{"id":3834,"date":"2022-05-05T19:45:15","date_gmt":"2022-05-05T19:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vpms1.humber.smartmanagedservers.com\/convergencemag\/?p=3834"},"modified":"2022-06-30T18:18:44","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T18:18:44","slug":"the-backbone-of-international-news-the-changing-role-of-foreign-correspondents-in-canadian-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/the-backbone-of-international-news-the-changing-role-of-foreign-correspondents-in-canadian-media\/","title":{"rendered":"The Backbone of International News: The changing role of foreign correspondents in Canadian media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Sofiia Rusyn<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n

\u201dEurope is about to blow up and all I can get from my foreign staff is a daily guessing game. I want some facts, Mr. Bradley.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any kind of fact. There must be something going on in Europe\u2026 besides a nervous breakdown.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why not try sending me over, Mr. Powers?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve written a book on economics or something. \u2018The Twilight of Feudalism\u2019?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. It was very well received.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not by me. I don\u2019t want any more economists, sages, or oracles bombinating over our cable. I want a reporter. Someone who doesn\u2019t know the difference between an ism and a kangaroo. A good, honest crime reporter. That\u2019s what the Globe needs. That\u2019s what Europe needs. There\u2019s a crime hatching on that bedevilled continent.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the scene from one of the most iconic movies about journalism. \u2018The Foreign Correspondent\u2019 premiered in 1940 about a journalist\u2019s life reporting abroad in times of war. Since that time, journalism has changed a lot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly a century has passed since the film was released and the public\u2019s thoughts on who a foreign correspondent is differs even more. Some believe foreign correspondents are people who do nothing besides travelling and seeing the different cities and cultures around the globe, when in fact, foreign correspondents are an elite group of journalists who sometimes do unexpected things to produce the best stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the development of technology, the nearly 350-year-old journalism industry is going down. Since the first news stories from the colonial world were published in foreign newspapers, the industry has continued to develop. Migration and war only reached their peak in the 20th century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modern world has let down foreign correspondence, wiping it out of many news outlets. Progress in communication technology has made it easier to find local reporters who know more about an issue in their area, know the language and culture, are trusted in the community and obviously cost way less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not as many [journalists], [as] there used to be, I would guess because a lot of the foreign work has been gone and has been outsourced to fixers,\u201d Brent Jolly, President of the Canadian Association of Journalists, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Ukrainian journalist Dmitriy Komarov.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
BBC journalist Secunder Kermani.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Freelance journalist James Buck.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Ngowke Malawi, photo provided by James Buck.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tickets, accommodation, insurance, food, equipment, transportation and salary are some things that a lot of media groups can\u2019t afford now. This has forced them to close many of their international bureaus worldwide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s increasingly unsafe,\u201d Jeffrey Dvorkin, a professor at the University of Toronto, said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more violence out there and journalists are being targeted and assassinated. News organizations, especially in the West, are unwilling to pay for more war insurance because to send someone into a war zone for a week could cost anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000 just in the insurance costs alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dvorkin has been teaching journalism for the past 15 years. Before that, he was co-chair of the Canadian Journalism Foundation, Executive Director of the Organization of News Ombudsmen and worked for NPR and CBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dvorkin believes that media outlets are not spending the money to keep international bureaus up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019d rather have wire services like Reuters and the Associated Press assemble the story with a few visuals and some audio, and then a reporter and an editor in Toronto can reassemble it and hope that there may be a local angle that they can do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think what\u2019s happened now is that in Canada, we are not reporting on international news the way we once did. There are a few very good foreign correspondents out there, but not as many as there once were,\u201d Dvorkin said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt makes reporting foreign stories both easier and more difficult \u2014 difficult because when you can do the story from a certain distance, you\u2019re not really reporting the story. You\u2019re really just assembling the story to understand the difference, and right now, media organizations are looking for ways to do international reporting more cheaply.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dannika Lewis is a Senior Manager of Media and Communications at Columbia Association. In her bachelor\u2019s research at Elon University in 2010, she found foreign editors saying \u201can overseas bureau can cost at least $250,000 annually to maintain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn some organizations [they] do still have bureaus in some places, but it\u2019s gone to a lot more sort of hops, where people are in Washington or London and cover Europe. You know, we don\u2019t really cover Africa very much, aside from a couple of publications,\u201d Brent Jolly said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medical insurance is a must-have in today\u2019s reality to cover not just physical health, but mental wellness too. Journalists are the first ones to see what is going on in the world; they are the first ones to record disasters. Then, the information must be reviewed and not all visuals and fa\u0441ts are suitable for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Buck is an international freelance photojournalist based in Vermont, U.S. He travels worldwide for his reports. During the coverage of one of his stories in 2008, James and his translator were caught by the Egyptian Police Force. He then had some time to make a single post on Twitter that read, \u201cArrested.