Martha Stone's 'Mush of Mediocrity'

Stone brought up interesting points in her piece. 'Backpack' journalists, she claims, are just an excuse from publishers to keep overhead costs down. While multi-media journalism may indeed be coming from a backpack style of grass roots, her conjecture has immediate evidence-
Chains like Gannet do eliminate overhead wherever they can, and they will probably substitute jacks-of-all-trades media backpackers in place of experienced professionals. Content willl suffer.
It seems clear that a single person who can manage print, radio, and video content, and form a coherent and professional quality story on a web page all while operating out of a suitcase is a rare commodity. Perhaps for simple things, hacks are sufficient. But for stories of import or nuance, nothing beats a team.
The central problem of the 'backpack' idea is that it's too easy to get held hostage by the technology. Someone with huge technical savvy and a pile of digital toys will tend to put all of them to use whenever possible. But what tells the best story? Maybe video is superfluous in some cases. Maybe audio would only get in the way in others. A single backpacker would probably miss those subtle cues, but a team would be more successful.