Erickson and Hamilton: Foreign Reporting Enhanced by Parachute Journalism - 33 Foreign Reporting Enhanced By Parachute Journalism by Emily Erickson and John Maxwell Hamilton Interviews with editors and reporters at 50 daily newspapers found that 45 papers practiced ad hoc reporting trips abroad, thus substantiating that parachute journalism is a growing trend. __________________________________________ I come from a generation where everybody expected [to be like] The New York Times—to have, you know, 40 or 50 bureaus overseas with people who have expertise and know everything about a country and spend months and months studying languages and getting boned up on the history and every- thing else. And I think that’s valuable, there’s no question about it. But that’s not where we are right now. That’s not the world we’re in right now. So parachute journalism—I don’t say it’s good or bad. It’s just what is. It’s what we have to do. Elisa Tinsley, World Editor, USA Today 1 Speaking at a broadcasters conference in September 2002, Chris Cramer, president of CNN International, criticized the network’s rivals for sending journalists into foreign countries with little more than a “fistful of press clippings.” 2 “Parachuting some joker” into an unfamiliar place, he said, was “one of the reasons that the audience in the states was so ill-prepared for the events of Sept. 11.” 3 The CNN executive’s comments represent a broad consensus among media practitioners and scholars. Parachute journalism, veteran Washington Post cor- respondent Don Oberdorfer charges, gives the public “a much thinner sense of what this is all about because you [the journalist] don’t know it yourself.” 4 Erickson is an assistant professor and Hamilton is dean. Both are affiliated with the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University.