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Welcome to a world without foreign correspondents
Written by: Andrew Stroehlein
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We've all watched the cutting of foreign news budgets for so long that we've become almost numb to it. Another bureau cut here, another three correspondent posts dropped there -- drip, drip, drip -- the dwindling capacity of overseas news gathering is constant background noise. Or ever-increasing silence, perhaps. But now we've come to two situations that show us what the world will be like when there are no foreign correspondents left.
The first is Somalia, where the utter inanity of foreign news coverage in the West, particularly in the US, knows no bounds. Amid deafening hero-worship and chest-thumping, the US media machine was so proud that a new president with the world's largest military at his disposal can kill a couple lightly armed thugs that few seemed even able to grasp the most basic fact of the situation: piracy is symptom, not the disease, and lawlessness off the coast of Somalia will continue as long as anarchy is allowed to continue on land. If only a tiny fraction of the Western media ruckus of recent weeks could be dedicated to Somalia itself, then international political attention might start focusing on the roots of the problem.
But the danger on the ground makes Somalia extremely difficult to cover for foreign journalists, so we're stuck with stories of tangential importance, written like Hollywood film scripts from editorial offices thousands of kilometres away. Some outlets, like the Independent in the UK, are sending reporters to the refugee camps in Kenya so at least the story of the enormous human cost of the Somali conflict is known. Most others are at best tagging on a sentence or two at the end of their stories, pointing out that Somalia is a failed state. However, discussion of the international community's political options is pretty rare, leaving an endless loop of despair: Somalia's been a failed state for so long, the world cannot imagine it any other way -- even if it results in piracy and growing extremism that threaten us, not to mention great human suffering among the inhabitants
The other example of a crisis unfolding mostly not before our eyes is Sri Lanka, where over the past few months the situation in the north east has become incredibly desperate for some 150,000 civilians trapped in an ever-shrinking "safe zone" between their government that is shelling them and the cult-like LTTE rebels who shoot them if they try to escape. Today, as my colleague writes, "A mass slaughter of civilians will take place Tuesday at noon. And everyone knows it." Once again, foreign correspondents are unable to cover the story, this time because the government is not allowing them in to the region.
Some Western media are trying to cover this deteriorating situation, and in particular, the UK and other European countries have been running some shocking new video of the victims. BBC World Service radio has been keeping it generally high in the news order. But try to find this enormous catastrophe on American TV... Good luck.
Instead of any of these issues of political relevance and deep humanitarian concern, Americans get coverage of would-have-been obscure UN conferences, which are supposed to seem interesting because they are boycotted. Or, more likely, they get ratings-hungry hate-rants against creeping socialism and indignation at blatantly astroturfed "tea party" tax protests.
Too bad Al Jazeera English is not available on most living room screens in the US, and people there have to choke down the endless rotting fish heads of celebrity news or the same tiresome group of ignoramuses shouting at each other in a studio -- both the cheapest forms of filling air time after a test card.
What ties all this together is ignorance of foreign affairs in news media due to a lack of correspondents on the ground. In the current cases of Somalia and Sri Lanka, mind you, the obstacles to reporters covering the stories are larger than normal budgetary issues of staffing cuts abroad. But the point is these situations show us what it's like when Western news organisations -- for whatever reason -- do not have long-serving correspondents on the ground: when they have no eyes and ears following the situation directly, understanding the complexities and able to report more deeply than "hero saved" or simply ignore it all together.
A respected staffer in a field bureau is able to call the editor back home and say, "there's something big going down here", "in all my years here, I've never seen anything like this before", and "this is news; we need to cover this". Without anyone making that pitch internally, the chance of missing out is always going to be greater.
And so with these two crises, we now understand what it will be like when the last foreign correspondent collects her last month's salary and turns out the lights in the last overseas news bureau. We'll get superficial coverage of issues that are actually hugely important, we'll miss real threats to our own security, and we'll miss mass murders in progress.
