Parachute Journalism

We’re pulling out of Japan today: as I type this, our car of three photogs, one reporter and one fixer is driving north to Aomori … It’s never a good feeling to leave a story, especially in this situation- none of us feel like the story is over. All four journalists in the car (myself included) asked our editors to stay longer, but each individual editor declined to keep us on. I can only speak for myself, but I think we all feel pretty shitty right now. It’s has me thinking a lot about the term ‘parachute journalism,’ and I want to write about this today.

Andrew Burton