AJR Asks   

What reporting gadgets do you use?

What reporting gadgets do you use?

Todd Bishop, 30, business reporter, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"I have an Olympus DS-330 digital voice recorder. This is one of those that you can put in the dock and transfer the files over the computer with. I use it for in-person interviews. I use it on phone interviews sometimes if it's a particularly important thing, if I want to catch every single thing."

Robin Givhan, 39, fashion editor, Washington Post
"I'm practically in the Stone Age. I use no gadgets. I barely use a cell phone. I don't have a Palm Pilot. I've used a tape recorder probably twice."

Jean Lakeman Helms, 48, general assignment reporter, Alabama's Mobile Register
"A cell phone is a must; I can't even remember how I used to get by without one. Anyway, cell phones store telephone numbers, and they're worth their weight in gold for that reason if no other. The downside, of course, is that when something does pop, the editors can always find you, even on your day off.... I've been using a laptop since 1991.... You can take notes with it, write the story on it and send the story back to the newsroom via e-mail. You can log on to the newspaper's archive remotely and download background info. You can search the Internet for more info.... For a reporter who has to go on the road...I'd consider a good laptop a necessity on the order of the pen and notebook."

John Holl, 23, general assignment reporter, Indianapolis Star
"Currently, my briefcase is packed with: a Sony Clie PDA to store contact numbers and manage my schedule. A small tape recorder with extra tapes and batteries. I don't always use the recorder but find it comes in handy for longer interviews or press conferences. Of course, I always have my cell phone, headset, car charger and backup batteries. I also carry a numeric pager. But, despite the technology savvy world we journalists live in, I still find the most important tools to carry are a notepad and pen."

Staci Hupp, 26, Ames bureau reporter, Des Moines Register
"I use a laptop, cell phone and pager. I do a lot of general assignment news, which often puts me on the road. The laptop comes in very handy, especially for breaking news out in the state. I generally use it in my car or plug in at a city library when I'm ready to file a story. When libraries are closed, I'll look for any place--hotel, gas station, someone's home--to file."

David Lightman, 54, Washington bureau chief, Hartford Courant
"I have a BlackBerry wireless handheld. It's like an insurance policy for your stories because, especially during a campaign and you're jumping from one place to another, you never know when you're going to find a computer hookup again, even in the age of wireless. So you write part of your story either on the plane or at the airport. You e-mail it to yourself, that way it's on the BlackBerry. So if all else fails, you have at least the guts of that story on the BlackBerry.... When [Sen. Joseph] Lieberman announced his candidacy January 13 [2003], we were in Stamford, Connecticut. He announces at 10. We wanted to have it on the Internet site right away. As he was speaking, I wrote it on [the BlackBerry]. You can do that subtly. By the time he had finished his speech, I hit the button and that was that."

Matt Waite, 28, staff writer, St. Petersburg Times
"My GPS [Global Positioning System] is a device that receives GPS signals from the constellation of satellites that covers the globe. I can use the GPS on its own, recording points to an internal memory chip and transferring them later to a PC. Or, I can plug it into my laptop, and using mapping software, I can plot my position live on a map. I can then record points as I go through them, or get near them. The device records position, speed, heading and altitude at the time the point was recorded. So, if I'm driving down the interstate and am recording points every second, it will tell me how fast I was going at each point. I used that to map out a brand new tollway and gauge what the average speed would be on the tollway.... There's no such thing as a GPS story. There's only stories that used a GPS to tell them. It's no different than a phone or a pen or a keyboard. It's just a tool."

Larry Ward, 62, sports writer, Phoenix, Arizona's Ahwatukee Foothills News
"The latest gadgets now are digital cameras. I got so fascinated I had to go out and get one. We have three photographers, but if we're stuck or I'm somewhere already, I'll just go ahead and shoot it. I have a couple times. The handy thing now is you can get a camera that is newspaper quality for under $300.... Keep in mind even with all the gadgets, you never leave the office without a pencil. All this technology can go haywire, and you regress 40 years in 40 seconds."

--Compiled by Christina Cepero