The business of international journalism has changed a lot over the last several decades. Media companies have cut back on foreign bureaus and correspondents due to the economic crisis and new technology and cultural changes have transformed the global media. Journalist Richard Sambrook explores the new trends in international reporting in his book for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
"Are foreign correspondents redundant?" questions the title of Sambrook's book. He says that while their role has changed, they are still relevant.
EFE and Sambrook describe the principal upcoming changes and challenges that news organizations and journalists will face, including:
*Be ready as nature of foreign reporting shifts for a spectrum of stories to the extremes of breaking news and in-depth specialism.
*The need to be fluent in the languages in countries one is reporting from instead of hiring translators.
*An increased role for local freelance journalists.
*Future foreign correspondents will be more diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, and cultural background.
Veteran correspondent Mort Rosenblum shares many of Sambrook’s concerns in his recently published book “Little Bunch of Madmen: Elements of Global Reporting.” The journalist is “seriously worried” about the future of international news coverage in the U.S.
International organizations are also concerned about the decline in foreign coverage. Carroll Bogert writes for Human Rights Watch about its effects on NGOs: “Foreign correspondents have always been an important channel for international NGOs to get the word out, and a decline in global news coverage constitutes a threat to their effectiveness. At the same time, not all the implications of this change are bad. These are also days of opportunity for those in the business of spreading the word. ”
Other Related Headlines:
» Knight Center (Veteran foreign correspondent fears for future of international news coverage)
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
