BPJ

I am devoting my hard-earned, 4 year (OK, 5 year) degree to convergence journalism, so for sanity’s sake, I am going to have to side with the argument that “Backpack Journalism is here to Stay.” I think the most valuable piece of information in both of these articles is the date in which they were written: 2002. Geez, I was like a high school freshman then! Both articles made predictions about the successfulness and staying power of multimedia journalism, and I do not think anybody is expecting any of our online news sources to become “server not found” pages soon. These past 6 years have already proven that there is power in being able to tell a story through various mediums that can provide a more comprehensive and complete news report to the public. Having the news so easily accessible and even entertaining is what people want and what we are now technologically able to provide them.
I strongly dispute the argument that most multimedia journalists are unable to provide true quality or that putting together a story with varying medias is simply not feasible. The fact that such capable journalists are “few and far between” only makes me more ambitious to become one of the few; and to avoid running around the world with a video recorder on my shoulder, camera in hand, and notebook… somewhere, I will simply have to have had enough training to recognize the best medium in which to tell certain stories. I believe we can tell accurate stories in innovative ways, and that’s why I’m here!