International Journalism

Kevin Williams

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781446292440
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Journalismus

"Kevin Williams has authored an account of "foreign" correspondence and international journalism that is the most comprehensively-sourced, inclusive, contextualized, timely and critical in its field. At last, we have an account that acknowledges that the largest employers of "foreign" correspondents for nearly two hundred years have been and continue to be the news agencies; that the occupation is rooted in a history of imperialism, post-colonialism and commercialization, whose vestiges today are all too apparent; that the impacts of so-called "new media" on the amount, range and quality of international news, while significant, are less dramatic and less positive than commonly supposed."
- Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Bowling Green State University, Ohi o What is the future of the foreign correspondent - is there one? Tracing the historical development of international reporting, Kevin Williams examines the organizational structures, occupational culture and information environment in which it is practiced to explore the argument that foreign correspondence is becoming extinct in the globalized world. Mapping the institutional, political, economic, cultural, and historical context within which news is gathered across borders, this book reveals how foreign correspondents are adapting to new global and commercial realities in how they gather, adapt and disseminate news. Lucid and engaging, the book expertly probes three global models of reporting - Anglo-American, European and the developing world - to lay bare the forces of technology, commercial constraint and globalization that are changing how journalism is practiced and understood. Essential reading for students of journalism, this is a timely and thought-provoking book for anyone who wishes to fully grasp the core issues of journalism and reporting in a global context.

1

GLOBALISATION AND INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM

Globalisation and the internet have created a space for news and political discourse that overrides geography and increases opportunities for non-mainstream, citizen based news sources ... the deterritorialised and globalised online zones for news and political discussion have led to important new questions about the future of traditional news media and the shape of political discourse. (Reese et al., 2007)

This chapter examines the different approaches to understanding the impact of global change on the nature of international journalism. To assess the impact we must be clear about what we are discussing. Both ‘globalisation’ and ‘international journalism’ are simple but elusive concepts. Traditionally, international journalism is equated with foreign correspondence. Many assumptions are made about the nature of ‘foreign correspondence’ which ignore the porous borders that have always existed between domestic and foreign news. Foreign news comes in different shapes and forms and the gathering, reporting and dissemination of international news has been undertaken by a variety of actors in a range of organisational contexts serving numerous objectives and interests. Understanding what is meant by ‘globalisation’ is not easy (McGillivray, 2006). There is ‘no single coherent theory of globalisation’ and the empirical data generated to assess the impact of global change is limited and contradictory (Held et al., 1999: 436). The media are full of references to ‘globalisation’, with newspapers, magazines, television news and other media forms carrying stories, comment and analysis of how globalisation is responsible for a plethora of events and occurrences. It seems that, every day, politicians around the world call forth ‘globalisation’ to justify support for this policy or to extol us to take that form of action. Everything from the problems of the collapse of the banking system to the decline of English football is attributed to what former British Prime Minster Tony Blair described as the ‘inevitable and irresistible’ process of globalisation. Despite having ‘invaded our consciousness’ (Tae Kim and Weaver, 2003) uncertainties cloud the meaning of the concept of globalisation.

As well as defining the terms that are central to our discussion of the way in which the world is reported, the chapter outlines three different approaches to understanding international journalism in an ‘age of globalisation’. The first approach is to focus on the homogenisation of foreign news and reporting brought about by the standardisation of journalism around the world. According to Mark Deuze (2005: 444) ‘the twentieth century history of ... journalism can be typified by the consolidation of a consensual occupational ideology among journalists in different parts of the world’. Globalisation is seen as encouraging the development of a universal set of values around the practice and output of the contemporary international journalism. The way in which international journalism has been universalised is a matter of debate. It is most commonly argued that the Anglo-American model has become the universal yardstick by which the profession should be practised. However, the export of Anglo-American journalism is not uniformly regarded as a positive development.

