Cell phone killed the video star

Cisco (Francisco Fisher)

Putting the practicality of backpack journalism aside, one thing can be said of one-person news teams; they have cool toys.

Richard Bilton, a reporter from the BBC, was the first to film a television news broadcast using a cell phone in 2003. The portability of the video equipment (as opposed to a conventional television camera) allowed the BBC correspondent to report from within a small boat.

In “The Backpack Journalist Is a ‘Mush of Mediocrity,’” posted on the OJR, Preston Mendenhall points out that, “With a small digital camera, you can get a lot more footage by being discreet."

Depending on the story, the video acquired from a cell phone gives the audience a look at action that might avoid larger cameras, or be out of their reach. As discussed in “Mush,” the trade-off between the quantity of material and the quality of the broadcast decide the size of the team assembled to report the story. As technology improves, however, so will the lone journalist’s footage.