Every year I enter the NPPA Solo Video Journalist competitions, and every year I see more and more names appearing on the winners’ list.
Around late 2011 I began seeing a new name pop up: Anne Herbst.
What struck me first was her place of employment: the Denver Post. Herbst was a video journalist … for a newspaper.
What struck me next was her work: it was rock-solid. Herbst impressed me then — and continues to impress me today — with her ability to make slick, well-crafted stories that were grounded in three-dimensional characters, a natural voice, and a more down-to-earth sensibility.
Oh, and she did it all herself: as a backpack journalist, she shot, reported, wrote, and edited her stories as a one-woman band.
This week, she becomes the third esteemed storyteller to join me on the Telling The Story podcast.
Herbst no longer works as a backpack journalist, or for a newspaper: she is now the assistant chief photographer at KDVR-TV, the Fox affiliate in Denver. But, at one point during our conversation, she offered her advice to local news stations in regards to backpack journalists:
Hire them.
Or, at least, hire one.