The second approach postulates the emergence of a radically new form of journalism described as global journalism. It is seen as a response to the new realities of a globalised international society that is more ‘transnational’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ in composition. Globalisation has ‘weakened the connection between journalism and its traditional nation-state base ...’ (Reese, 2008: 240). For Peter Berglez (2008: 847) ‘global journalism is endowed with particular epistemology, defined as the global outlook’, which produces interpretations of the world that are different from the national outlooks within which journalism has traditionally framed social reality. Globalisation and technology are also seen as undermining the professional and industrial foundations that have traditionally supported international reporting, removing the need for specialised foreign correspondents. The rise of ‘do-it-yourself’ foreign reporting facilitated by the internet has, some would argue, increased the number of ‘foreign correspondents’ who, ‘equipped with camcorders and computers will send out and receive more foreign dispatches’ (Utley, 1997: 9). The third approach asserts, or perhaps we should say reasserts, the role of the nation-state in determining the theory and practice of journalism in the global era (see de Burgh, 2005). It seeks to emphasise that foreign correspondence remains heterogeneous in its practices, performance and values. National cultures, polities and societies shape the practice and performance of foreign reporting throughout the world. This can be seen in a number of different ways: the ‘domestication’ of foreign news, the desire of news audiences around the world for local interpretations and analysis of events, the rise of new regional and local news actors, and the advent of new media organisations that are non-western in outlook.

Foreign correspondence

---

Foreign correspondence – or international journalism¹ – usually describes news media coverage of what is happening outside the home state and the processes by which it is obtained. What constitutes ‘foreign’ news is delineated from ‘domestic’ news with the presumption that there are clear differences between the peoples of different nations. It is what happens to ‘them’, and the implication is that what happens to ‘them’ has nothing to do with ‘us’ (Vargas and Paulin, 2007: 20). The word ‘foreign’ implies that what is reported is alien, strange and unfamiliar. This clear delineation of ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’ news is the product of the development of nation-states and national media systems. Print and broadcast journalism has grown within the framework of the nation-state: newspapers, radio and television have been organised on a national basis serving the informational needs of the state, commerce and civil society.

The close connection between modern national identities and the media is emphasised by Benedict Anderson (1983) who theorises that individuals were able to imagine themselves as members of the modern nation through their consumption of the newspaper and print media. The growth of print culture enabled people who never met one another to feel, for the first time, that they were part of the same ‘imagined community’ – the nation. Broadcasting in most parts of the world has been committed to ‘serving the nation’; the motto of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that ‘nation should speak truth unto nation’ illustrates the national remit of public service broadcasting. Most countries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries established national news agencies to communicate national news to the world. These agencies played a crucial role in the consolidation of the modern nation-state, participating in the national rivalries that characterised international relations in this era.

The centrality of national interests, needs and considerations to the emergence of the media ensured that international news would be defined as news about and between nations. National news agencies were closely associated with government, usually financed and funded by them and highly dependent on official sources of information. Many had started as commercial ventures to provide foreign news to their national and provincial newspapers, but most of them came under the aegis of state control and/or patronage. While legally and politically committed to independence from political influence, national news agencies closely identified with the nation-state perspective of events and issues.

The agencies were vital components in the armoury of the nation state: then as now, the agencies were among the range of institutions which new nation states came to feel they had to establish in order to be seen as credible as nations and in order to project or control the dissemination of the ‘national image’ on global markets. (Boyd-Barrett and Rantanen, 1998: 5)

This close identification not only shaped the practices of the national agencies and national media but also influenced the values used to select foreign news.

The notion that foreign news is about events that happen outside national borders is deemed inadequate by many scholars and practitioners in capturing what appears – and has appeared – in print and on screen. International news comes in different packages: foreign news abroad, home news abroad and foreign news at home (Hahn and Lonnendonker, 2009: 6). What we take as the customary form of international news is that which covers stories about countries and peoples abroad which have no impact, effect or relevance to home audiences. However, most news media focus more on the latter two categories; according to Kai Hafez (2007: 39) ‘most of the time, international reporting in media systems around the world is produced for domestic audiences, not for the regions in question themselves’. Adapting international stories to domestic concerns and interests is a means of ensuring that foreign news relates to the viewers, readers and listeners at home (Golding and Elliott, 1979: 156). Home news abroad concentrates on events which are directly linked or of direct interest to domestic audiences. What happens to fellow citizens abroad or the foreign travels of domestic leaders or celebrities are examples of such stories. Foreign news at home is the other side of this coin; such stories include visits by foreign heads of state or dignitaries, international conferences on home soil or domestic reactions to major international issues. Foreign correspondence often involves making a ‘link between foreign news coverage and domestic coverage’ and ‘transporting domestic references or concerns to foreign news abroad’ (Hahn and Lonnendonker, 2009: 6).

