Page 354 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Parachute Journal sm: Internat onal News Report ng |

attaching alligator clips to a modem to transmit a story from the field; knowing
when to hide, and how; how to detect surveillance, and how to escape it; how
to arrange for travel documents, tickets, and lodging; and when to hit the dirt
when certain sounds transmit the order to do so.

ProsPECTs For ParaChuTE JournaLism

Many reporters without such experience are thrust into situations calling for
reportage from an unfamiliar locale, however, and the resourceful and experi-
enced ones are able to operate effectively by remaining aware of their limitations
and leveraging their strengths. A foundation in domestic coverage of a diasporic
community can serve as excellent preparation for travel to the homeland of that
population, especially if sources and references can be transmitted in the pro-
cess. A specialist in a subject area—medicine or public health, for example—can
tap into professional networks. A veteran war correspondent can forecast how
weather, terrain, or other factors may influence the development of a situation.
Not all parachute correspondents are such experienced hands, however. The
novelty of the embedded correspondents in the ongoing war in Iraq has brought
undue confidence to many neophytes entering the war zone, and instances of
touristic reportage divorced from balanced sourcing have increased. If such
cases are taken as instances of parachute journalism, the bad odor associated
with the term grows stronger. Such journalists might, however, be better classed
under the new terminology, “embeds,” in that while they may appear suddenly
and soon enough disappear from the milieu, they are in most instances joining
a pack of journalists focused on the same general story, as opposed to entering
into the situation as solo interlocutors.
Parachute journalism, then, is subject to a broad range of definitions, and
even within a defined niche, the qualities brought to the practice by individu-
als and organizations that may be sponsoring them vary considerably. The phe-
nomenon, with its roots in the first foreign reportage, has grown with the ease
and affordability of transportation, and is open to a broader range of partici-
pants than ever before, guaranteeing that its lowest common denominators will
continue to place the term and those it describes in an unflattering light. At the
same time, it remains likely that elite practitioners of the craft will be among the
most skilled, most experienced, and best supported journalists working. Just as
journalism reaches new heights and depths with its expanding permutations, so,
too, will parachute journalism continue to place side by side, in the settings of
some of the world’s best stories, with adventurers, charlatans, and masters of the
imperfect art of journalism.
see also Al-Jazeera; Embedding Journalists; Global Community Media; Hyper-
commercialism; Journalists in Peril; Media Watch Groups; Paparazzi and Photo-
graphic Ethics; Sensationalism, Fear Mongering, and Tabloid Media; Tourism
and the Selling of Cultures.

Further reading: Bullard, Frederick L. Famous War Correspondents. New York: Beekman, 1974
[1914]; Emery, Michael. On the Front Lines: Following America’s Foreign Correspondents