WASH­ING­TON, DC — While em­bed­ded with the 24th Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit (24th­MEU) in Afghanistan in 2008, I made a brief video of New York Times Pho­to­jour­nal­ist Tyler Hicks as he pre­pared and then trans­mit­ted im­ages from one of the most un­for­giv­ing lo­cales on earth to the Times photo desk in New York. At the time I met Tyler, I was work­ing on a piece in Afghanistan’s Hel­mand River Val­ley, along the bor­der with Pak­istan, for NOW on PBS. (Ti­tled, “Afghanistan: The For­got­ten War,” the piece was nom­i­nat­ed for a na­tion­al Emmy Award.) I think the video of Tyler il­lus­trates the tech­nol­o­gy that has rev­o­lu­tion­ized the craft of jour­nal­ism. More im­por­tant­ly, it gives view­ers a sense of how pro­fes­sion­al, ar­tic­u­late and ded­i­cat­ed some of the prac­ti­tion­ers of our craft can be. Tyler Hicks is an ex­traor­di­nar­i­ly tal­ent­ed pho­to­jour­nal­ist and a role model for all who want to enter the craft. The video also il­lus­trates my own path from still pho­to­jour­nal­ism to doc­u­men­tary style video jour­nal­ism, or what I call «back­pack video jour­nal­ism.» – Bill Gen­tile Wash­ing­ton, DC 14 March 2013 (Photo by Bill Gen­tile, 2008) http://​videojournalismworkshops.​com/?​lang=en(Backpack Journalist)