Welcome to the annual media rivalry that swirls around the Two Sessions!

Here are the basic essentials in the backpack of a print journalist: a 4G smartphone with strong Wi-Fi access, high-quality photo and video equipment and an audio recorder.

Add an easy-to-carry laptop or a tablet, plus charging devices. Throw in a small notebook and two pens for any note-taking that needs to be done by hand.

The more tech savvy also arm themselves with a 360-degree virtual reality camera since immersive storytelling is the latest trend in media coverage.

The annual sessions of China's top legislature and top political advisory body are the country's most important political and economic events. They also present a battlefield for Chinese media competing for the best stories with the help of cool gadgets.

For traditional media, the use of communication tools that can also feed online audiences has become an urgent competitive need in the fight for readers and viewers.

Xinhua News Agency, Economic Daily, Guangming Daily and Caijing magazine all adopted VR video and photo technology to cover major news conferences this year.

Here's an example of how it works:

Li Songquan, an NPC deputy from Yunnan province, submitted a motion to the assembled leaders about poverty relief. To give a vivid introduction to the daily life of the local people, he also submitted a VR video produced by reporters from Xinhua. It was the first time Xinhua shot a VR video on poverty. The poverty-stricken village is deep in a mountainous area along the border with Myanmar and is hardly accessible due to poor roads.

Telling such stories is more compelling with video, and driven by faster and more reliable Internet connectivity, the online video revolution is really hitting its stride. With greater 4G roll out, video is expected to account for 70 percent of mobile network traffic within five years, according to a report on media and technology predications for 2016 by Reuters Institute.

China has nearly 688 million Internet users and 622 million of them surf the Web through mobile phones, according to China Internet Network Information Center.

So producing digital and mobile-oriented video and animation is an irresistible trend and both have been integrated into the workflow of Chinese newsrooms.

Before heading to the reporting extravaganza, all of my fellow reporters received training in how to shoot short videos with smartphones and transmit the files through cloud services offered by WeChat, China's most popular mobile message app.

It wasn't easy to shoot a picture or video of a CPPCC member while crammed in a crowd of reporters. And it was also important to keep focused on gauging comments and preparing questions.

The road to media convergence for a journalist is not necessarily a smooth one. But it is never too late to get started.

Contact the writer at luhaoting@chinadaily.com.cn