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February 21, 2008 2:24

Death of the American foreign correspondent

Posted by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen | Comments (3) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

Who wants to graduate from J-school, toss some things in a suitcase and set off for a career covering the far reaches of the earth? Who would eschew the comforts of a desk in a midsize American city for the mountain trails of Viet Nam, the opium dens of Egypt, the crowded factories of China? Who wants to conduct interviews in another language, knock back brew with the locals, learn the yuan-to-dollar conversion by heart?

No one, turns out. At least, no Americans.

A piece in the Washington Post this weekend by Pamela Constable notes:

Between 2002 and 2006, the number of foreign-based newspaper correspondents shrank from 188 to 141 (excluding the Wall Street Journal, which publishes Asian and European editions). The Baltimore Sun, which had correspondents from Mexico to Beijing when I went to work there in 1978, now has none. Newsday, which once had half a dozen foreign bureaus, is about to shut down its last one, in Pakistan. Only four U.S. papers -- the Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and The Washington Post -- still keep a stable of foreign correspondents.

(A correction posted online reads: "The article should have included the Chicago Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today and McClatchy newspapers among those still maintaining foreign bureaus.")

Constable laments this turn of affairs, not just for the loss to American readers but to American journalists' careers.

As a young reporter, I devoured the work of famous foreign correspondents and yearned to follow in their footsteps as they chronicled human travails and endeavors: the flight into exile, the search for work, the upheaval of war, the pilgrimage of faith. Joe Lelyveld, accompanying black workers on their daily bus commute into a South African city. Michael Herr, following a psychedelic trail of tears through the jungles of Vietnam. Freya Stark in the 1930s, following the great frankincense road: "On its stream of padding feet the riches of Asia travelled; along its slow continuous thread the Arabian empires rose and fell." Some may call this highbrow tourism, but I agree with the late Polish correspondent Ryszard Kapuscinski: There is something more valuable and more enduring than facts.

Matt Rees, a former Jerusalem correspondent for TIME, tells Marketwatch's Jon Friedman that the resulting quality of reportage turns readers and viewers off.

Despite the big commitment to Iraq, Rees contends that the questionable quality of some reporting contributed to Americans' disillusionment with the coverage. "It was clearly news, but we don't do anything interesting," Rees said. "The public gets to a point where people say, 'I'm sick of watching the coverage of Iraq. I know I'm not getting the real story.'"

But that's only part of the story. As my colleague Bobby Ghosh pointed out in a speech to Asian employees at Time Inc. recently, the remaining foreign correspdents for U.S. media outlets are, for the most part, not American. He told of being asked to join a panel before U.S. military brass while he was Baghdad bureau chief. The brass folded their arms over their chests and asked the assembled journalists how they could consider their coverage "patriotic." The panel looked at each other. None of them—distinguished journalists from the New York Times, ABC and TIME—were American. Not a one.

It's not just that American news organizations are cutting back on their overseas bureaus. It's that American journalists don't want to go abroad.

Hemingway would weep. Bobby wouldn't. He doesn't think it's a bad thing, this trend toward foreign coverage being conducted by foreigners. "We are international," shrugs Bobby, who's Indian. "We have a different way of seeing things. We're comfortable overseas."

Me, I'm of two minds. I too was once a foreign correspondent for a U.S. media outlet covering my home country. (I hold both U.S. and Japanese passports, and I was raised in Japan.) As a native, I brought unique skills to that job: cultural fluency, linguistic fluency, even a native appearance (for Bobby, that proved a far greater boon, as his looks allowed him to navigate Baghdad when no white journalist would find it safe). But I've worked with enough all-American foreign correspondents to know that they bring special skills, too—say, the ability to see a country with totally fresh eyes. I may not find the all-female trains in Tokyo new or interesting. An American might—as might his audience back home.

So I'm hoping the recent obituaries for the American foreign correspondent are somewhat exaggerated. I'm hoping some young bucks are growing up in Omaha or Orlando and dreaming of reporting in Oman or Okinawa. I'm hoping Hemingway lives.

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Reader Comments (3)

Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD:

In the end I say the War is bad for allllll or is it ell or ol., aul, owl, oll, orl, oollm oaol,
The politicians have ruined my language honest
This is the difference The keyboard with the America and the English with the others. So wherefore are you?
In English we differ… The we talk one lingo of bio fuel if there is any in the Market
European English:
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English" .
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.
The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
gez listen to urself - now ur also talking like an European!
I ma going to Tuney then Iran and Iraq to teach Englsih it is very simple now. I kow this.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

Posted by Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD | February 23, 2008 8:28 AM

Simon:

It is sad that newspapers are closing down bureaus, but I don't think it's as simple as US media outlets turning their backs on the world. US newspapers are, alas, cutting back in every department and foreign cuts are part of that.

I think other factors are at play as well. The way the media works is changing, not only in the US but around the globe. There are a lot more freelancers kicking down dusty roads (and many of them are American) nowadays, one side effect perhaps of the death of big traditional bureaus and correspondents. Improved communications also mean you can cover much bigger parts of the world over the phone. And there are some companies that are actually increasing their foreign coverage. ABC just sent out nine or ten reporters to spots in Africa, Asia and elsewhere to beef up their online and video reporting abroad.

There's also the fact that U.S. readers (readers anywhere, except maybe Cuba, North Korea and China) are just a click away from foreign newspaper sites, blogs in other lands, etc.

I know all the counter arguments to this. Yes, it does pay to have U.S. reporters on the ground so they can translate local events in far off places into stories for an American audience, to explain why something that just happened in Afghanistan matters. (And Pamela is one of the best at that). Traditional reporters will also wave away the idea that you can report a place over the phone. The important thing in that case is that the reporter doing the calling actually knows something about the place, and hopefully has lived there or at least traveled there. And yes, phone reporting is less than ideal, better to have someone there on the spot, agreed. But phone reporting is better than no reporting at all.

So yes, the traditional foreign correspondent type is fading, and that's a loss. But there are other things going on that should fill us with some hope. In India, where I am currently based, newspapers and magazines can't get enough reporters, and they’re not just locals but American grad students. Those young journalists will one day make great correspondents for American papers. They've not only lived abroad but worked for Indian companies, with Indian editors and reporters. Arguably, they know India in deeper ways than traditional expat reporters do.

The old adage is that Americans are dumb about the world and that the media is partly to blame. In fact, there’s plenty of great, insightful, interesting stuff being written about the world every single day. Not just in traditional US newspapers but online and in foreign papers too. Not all of it is to adequate standards but that’s changing, slowly in some places and more quickly in others. The role of the foreign correspondent going out and finding great stories in distant places is still hugely important, especially in places where the local media is cowed or banned or worse. The sort of in-depth foreign reporting that US newspapers and magazines do is vital and I hope it continues even as the bean counters have their way more and more. But I think we also need to recognize that the world around us is changing—and that if you want to read foreign news you still can.

Posted by Simon | February 24, 2008 5:22 AM

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Nina Subin

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen is a staff writer for TIME. She blogs about work. Why? Because TV was taken. Think of her as the grumpy colleague ranting by the water cooler.
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