WASHINGTON, DC, 23 February 2011 — I got a query this morning from a person inquiring about my “Backpack Documentary Expedition: Nicaragua,” coming up this summer. She was concerned that her lack of experience with new digital cameras might be a stumbling block on the journey. Here’s part of my response: “The methodology that we […]
WASHINGTON, 22 January 2011 — Maria Howell (R) is on a roll. Last summer she was the winner of the Associated Press/American University Backpack Journalism Foreign Internship that took her to the AP bureau in Jerusalem. Last fall she took on a backpack journalism internship at WashingtonPost.com. And this week she begins a backpack video […]
WASHINGTON, DC, 18 January 2011 — I’m finally catching up to posting material generated during our December Backpack Journalism Workshop at Maryland Public Television. That’s Andrea Boston in the center, with Esther Gentile looking over her shoulder and Don Sladkin on the left. I’m on the right giving instruction. (Photos by Kelly Donnellan, Esther Gentile […]
LITCHFIELD BEACH, South Carolina, 26 November 2010 — Especially because we usually work alone, backpack journalists have to pay attention to every detail. There’s nobody around to run through a checklist with us. So every time you pull the camera out of the bag, clean the lens. I know it sounds silly, but we get […]
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 […]
WASHINGTON, 18 NOVEMBER 2010 — I can’t tell you how many of my backpack journalism students lose critical visual and audio information because they are not connected to their characters with headphones. Once your character is out of sight and you are not listening to him/her over the wireless microphone, you’ve cut yourself off not […]