide the Lavaliere

LITCHFIELD BEACH, South Carolina, 24 November 2010 — You see it all the time. Lovely women wearing ugly lav microphones sticking out of their neck as if it were some malignant growth. Hide the thing! Go to a pharmacy and get some Moleskin tape, which you normally would apply to your heel when wearing new […]

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Backpack Journalism or Video Journalism: What’s the Difference?

WASHINGTON, DC, 21 October 2010 — Following is part of a brief discussion I had this week on Facebook with Brandon Tompkins, a friend who asked me about the difference between Backpack Journalism and Video Journalism. Tompkins lives in Dallas, Texas, and is a student at Tarrant County College, majoring in Radio/TV Broadcasting. See http://brandontompkins.com. […]

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