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10 responses to “Welcome to a world without foreign correspondents”
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Journalist Andrew Stroehlein is Communications Director for the International Crisis Group, the conflict resolution organisation, where he promotes responsible coverage of current and potential conflicts and helps draw attention to forgotten wars around the world.
21 Apr 2009 17:32:13 GMT
Dear Andrew - loved your column. Your candor showed real courage. Wish that I had higher hopes for the outcome of intelligent, passionate voices to make a difference. Instead I fear yet another slash here, another cut there, and a Brave New World. Let's hope that Twitter will save us all.
21 Apr 2009 17:48:10 GMT
Ouch. Good piece. Was interested in your point about shallow coverage leading to an "endless loop of despair." Well said. Many media people seem to come at this from the other side entirely, assuming that such issues are alienating in and of themselves. The understanding that deeper, more regular coverage which places the latest outrage, massacre or terror in a wider social (not just political) context might actually alleviate such hopelessness in an audience seems rare. As you suggest, experienced foreign correspondents on the ground are not luxuries but necessities. But things don't look hopeful do they? The result? To your list of casualties I'd add emotion. Not the quivering half-whisper from a sat-phone on a hotel balcony and not the 'tragedies' or 'sorrows' of the average broadsheet editorial. I mean the qualified, controlled emotion based on first hand experience which our best foreign correspondents have always had the ! courage and modesty to allow into their analysis. Is it possible for the man-in-suit in Jo'berg to tell us anything useful about a situation two thousand miles away? Is he able to question, to doubt, even to change his position in the face of witnessed reality? If a role of journalism is to bear such witness in the face of prejudice and vested interest how is his view, mediated as it is, substantively different to that of the general or politician? That will be another great loss when the light goes out in the last foreign bureau.
Hard to find positives, the Independent is indeed fighting hard under straightened circumstances (putting many much wealthier rags to shame) and BBC World Service is a jewel, but to end this lunchtime lament in a minor key I can't help but question whether your view of UK and European broadcasting isn't too rosy. Even the BBC with its public service remit has no legal obligations or binding quotas for international news (unlike arts and religious issues) and the trend here in Britain is, while perhaps somewhat safeguarded by the state and a few years behind the US in the private sector, steadily downwards. If you've not seen it Polis et al put out a detailed albeit slightly melodramatic report on this issue in January. Contains nuggets, might be of interest, deep breath required though... The Great Global Switch-Off International Coverage in UK Public Service Broadcasting http://www.oxfam.org.uk/21 Apr 2009 17:50:48 GMT
It is understandable that journalists as with most other people around the world are feeling the effects of the economic crisis and be wondering how to put bread on the table.
It is also a known truth among journalists that 'If it bleeds, it leads.' It is shameless though for many journalists and indeed news organisations, to not check facts, or not have balance in their stories. This situation is clearly seen in Sri Lanka where many foreign journalists are clamouring to get a ringside view of the 'action' and get paid for it. Never mind if it is untrue or if it hurts both the dignity and physical well-being of people who are in difficult circumstances. It is bad enough that a group of people who claim to represent the entirety of their community, have taken up arms against a democratically elected government. Worse still though, is that people who claim education and a commitment to democracy encourage such armed groups and try to legitimise them. It does seem very innocent when demonstrators engage in 'peaceful' protests with infants in go-carts seemingly calling attention to the 'so called' atrocities of a government in a small island in the Indian Ocean. They would indeed have a reason for not wanting the truth exposed. What excuse though is there, for those from the 'developed countries' who choose not to acknowledge that this is a situation where a government is taking action as a last resort, after tolerating the most blatant armed atrocities against civil society for a quarter century? Would the various governments, human rights activists and R2P promoters, INGOs and worldwide media organisations with enormous resources, acknowledge at least now, that these rebels (terrorism is no longer 'hip' in the vocabulary of the west, presumably due to a 'change we can believe in')have killed men, women and children in their sleep, bombed civilians, buses, trains, planes, and a large number of civilians including many of the people whom they claim to represent? Would they wake up at least now or wait for a crisis to creep up on them much like the economic crisis that the entire world is facing? Or, would they be still thinking about that last salary from the last overseas news bureau where the lights were switched off, and long for the mass murders that never happened that could have got them a byline for a front page headline story?21 Apr 2009 17:51:55 GMT
I think this is a brilliant and brave piece, Andrew. I concur with your prose, wholly.
