How Tools Can Define Digital Journalists

Beyond that, I quite like the writing focus a “one thing at a time” device like the iPhone gives you. I can only have one application open at a time, so I’m not being distracted by e-mail, Twitter or anything else. This post is longer than my average blog post soley for that reason.

I’ve read people suggesting that your blog platform will affect the way you blog, because the areas if the interface that are east to use will encourage you to focus on those tasks – and those parts that are hard will make you more inclined to shy away from them. Using my normal Movable Type install through a whole different interface is leading me to blog in a different way, too.

That suggests that we need to be more sophisticated in our thinking about the kind of kit we give digital journalists. If you want conversational, link-based blogging, give journalists a good laptop, somewhere comfortable to sit and a plentiful supply of coffee. If you want them doing original reporting in the field – give them the lightest, fastest tool you can. And the iPhone is pretty damn good for that.