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His colleagues operatively started to work toward his release. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt seemed like a movie, and when I realized it was really happening, I was so terrified,\u201d Buck said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt shattered every belief that I had to that point about what it meant to be a journalist or what it meant to be an American or a person from a democratic country,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In prison, Buck recalled that he was tricked multiple times. First, he had his passport taken away from him, then he was separated from his translator and forced to fill out the paperwork. He was released, but not for long. He got arrested again shortly after. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt took me a lot of years to recover because I didn\u2019t have good support, and I ended up with PTSD, as it\u2019s very common for people who do that type of work and addiction is another common symptom of trauma,\u201d Buck said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Buck\u2019s opinion, mental health trauma is highly underreported. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is more coverage on how journalists have been hurt physically, but not on common mental health problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest media broadcasters in Canada is CBC. Its international news department runs bureaus in London, Moscow, Washington, D.C. and New York.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
CBC executive producer of world news coverage Derek Stoffel, has reported on foreign news for 20 years. Photo from CBC.ca.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Derek Stoffel, an executive producer of world news coverage at CBC, reported foreign news for more than 20 years. Eight of which he dedicated to the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stoffel\u2019s crew counts coupe dozens of staff with the perspective to grow larger, but he said he \u201cwould never send a reporter out where there are discernible problems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are challenges at all times when it comes to reporting, whether that\u2019s making sure that your crews are safe when they\u2019re going into a conflict zone, and you know, the emergence of the COVID pandemic just meant that we had to a new set of issues that we have to deal with,\u201d Stoffel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen covering a war zone, there\u2019s nothing you can do to fully protect your staff 100 per cent, but I\u2019ve been really confident with the measures that we\u2019ve had in place throughout the last 18 months, or even longer now that you know that we are doing our best to keep our teams and our journalists safe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But why all the risk for the sake of a failing industry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found out in 2018 that foreign news is less followed than local or national news. It found that Canadians like to read American news (28 per cent of respondents) more than other international stories (18 per cent), but nearly two-quarters of people follow local and national news. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their other research showed a fall in interest in international stories. People were reading foreign headlines more closely in 2011 than in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future of international reporting is unclear, as it depends on a lot of things. People with contrasting opinions still agree on one thing \u2014 there will be a future for the industry. That said, while some see it bright and easy, others have a list of \u201cifs\u201d and \u201cwhens\u201d that need to happen first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The modern world has let down foreign correspondence, wiping it out of many news outlets. Progress in communication technology has made it easier to find local reporters who know more about an issue in their area, know the language and culture, are trusted in the community and obviously cost way less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy.jpg",1024,535,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy-170x120.jpg",160,113,true],"medium":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy-300x157.jpg",300,157,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy-768x401.jpg",696,363,true],"large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy.jpg",696,364,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy.jpg",1024,535,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy.jpg",1024,535,false],"td_150x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy-150x78.jpg",150,78,true],"td_218x150":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy-218x150.jpg",218,150,true],"td_300x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy-300x157.jpg",300,157,true],"td_324x400":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy-324x400.jpg",324,400,true],"td_485x360":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy-485x360.jpg",485,360,true],"td_696x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy-696x364.jpg",696,364,true],"td_1068x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy.jpg",1024,535,false],"td_1920x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/BBC-copy.jpg",1024,535,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"convergencemag","author_link":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/author\/convergencemag\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The modern world has let down foreign correspondence, wiping it out of many news outlets. Progress in communication technology has made it easier to find local reporters who know more about an issue in their area, know the language and culture, are trusted in the community and obviously cost way less.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3834"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4138,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834\/revisions\/4138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}