Journalists in between?

Sarah Steffen

Some see backpack journalists as the doom of quality journalism, others believe they are the promised future generalists. Of course the arguments in the articles by Jane Stevens and Martha Stone are not new. Fears of an unexperienced, untrained journalist doing all the work of up to four good journalists at once – just at a lower quality level – have been around for a while. On the other hand people have been praising the new possibilities of the allrounders, too.
The question to ask is not if backpack journalism is to stay, because it already established itself pretty well. The question is rather under what circumstances it will succeed (even more). It is not enough to send people out there and to hand them a nice equipment; one has to train them to use it, too. I think it is crucial that backpack journalism is not just seen as a fancy way to cut costs, but to enlarge possibilities for good reporting.