Foreign Correspondence

Despite the importance of foreign news, its history, transformation and indeed its future have not been much studied. The scholarly community often calls attention to journalism’s shortcomings covering the world, yet the topic has not been systematically examined across countries or over time. The need to redress this neglect and the desire to assess the impact of new media technologies on the future of journalism – including foreign correspondence – provide the motivation for this stimulating, exciting and thought-provoking book.

While the old economic models supporting news have crumbled in the wake of new media technologies, these changes have the potential to bring new and improved ways to inform people of foreign news. In an increasingly globalized era, journalism is being transformed by the effortlessly quick sharing of information across national boundaries. As such, we need to reconsider foreign correspondence and explore where such reporting is headed. This book discusses the current state and future prospects for foreign correspondence across the full range of media platforms, and assesses developments in the reporting of overseas news for audiences, governments and foreign policy in both contemporary and historical settings around the globe.

As Emmy Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent Serge Schmemann reminds us in this book, "quality journalism and unbiased reporting are as valid and necessary today as they ever were [...] one of the primary tasks of journalists and scholars as they follow the changes taking place must be to ensure that the ‘new international information order’ now imposed by the Internet remains true to the ideals and traditions that define our journalism."

This book was originally published as a special issue of Journalism Studies.

John Maxwell Hamilton is executive vice-chancellor & provost and professor of journalism at Louisiana State University, USA. He reported in the United States and abroad as a journalist and served on the staff of House Foreign Affairs Committee and at the Agency for International Development. His most recent book is Journalism’s Roving Eye: A History of American Newsgathering Abroad, which won the 2009 Goldsmith Prize.

Regina G. Lawrence is Jesse H. Jones Centennial Chair the School of Journalism, University of Texas at Austin, USA. Recent publications include When the Press Fails: political power and the news media from Iraq to Katrina (2007, with W. Lance Bennett and Steven Livingston) and Hillary Clinton’s Race for the White House: gender politics and the media on the campaign trail (2009, with Melody Rose). She has published studies analyzing news coverage of issues ranging from welfare reform, shootings in public schools, the obesity epidemic, the anthrax attacks of 2001, and television coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks.