Multimedia Maniac

Why a blog? Why all the trouble? A legitimate question. Well…

Apart from some unresolved childhood issues and the inevitable ego outbursts I compose this blog because there must be others out there. Just like me. Who want to share - the essence of blogging.

There are!

So please help me welcome The New Media Diva, coming all the way from Memphis, Tennessee, but blogging from Switzerland.

Yo boss, listen up! I want one! And I want it now! Right now!

Got it? Enough exclamation marks? This is it…

From now on we’re gonna do things a bit different. It’s more than just this Nokia N95. It also comes with:

- Fold out blue tooth keyboard

- Mini (but very good) microphone

- Tiny tripod (very cute)

- Solar panel (yes, I might need to be transferred to the Bahamas)

And listen to this, boss, the whole thing doesn’t cost much more than hiring a television crew for one day. Gotta like that, boss.

I saw this MJT at the Reuters’ London headquarters tonight, at an ONA gathering. Bet you don’t know what that means, boss. MJT stands for Mobile Journalism Toolkit. They like it very much.

Me too, boss. Me too.

You heard it from me first, boss. So get me one. Right now. In the meantime I’ll keep on hauling my multimedia backpack. Remember how we used to slap each other on the back two light years ago, boss?

Future of journalism, we bragged. Well, boss, I’m a dinosaur compared to these MJT folks. So get me one, boss, right now.

(ps. We had a silly discussion about ‘redefining quality’, which I argued was a fancy way of saying ‘cutting corners’, but that’s a whole different story, boss, I won’t bore you with that.)

The call came early in the morning. Can you go to Tate Modern and go down the slide? Sure, never too old for that. So there I went, backpacking on the train, the tube and then a ten minute walk down to the Thames. Tate Modern had just opened a new exhibit, Test Site by Carsten H”oller.

Deadlines were looming. Radio wanted a piece, television needed a short package. I have experienced that time pressure can be the best way to get things right, right away. No time to think, no room for trying things out. First take has to be on the spot.

And that’s what happened. Within two hours I had taped the ’slide show’ and also recorded it for radio. Went down three times (it’s a dirty job, I know, and I am that someone). Edited my radio stuff in the coffee shop and sent it thanks to mobile internet ten minutes before air time.

Colleagues who saw me that evening making a fool of myself, didn’t think this kind of participatory journalism would be helpful for my image as a serious foreign correspondent. Ha ha. To hell with them.