Alex Johnson – Journalist at Large

My Livescribe notes from a recent (non-msnbc) food writing outing. If I tap anywhere in the notes, the pen begins playing the audio from that point.

Originally posted April 15, 2011, and revised Aug. 19, 2011, to reflect upgrades.

When I joined msnbc.com nearly 12 years ago, I made an abrupt transition at age 38 from a very traditional newspaper orientation.

When I worked at The Charlotte Observer, Congressional Quarterly, Knight-Ridder Washington and The Washington Post, I had been using the same tools for almost 20 years:

• The standard reporter’s notebook and pen.

• A landline telephone with an audio pickup to record interviews.

• A handheld audio recorder for field interviews.

• A “portable” (but actually fairly bulky) point-and-shoot camera. Later, that got traded in for an equally bulky portable camera that could shoot as much as 90 seconds  of grainy video.

With standard variations for specific assignments (if you were ever a cops reporter, you’ll remember clipping a brick-size beeper to your belt), those were the tools print reporters used for decades.

I recently returned to work after having taken a couple of weeks off, during which I did nothing remotely job-related, and the tools I use now were scattered on my desk where I’d left them. I was struck by how remarkably different they are.

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