Wednesday, April 9, 2003 | 9:44 a.m.
Lipstick cameras, satellite phones, night-vision cameras and Global Positioning System devices are the new tools of the trade for journalists, particularly those covering the war in Iraq, media industry experts said at a convention in Las Vegas Tuesday.
The war has brought the issue of technology to the forefront by bringing the images of the war into our homes faster than ever before -- and it is changing the way TV and print reporters do their jobs.
"Because the technology has gotten so small, we can do live reports right next to the war planes and literally talk to the pilots after they come off the planes," said Gary Tuchman, a CNN reporter embedded with the 1st battalion, 7th Marines. "Even before the Pentagon finds out about the mission, we get them on live TV and the pilots are not intimidated because the technology has gotten so small."
Tuchman's message was sent via videophone and played before media industry officials at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Tuesday for the Radio-Television News Directors Association, which is being held during the National Association of Broadcasters annual meeting in Las Vegas.
Nicknamed "backpack journalists," TV reporters in the field no longer have to set up large satellite trucks or lug around 14 large suitcases, as they have had to do in the past.
Reporters sending images from Iraq are now using equipment so compact that it can fit in the overhead bin of an airplane or in a backpack.
It's similar to the evolution of computers from the room-sized machines of years past to today's personal and desktop models.
For a quicker, but often more jerky image, TV reporters can capture video through Inmarsat videophones that look like laptops with antennas that transmit to a satellite.
For better images, which require a longer downloading time, reporters are using Macintosh laptops to send video images from Iraq, Tuchman said.
Cameras being used by journalists in Iraq range from conventionally sized devices to small hand-held cameras that resemble home video cameras. Crews are even using night-vision cameras to capture images in the dark and cameras the size of a lipstick case, which are placed on a soldier's helmet.
Mike Palmer, director of broadcast digital distribution systems for the Associated Press, said his organization's print reporter Ross Simpson, who is embedded with the 1st battalion, 5th regiment, 1st Marine division, is taking advantage of new lightweight equipment and is filing video images along with his written reports.
Simpson, who does radio and print reporting, decided at the last minute to take a video camera along with him to Iraq. Without any training, he is using a $500 camera and a laptop with new software to guide him through the video editing process.
"He is a one-man band," Palmer said.
Another tool of choice used by print reporters during the first days of the conflict were Thuraya phones. But the military revoked permission to use the phones after learning they were equipped with a Global Positioning System (GPS) that could compromise the position of troops.
Aside from the problem with the phones and the occasional glitches in the Inmarsat videophones, media industry experts say technology has provided more images than in the first Gulf War and is bringing them to millions of viewers more quickly than ever before.
Michael Murrie, a professor of communications at Pepperdine University, said the images from Baghdad have changed the way journalists acquire and transmit data. They are reshaping "the whole notion of a much more portable journalist," he said.
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