This has implications for understanding what foreign correspondents do and what foreign correspondence is. Definitions of the ‘foreign correspondent’ are few and far between. Scholars have bombarded foreign correspondents – mainly those working for western organisations or in major news centres such as Washington and London – with mailed questionnaires since the mid 1950s (for example, Lambert, 1956; Mowlana, 1975; Ghorpade, 1984; Morrison and Tumber, 1985; Hess, 1996; Wilnat and Weaver, 2003; Wu and Hamilton, 2004). While generating considerable information about their background and working practices, no-one has provided a detailed definition of foreign correspondence and foreign reporting. One standard way of defining a foreign correspondent is ‘a journalist who works in a state different from one in which his [sic] information-medium is located’ (Hahn and Lonnendonker, 2009: 3). Traditionally, the largest employers of foreign correspondents have been the international news agencies – a select number of national news agencies that morphed in the nineteenth century into international news providers (see Chapter 2). Their allegiance to the ‘nation’ has been a matter of conjecture as a result of their commercial objective of providing news for outlets in a variety of countries. Many national news organisations have for most of their history maintained their own correspondents in key locations abroad.

Most of those we characterise as ‘great foreign correspondents’ worked for distinguished national titles. These are usually believed to be nationals of the country in which the news organisation is located – history indicates that this assumption is problematic. The gatherers of foreign news have traditionally come in many shapes and sizes, and from numerous national backgrounds. Long stay correspondents, the men and women assigned to cover a country, region or beat – the bureau correspondents – are seen as typifying the foreign news reporter. But from the very early days the roving reporter sent to cover ‘hot spots’ or major news stories in remote parts of the world – what we label parachute journalism today – have figured prominently in the foreign news gathering business. Long before air transportation enhanced the ability of reporters to drop into breaking news stories across the world, reporters jumped off trains, boats, horses and carriages or whatever form of transport was available to cover stories (Erickson and Hamilton, 2007). The distinction between the long stay reporter and the parachute journalist has been a feature of foreign correspondence since its earliest days. The struggles between the two types of reporters and their different modi vivendi have always had a bearing on the nature of international news.

Much foreign news is not gathered in the field but by other kinds of correspondents based in the home country. Tensions between the ‘field’ and ‘home office’ figure prominently in the history of international news gathering. This is not only a product of the way in which those in the home office edit copy, crop pictures and splice film to fit their understanding of the story but also the result of the flow of information from diplomatic, political and other home-based correspondents. The reporting of one of the ‘big stories’ of the twentieth century – the Vietnam War – is often characterised as a battle between two press corps, the Washington-based reporters and the Saigon correspondents, which fed the media two different and mutually exclusive pictures of events. Several Saigon-based reporters spoke of their editors ignoring what they were telling them in favour of the Washington version (Knightley, 1975: 376). Struggles inside media organisations are a feature of all kinds of news reporting but are keenly felt in the case of foreign news stories: a large newspaper such as Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun would have – on an average news day – two pages of foreign news, which means its large network of 60 foreign correspondents based in around 30 countries faces acute competition for space (Hannerz, 2004: 67).

Another important distinction in the world of foreign correspondence is between full time and freelance reporters. Mark Pedelty (1995), in his examination of the press corps covering the bitter civil war in the El Salvador in the early 1980s, differentiates between A Team and B Team correspondents. The A Team are usually staff correspondents who work for major news outlets, have regular access to official sources of information, a regular salary, reside in the best hotels and usually appear when the story enters its crisis phase. The B Team are part timers who are hired for their local knowledge. They can be local nationals or foreign nationals who are resident in the country. ‘Stringers’ and ‘fixers’ are often local journalists who supplement what is in many parts of the world a meagre income to supply news for larger and usually foreign news organisations. The ‘staff’ and ‘stringers’ distinction is a feature of the reporting of many major foreign news stories. Pedelty (1995) describes the tensions and interdependency of the two groups, drawing attention to the different type of foreign news reporting produced by each. The staff reporter is perceived as trapped within ‘disciplinary apparatuses’ (1995: 5) that favour particular forms of knowledge and privilege certain discourses. He or she is subject to the ‘editorial discipline’ of the news organisation (1995: 76). While stringers are not ‘under the editor’s constant eye’ they are subject to the commercial pressure to sell their expertise and stories to different media outlets. They are also perceived as less detached from local conditions – stringers are seeking to sell their familiarity which, in the words of one staff correspondent who covered the war in El Salvador, ‘can lead to pretty strong emotions towards the story’ (1995: 75). Hannerz (2004: 74) makes a distinction between ‘freelancers’ and ‘stringers’; the latter have ‘a bit longer term relationship with media organisations’. Many stringers seek to advance to a staff position. Freelancers on the other hand struggle to maintain their independence from editorial control. Writing for a variety of publications is part of this struggle but the commercial need to ‘sell’ stories means they are enthralled to the news organisations as much if not more than staff reporters.

