New York Times on how all the new gadgets journalists are using to cover the war, like compact satellite dishes, night scopes, digital video cameras, and of course, those live videophones, are changing war reporting:
Reporters covering the war in Iraq are at one with their technology as never before. Television reporters are toting hand-held video cameras and print journalists have traded the 70-pound satellite phones of the 1991 Gulf War for svelte models that can be held up to their ear. High-speed Internet lines in the desert and more satellites in the sky mean journalists can make a connection almost anywhere. As the conflict unfolds, they are tapping into the global communications grid regularly. News gatherers say the smaller gadgets and bigger bandwidth have broadened their reach in a way that is sure to change how people perceive the war. Just as television forced the world to confront graphic images of war for the first time during the Vietnam War, today’s digital devices are beginning to provide a more intimate and multifaceted view of the war in Iraq than would have ever been possible before.
