Early Sunday, many network journalists got that phone call. “It’s big. We need you on a plane ASAP,” they say, and suddenly the race is on to pack what’s needed and make the flight. Most network correspondents don’t have to think too much about what gets packed. The “go bag” is a time-honored tradition, and each bag reflects the journalist who carries it.
In an interview with the alumni magazine of the University of Rhode Island, where he graduated in 1991, CBS News correspondent and CBSN anchor Vladimir Duthiers talks about his career, which took him from host at campus radio station WRIU before getting his big break at CNN, where he got a chance to travel to Haiti–he speaks Creole–with Anderson Cooper.
He later became a CNN correspondent in Africa, and joined CBS News in 2014.
Here’s what Duthiers said he always carries in his bag when he gets the call to jump on a plane:
My iPod and my Kindle with noise cancelling headphones; without them I am toast. Two mobile phones. Notebook obviously. Beef jerky, bags of almonds and packets of tuna. Everyone got sick in Haiti in the days after the quake. Not me. Asolo Fugitive GTX boots. Flashlight. A Leatherman multi-tool but only if you’re checking luggage. A couple of shirts made by 5.11 Tactical. They repel mosquitos, are practically waterproof and stink-proof because you never know when you’ll get to shower. My North Face Cyclone rain jacket and my Patagonia R4 fleece. Because even in West Africa, it can get wet or chilly, especially if you have to sleep out in the bush. A sense of humor.