When to Backpack - Liz Langton

Imagine a news organization sending out one backpack journalist to cover 9-11. Impossible to imagine, right? The backpack journalist will play a very different role when it comes to covering major events as opposed to the less-covered or harder-to-access stories. The bigger the story, the smaller the backpack.

It is safe to assume that convergence students will specialize in one or two forms of coverage, either by choice or chance. The smart newsroom could employ them in their specialty for the major events, and give them free reign over multimedia storytelling for stories that wouldn’t normally receive multimedia exposure.

I see the real impact of the backpack journalist being in covering these stories that either can’t be or aren’t being covered by a multimedia team. The case of Preston Mendenhall in Afghanistan is a good example.

Did Mendenhall get every photo angle perfect, every quote in the right medium, every video clip flawlessly? He even admitted to a smudge on his camera that a video expert would have caught. Did the smudge make a difference in the long run? Probably not. He had access to a part of the world that many did not – and he showed it in ways that many could not. By weaving together a multimedia story, he was able to draw in a larger audience than a print story would alone.

The lower cost of sending Mendenhall and access restrictions on the media are reasons to celebrate the well-trained backpack journalist. This is positive not only for the newsroom, which can save money and resources, but also for the news consumer. It’s a world full of ignored corners and restricted areas, and the backpack journalist is our best bet for getting the full story out there.