ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the new roles and challenges facing journalists from the perspective of the practitioner. It explores how the closely linked media components are partly serving as a gateway to the profession for aspiring new media journalists. The journalism profession and journalists' practices are undergoing tumultuous changes. The training of the new generation of 21st-century digital journalists is driving radical changes in journalism and mass media curriculums at colleges and universities throughout the United States and around the world. Despite the radical changes in the technology, organization and economics of journalism that have occurred since the new millennium, the mission of journalism remains very much the same as it was before the Digital Age: fact finding and storytelling. The term hyperlocal journalism denotes news and information focused on a well-defined, consistent community. Backpack journalism offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional newsgathering teams. Backpack journalism is becoming a standard for longer-form investigative reports.
