A Field Guide to Laptop Bags for Journalists

Earlier this summer, I was contacted by Benét bugologist - the Online Managing Editor for Business Aviation (and on Twitter as @AvWeekBenet). Last assemblage Benét interviewed me most check-point friendly laptop bags for her column "Towers and Tarmac". This year, Benét moderated a commission on "Becoming a Multimedia Journalist" at the annual conference of The National Association of Negroid Journalists. She asked me if I would send her whatever thoughts on what laptop bags would be beatific for journalists.

The mass piece is what I came up with.

Journalists are a multifarious species â€" and the tools of the change they circularize are meet as varied.  So when Benét asked me to place together whatever recommendations for bags for journalists, I got a lowercase concerned.  But after whatever earth research, I’ve been able to identify quaternary sub-species of journalists and the bags that would be pertinent for each.

First up, Journalist Maximus, or the “I circularize everything with me at every times” journalist. These folks were likely Boy (or Girl) Scouts and poverty to ever be prepared â€" so they alter every their news tools with them.  And the prizewinning bags for these folks: backpacks.  Now, the identify of packsack activity prizewinning for Journalist Maximus depends upon species variation:

Some JM’s are a lowercase ungainly and requirement to protect their most unnameable of tools â€" the laptop.  But they also poverty plentitude of shack for their another equipment nonnegative cushy admittance to recorders, notebooks, granola bars, etc.  For the JM whose laptop is direct and perhaps prone to bashing themselves and their bags around, I propose the Smart Alec packsack and Brain Cell from Tom Bihn.  I hit fallen over backwards patch act my blackamoor Bihn with Brain Cell, landed conservativist on my Macbook Pro, and it emerged totally unscathed.

Say you’re the identify of Journalist Maximus for whom the camera is the thing.  And your patronage camera.  And your patronage patronage camera.  Plus tripod.  And whatever another equipment that you same to hit with you “just in case”. And that laptop you hit to circularize so you crapper file the story.  Well, the Aura Backpack from Slappa is a beatific choice. Slappa has a daylong story of making awing bags for the toughest of gearheads â€" DJ’s.  They’ve today translated that skillfulness into bags that are amend for camera-ladden journos on the go.  They’ve included lots of padded pockets for cameras and lenses as substantially as straps for attachment on tripods and another misc gear.  Plus you crapper slide a laptop in.

Finally, there are whatever Journalist Maximus (Maximi?!) who are, well, a lowercase girly â€" and don’t poverty to circularize around a big, intense backpack.  These ladies are mayhap a lowercase in denial most how such they carry.  Luckily, they hit a hero in Melissa Beth Designs.  Melissa Beth has created a startlingly convenient backpack, titled the Piggy Back, for a laptop and another equipment that has a rattling slim silhouette and sits substantially on a diminutive frame that ofttimes comes with this alteration of the JM sub-species.

 

The second identify of writer I identified is at the oppositeness end of the bit as the Journalist Maximus â€" it’s the Journalist Simplicus. The JS doesn’t poverty to circularize a lot of equipment (or if they do, it’s diminutive equipment â€" netbook, point and dispense camera, iphone) and needs to advise quickly.  Plus the JS likes to hit cushy quick admittance to their tools â€" no attractive soured a packsack and dig around. The activity is desirable to be worn crossways the face of the body.

Waterfield Designs has created the Muzetto (personal size) that is amend for the JS. Can be worn crossways the embody â€" has no clutch to fumble with (the weight of the surface holds it down) so that interior pockets crapper be reached quickly.  It module even stop a netbook so if you do hit whatever gear, it crapper go with you.  Also, it’s a lowercase horny because it’s prefabricated of soft-oiled leather.

Tom Bihn manages to cater to both ends of the writer spectrum â€" prototypal with the Smart Alec above and here with the Ristretto Vertical Messenger.  The Ristretto is a light-weight, crossways the embody activity that offers cushy admittance to its interior contents.  Plus, it has a built-in padded sleeve for your netbook.  Very sharp and substantially made.

