Let's Build: a Military Journalist

[Raellus]

Probably 10 years ago or so, one of the original PCs in a Pirates of the Vistula PbP campaign that I had just started running was a US army combat journalist. His player quit the game after another player summarily executed a ZOMO prisoner, and his PC returned to Krakow to find more morally-aligned traveling companions. I was disappointed that I didn't get a chance to witness a military journalist PC in action over the long-term.
.
Anyway, today, I stumbled across this crazy story:

https://warisboring.com/army-photogr...o-of-the-film/

And it got me thinking about military journalist character builds. It doesn't have to be Army (the Marines have a combat journalist MOS- ergo, "Joker" from Full Metal Jacket), or even US-centric, but I thought it might be a fun thought experiment to build an military photographer PC using each of the rule T2k sets.

What skills would an Army Photographer have? How would you equip him or her?

We don't have to focus just on photographers- it can be any sort of military journalist.

Feel free to post your builds here, as well as any other articles, thoughts, stories, encounter ideas, etc. focusing on military journalists in combat.

-

[Ewan]

This might be of use for the Free League version
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...News-Reporters

[Silent Hunter UK]

They'd probably want some relatively light camera, as they'll have to lug it around with them. SLR was just starting to become a thing, but you'd probably need a self-winding film camera due to the difficulty in getting batteries.

Developing film might be difficult too.

[ToughOmbres]

Heck, after TDM certainly no later than 1998 I would think even accessing film itself much less processing would be a problem. Almost all of the posts in Germany and CONUS had photolab/shops for MWR. "Let's keep the kids out of trouble" hobby that was popular for some

PAO's are a secondary MOS for officers not sure about photographers?

[Raellus]

Perhaps I was too narrow with my thread title.

There. Fixed.

Let's open this up to any stripe of military journalist.

Although armies c.2000 wouldn't have the resources or distribution capabilities to publish something like Stars and Stripes (the US military-wide daily of WW2 fame), I bet well-organized cantonments would still be able to print small batches (a couple hundred, at least) of newspapers from time to time. The potential to boost morale would be just as important- probably more so- as keeping the troops informed of local/wider developments.

"Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooood Morning, Poland!"

I can also see some cantonments operating radio stations.

Consequently, military journalists of various kinds would still have a place in the T2kU.

-

[Ewan]

I could see something like this getting produced to let the battalion or brigade or even division keep up on the local news

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wipers_Times