Backpack Journalism

Alas, it is only the first assignment of the first class of the sequence that I have chosen for a profession that should end up being what I do for a career, and I already am questioning the root of the field that I have chosen! Both articles established excellent points, and after extensive thinking, I think that I agree with both of them.

First, there is Stone's article, which made enough sense that I became worried. And I tend to agree with what she said--it is extremely difficult for one to become a master-of-all-trades type of journalist. Also, there are few instances where that sort of thing would even be necessary. I concur that this type of thing should be the exception and not the rule.

However, I read further into Stevens' article, and I realized that convergence journalism as we know it now is not best produced by a single jack-of-all-trades journalist. It is made up of teams of master-of-one-trade-and-jacks-of-the-rest-of-them journalists, each with a single mastered skill or skills that they lend to the group, bringing not only their skill to the public, but also working to improve that specific skill for the other journalists by means of a sort of quasi-mentoring. This would ideally be how journalists cover the typical news stories--in groups where everybody is continuously learning, bust still bringing the skilled journalism in their respective fields. Then, once these reporters do become masters-of-all-trades, they will continue to report these stories with their teams, but can also do a long-term story by themselves where a master-of-all-trades (so many hyphens!) solo journalist would be the best fit for the story.

So, in essence, I agree with both of the articles. I think that Stone is generally correct, but being close minded, and that Stevens is totally correct. I would also be interested to hear these authors' opinions now, 5 years after the articles were written, and to see if they have changed at all.