Or perhaps we should say iPhone aided old-fashioned journalistic shrewdness, research and determination?

Resume (in Swedish) carries the story of how Niklas Svensson landed the first interview with Swedish author Henning Mankell, an interview that was mentioned on international networks such as BBC and Al-Jazeera, after he was released from Israeli custody. Svensson, a reporter with Swedish tabloid Expressen, flew down to Tel Aviv to try to get on the same flight as Mankell out of Israel.

After several hours of legwork at the airport he was able to identify, and secure a seat on, the same flight as Mankell. The minute the famous author got on board, Svensson leaped up to him, obtained permission to snap a photo with his iPhone and immediately sent it to his news desk back home. Once the airplane was in the air, and the seatbelt sign was switched off, he went up to Mankell and did a video interview with him using his iPhone and a tape recorder.

He then got out his laptop, typed it all up, and emailed a print and web version of the interview when switching planes in Munich. Svensson talks of his incredible luck in being the only journalist on the flight, but he is commended in the comment section for delivering a kind of journalism, going out there to get the story come hell or high water, one commenter in particular says he thought had become extinct.

(I stumbled across a link to this story via a blog post on a Swedish iPhone blog, iPhone 24, which for some reason showed up in my permanent Icerocket search on Norwegian media group Schibsted).