Going it alone: solo journalism

What happens when one journo can write engaging accounts, capture defining still images, shoot and edit high-quality video and upload it all on the internet? Jason Boswell guides you through the brave new world of Solo Journalism.

In a constantly evolving media world, journalists are becoming increasingly multi-skilled, often writing stories and having to shoot their own pictures. Media education is also focusing on developing multi-faceted journalists. Would that mean, by looking through the evolutionary crystal ball, that the epitome of modern journalism would be a single journalist that could do all these things simultaneously? What exactly is this “SoJo” stuff anyway, and is the media world ready for it?

Aptly, the solo journalism trend started with one man. When you plug the words ‘Solo Journalism’ into any internet search engine, and hit enter, one name is guaranteed to be blinking back at you from the screen; Kevin Sites.

Sites pitched this idea to a major internet company in 2005: “Yahoo! outmaneuvers its internet competitors and the dinosaur television networks by deploying veteran combat correspondent and pioneering SoJo (solo journalist) Kevin Sites into global hotzones for live, interactive reports using video, text and still imagery to tell the stories the world isn’t seeing and providing them in a way they haven’t seen before.”
The veteran correspondent’s idea was accepted, and a new trend in journalism was born.

“Solo journalist” as a term is fairly self-explanatory; a single journalist kitted out with a high-tech mobile office in their bag who is able to report from anywhere on the planet across a range of media. So to start off with, a solo journalist is going to need some powerful equipment. Mobile and “backpack” journalism are some of the other terms used to describe this type of journalism. These terms not only show that this new journo needs a load of equipment, but the stuff needs to be compact enough for one person to lug about, often in strenuous conditions.

Sites carried with him an arsenal of multimedia equipment which included a high-definition video camera, a back-up video camera which could be mounted to his head to provide an exceptionally geeky-looking hands-free kit, a laptop computer loaded with a top-notch video-editing suite and other essential programmes, a digital still camera, a satellite modem and a satellite phone.

All this in one backpack.

Whilst this seems like a huge amount of equipment for one person to be dragging around, in total Sites’ equipment weighed in at around five kilograms, – metaphorical dynamite. According to his website, kevinsitesreports.com, Sites also initiated a research project with Xybernaut Inc. to modify wearable computers for solo digital reporting.

So while you don’t need to be a muscle-bound superhuman to carry the equipment, another concern becomes evident. Carly Ritz, multimedia editor at The Times, says, “You’ll have to be really careful about burn-out and fatiguing these journalists.” Her concern was echoed by John Strauss, an online reporter and editor for Indy Star.com, who covered the Indiana State fair as a solo journalist. He says on mobile-
journalism.blogspot.com, “Do that for a week and a half, and you’ll not only need a backpack for the gear, you’ll want a vacation to recover, even if you’re a former television and wire-service reporter.”

The numbers consolidate their concerns. In his book, In The Hot Zone, Sites lists the statistics for his assignment; 368 days travelled, 71 airplanes, 30 countries travelled, 21 conflicts covered. And the real crunch numbers; 1320 still photos posted, 153 text stories written and 131 video stories produced.

In addition to the fatigue concern, Ritz also says that the technology in South Africa would still need to improve before such an initiative is considered locally. She cites the bandwidth of the country’s internet connections as one of the main hindrances for online multimedia and video productions. Bandwidth is not the only handicapping factor with regards to the uploading of video material on the internet. Ritz also says that mindsets in the local newsrooms have to change and journalists have to get used to writing for print as well as for the web.

Even Sites had his doubts about working for a company that has an exclamation mark in the official spelling of its name. John Strauss quotes Randy Covington, director of the Ifra Newsplex Training Center, who says “he thinks the most powerful multimedia storytelling is being done by newspapers, using still pictures and audio,” stating that video is difficult to produce and often the quality is such that it does not add much value to the story. In a South African context, this is clearly visible by the popularity of the slide shows on many of the newspapers’ sites.

At London’s prestigious Frontline Club, a media club which provides media training amongst other things, courses are being introduced to counteract this problematic video quality. They are now offering a training program in Solo Video Journalism open to working journalists as well as those with little or no experience in shooting video. Their website, frontlineclub.com, says: “This course has been developed in response to the increasing demands on journalists to become multi-skilled and embrace the rise of video journalism.”
Yes, the change is happening.

And while it may be expensive to kit out a new solo journalist, Sites also had an identical kit as a back-up in case of emergencies; as with any business the costs must be weighed against the benefits. Equipment prices will come down over time and sending in one journalist would be more cost-effective than a team of journalists.

Initially this sort of work will be done by journalists such as Kevin Sites with years of field experience from which to draw. However, a new generation of journalists is coming up through the ranks. Jonathan McCarthy, assistant managing editor of cross media at Newsday in the United States, was quoted in the March edition of The Quill, published by the Society of Professional Journalists in the States.

“Most of the kids in journalism schools have their Facebook pages and their MySpace pages — they’re all jacked up already,” McCarthy said. “They don’t even use email anymore; they’re texting. They expect to be doing this (multimedia work).”

So where does this leave the solo journalist in South Africa? Covington says, “In 2008, I don’t think anybody can stick their head in the sand and say this is a passing trend...this is a reality. We either do it or we risk not having jobs.”