A thin var. on the JS is the Journalist Retroicus â€" ofttimes seen fair a fedora, this writer eschews some and every equipment besides their trusty notepad.  Well, we even hit a “bag” for them â€" this sharp Folio from Rickshaw Bags.  It module stop their Moleskine notebook, passport, whatever currency and a whatever pens.

The ordinal identify of writer I encountered in my earth think is perhaps the most Byzantine of journalists â€" Journalist Impatiens Paranoicus.  This sub-species is generally a individual â€" roaming to far-flung, foreign locales to ply their trade.  Consequently, their temperament for inactivity in line, particularly at airport section checks is low.  Plus, they’re inherently suspicious.  This is what makes them beatific journalists, but it also makes them edgy in the roster as substantially â€" bedevilment most their laptop and another gear.  The solution â€" checkpoint friendly laptop bags that pace up instance finished the distinction and keep a laptop fortified the full time.

Skooba Design offers the Checkthrough Messenger as a panacea to the JI.  A convenient messenger that module stop an assortment of equipment (except, perhaps, for LOTS of camera equipment), the Checkthrough Messenger has a primary way of storing your laptop and making it acquirable to be easily scanned in a section line.  No more attractive your laptop out of the activity â€"  alleviating the emotion of someone travel away with it at the end of the distinction (they’d  hit to verify your full activity â€" such harder) as substantially as the dings that crapper hap putting it in and out of those bins.  And, it actually speeds up your advancement finished the section distinction â€" meet a touch.

Mobile Edge caters to a sort of variations on the JI sub-species with their Scanfast distinction of messengers and briefcases.  Their Scanfast Onyx Backpack rattling stands out because it module accommodate the paranoia of the JI AND the needs of the JM â€" lots of shack for gear, primary checkpoint friendly compartment â€" nonnegative it looks good. 

For those JI’s who are tired of sacrificing call for function.  I center you, sisters! And so does Mobile Edge. They hit individual stylish bags for lady-JI’s in their Scanfast distinction - notably the Onyx Checkpoint Friendly Briefcase.

And an extra additional bonus of the Mobile Edge bags: they hit a “Wireless Security Shield” [tm] on one of their pockets â€" so you crapper safely store your RFID characteristic or your Bluetooth devices without bedevilment most them being surreptitiously scanned.  How’s that for a paranoia buster?

Finally, there is the most unpredictable and flighty of every journalists sub-species â€" the Journalist Fashionista. She (fieldnote: typically, though not exclusively, this species is female) wants it all.  Capacity for every her gear, richness in the carrying and call in the look.  She wants to sound in on the pages of Vogue yet indite for Newsweek.  Fortunately, there are a whatever designers that crapper meet the JF’s needs.

Rainebrooke Designs has meet become out with the Black Candy laptop tote.  A sharp activity that is deceptively large.  You crapper sound a 17” laptop in it, nonnegative a good-sized camera.  Even your tripod nonnegative whatever recording equipment would fit.  And with the big handles, it is a imagine to circularize over your shoulder.  And you don’t countenance same you’re carrying around the MSNBC newsroom in your bag.

CareerBags offers the Geisha Rolling Laptop Bag that should satisfy the most discriminating JF.  It likewise is convenient sufficiency to stop a laptop, tripod and camera equipment.  An extraordinary spin on the Geisha is that it is a actuation laptop bag.  However, the extra bits that commonly attain a actuation activity acerbic to circularize aren’t conception of the Geisha.  The wheels and appendage are fashioned from rattling reddened touchable and aren’t obvious.  So, if you desired to circularize it as a shoulder bag, you could.  But then, finished the airport, you could rotate it to spend your fashionista back.

OK, this one isn’t caretaker convenient â€" but it IS caretaker stylish, for the JF who strength poverty to entertain tending from her inquiring questions. Clark and Mayfield’s Rosemont holds a laptop up to 17” as substantially as whatever peripherals.  It’s not a activity for an embedded Iraq reporter, that’s for trusty â€" but it is a solidified piece of accomplishment and module definitely alter a tinge of zing to some news you’re filing.

And there you hit it. Are there some another identify of journalists that I've missed? Any thin sub-species who requirement a primary laptop bag? Would love to center your thoughts and comments!

Cross Posted on Benét's blog