With the massive development of Internet as a source for news, backpack journalism is hard to ignore. Whether we like it or not, this is our future.
While it is easy to focus on the pros of a “jack of all trades” journalist (economically speaking), there are obvious flaws. Martha Stone argues that backpack journalism fosters mediocrity and results in poor quality images, audio and video pieces. It’s almost impossible for someone to excel at everything so what may be seen as a way to promote efficiency could end up resulting in below-par journalism.
For backpack journalism to be a positive and exciting development, news organizations need to realize that journalism doesn’t follow some one-size-fits-all rule of reporting. Different situations require different approaches, and sometimes backpack journalism will work, as highlighted by Preston Mendonhall.
In other cases, producer-driven reporting may be a more efficient use of time. Yes, you may have more reporters on a single story, you may need to invest more into it, but you will end up with a story that plays to the strengths of each contributor – one that’s more in-depth and arguably of a higher quality.
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