By now we are all familiar with the terms, backpack journalist, multimedia journalist, one man band. Some see the transition as purely money saving changes, others embrace it as a new way of thinking and some just do it because they love it.

I fall into the latter category. My first reporter / photographer gig was back in 1981. I was the ultimate mobile journalist. There was tremendous personal satisfaction each time a story came together.

Nearly 30 years later I have come full circle. I wear a different hat as a strategist for Audience Research and Development, but I still have a passion for covering news and telling stories. I also like to practice what I preach.

I launched a little website, DI Buzz back in March. DI, Davis Islands, is the Tampa community where I live. When I  landed here  two years ago, it was obvious this neighborhood was starving for information.  So who better than yours truly and the internet journalist was born.

Things have been going well and the neighbors love the attention, but this past weekend was a turning point. A small sea plane crashed into the bay on Saturday, emergency vehicles blocked the only entrance to the island, and the pilot managed to swim out alive. That’s pretty exciting stuff, I don’t care who you are!

So here I was with my pocket video camera, the Kodak Zi6, covering what turned out to be a pretty important story. I sent a few tweets out about what was happening, which automatically posted to the site with a RSS feed. I shot interviews with an eyewitness, captured the pilot as he came ashore, shot the only video of the plane being fished out the of bay the next morning, including the only comments from the pilot on what actually happened.

All of it ended up online and I even shared pictures, with a courtesy, with a local TV station. I had great sound, great pictures, great information and great coverage. Essentially I beat  or competed with local stations in coverage, because I lived here.

In these days of “how are we going to get the content covered”, I think it would be smart for station leaders to look around for local bloggers and citizen journalists that are doing the same thing. Even better if you have the resources, embed a reporter in key areas of your market, and turn them loose with tools that will allow them to operate online and on-air.

I can speak from experience – it works!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.