The ‘team’ aspect of foreign news reporting must be emphasised – while the audience is accustomed to seeing star reporters on their screens (such as CNN’s Christine Amanpour and BBC’s John Simpson) or reading them in print (such as John Pilger), most foreign news gatherers work relatively anonymously and as part of a team. Covering a story for television has for most of the post-war period involved a sizable entourage, including a sound recordist and camera worker. Many print reporters are accompanied on their travels by photographers. The relationship between reporter and support staff has often been characterised as difficult, with camera workers and photographers portrayed as taking greater risks to get the story (Behr, 1978; Marinovich and Silva, 2001). Getting the pictures, particularly in relation to television, is as important as the words and the outcome of an often uneasy collaboration. The notion of the lone correspondent perpetuated by news organisations and practised by a few mavericks such as Ryszard Kapuściński (see Chapter 4) belies the fact that for most of the post-war period foreign reporting in the field has been done by a team of media workers. This is changing with the advent of new technology but traditionally foreign correspondents are involved in a process of conflict and collaboration which determines the kind of news we receive.

Supply-side explanations of foreign correspondence must also focus on the role of home editors in determining what foreign news is. News organisations are hierarchical and editors exercise considerable control over the news agenda. The contours of the foreign news coverage, it is argued, reflect the ways in which editors deploy their correspondents. Some parts of the world ‘generate more foreign news because they have more foreign journalists’ (Van Ginnekin, 1998: 143). Economic and organisational factors are crucial in determining what is reported. Surveys have also shown that home editors perceive their audiences are relatively uninterested in foreign news. This perception shapes their coverage of events overseas. It leads us to ask what readers, listeners and viewers actually want. The audiences for foreign news have not figured prominently in the discussion of foreign news reporting (Berger, 2009). The limited attention paid to what people want produces a range of contradictory data: more people appear to be interested in foreign news than editors believe and they appear to want different kinds of stories than they often receive. It is also possible to say that audiences in certain parts of the world have historically been more open to news from abroad.

There are two final points about the nature of foreign correspondence. The first relates to the variety of forms of knowledge by which correspondents and their organisations serve up accounts of what is happening in the world. Scholarly literature tends to focus on the ‘news’ – this is the primary way by which what foreign reporters see, hear and are told reaches the majority of the public. The restrictions that news as a form of knowledge places on what is reported have been thoroughly dissected. However, there are other outlets that foreign correspondents – as with other specialist reporters – use to tell us what is happening. Backgrounders, features and more analytical pieces, columns and special documentaries – recently joined by blogs – are some of the means by which foreign reporters escape the straight jacket imposed by news on what they can communicate. The BBC’s John Simpson used a column in the Sunday Telegraph to express his opinions about world and other events – something his employers eventually believed impaired the commitment to objectivity they demanded. Over the years reporters have resorted to books to convey their truth of the events they have witnessed. In fact, reporters such as Kapuściński, who spent most of his working life as a reporter for the Polish National News Agency (PAP), have acquired their reputation as foreign correspondents based on their ‘literary’ not their news output.

The second point is intrinsic to the word ‘foreign’: foreign correspondents continually have to make the unfamiliar familiar to their audiences. Crossing cultural barriers and interpreting cultural difference is central to activity of foreign correspondence. A critical aspect of this is the process of ‘translation’. Bielsa and Bassett (2009: 2) relate how international journalism conceives of translation as more than an inter-lingual activity; it is a process by which information is ‘reshaped, edited, synthesized and transformed for the consumption of a new set of readers’. INAs produce news texts for the different markets they serve; linguistic and cultural knowledge combine to produce information that c...