(I'm also American and feel the American media is letting the Somalias, Congos and Sri Lankas of the world down.)21 Apr 2009 22:38:29 GMT
This is one of the best posts I have read in weeks. It raises so many important issues and highlights just how important high quality and well funded journalism has been in international affairs in recent decades. The net effect is a dearth of quality information and an environment where governments are able to act with impunity unobserved by the eyes of the world.
We have recently been researching a post on Somali pirates not only did we struggle to find independent and original content but we also recognise that our final attempt is no better than the numerous other articles written at arms length. All we can hope for is to continue to raise this issue. (If anyone is interested in reading our post it can be viewed here http://tinyurl.com/d82gfd)22 Apr 2009 17:55:13 GMT
How is it brave to write this piece? What is the author risking? I just don't understand.
Also, if you really want to make your point about missing correspondents why would you use two examples where the issue is gov't control or local animosity towards Westerners? The issue of number of correspondents is moot in these cases. Finally, I for one am not totally ignorant of the situation in Somalia, yet I, too, cheered upon hearing the story of the US Navy killing the pirates and freeing the captain. I understand that Somalia is a sink hole. However, I don't think we should allow lawless pirates to kidnap with impunity if we can help it. Your admonition for the "World" to "save" Somalia runs against all the conventional wisdom we have been acquiring during the Bush years. Who wants another war of "nation building" in Somalia? Who will prosecute such a war? The answers are: no one and nobody. How can the world deny international cooperation to the effort in Iraq and Afghanistan and yet wish to start up a similar effort in Somalia? It just makes no sense. In the meantime, that doesn't mean we just have to swallow piracy. You make piracy lethal enough and other alternatives will seem better to the pirates. Its really very simple.22 Apr 2009 18:43:04 GMT
Scott, I'm not sure what blog post you are responding to, but it certainly isn't this one. Where did I write that piracy should be tolerated? And I never wrote anything in favour of an Iraq-style or Afghanistan-style effort for Somalia. Read the blog post again, please -- and have a look at the link to the Somalia article above if you have a minute. Outside military intervention will not solve the piracy problem, nor the underlying problem of the failed state of Somalia.
23 Apr 2009 02:33:05 GMT
When somebody writes "I understand that Somalia is a sink hole" in the context of this piece, it's just another piece of evidence that supports the case being made.
Andrew - a great piece, with a couple of caveats. First, the media has never done a particularly good job of covering international news, particularly humanitarian issues - I remember having similar discussions in the mid-90s. Second, I don't think it's unfair to say that to some extent the media has had a hand in its own downfall - international news is just the canary in the coalmine in the context of news-as-entertainment. This syndrome is more advanced in the US than anywhere else I've seen, but in a global information environment it's beginning to affect us all. I'm not convinced there's a way back from this situation - do you have any optimism for international news in the mainstream, or are we doomed to be reading Michael Totten's vapid transcripts?23 Apr 2009 15:01:33 GMT
Good post and I like the points you've made, Andrew. I would add that there are groups out there who are trying to reverse the growing trend of less international news (Global Post is one for sure). In addition, the interest American's have in "international affairs" and "international news" has certainly grown over the last decade or two, but unfortunately the mainstream media has decided to condense and simplify the worldview they report on in trying to accommodate as many readers/viewers as possible.
On a semi-related note, I would caution you against concentrating too heavily on the problem in your work and focus instead on the solution. I've written about this in greater detail, but in the environmental movement in particular, activists are seeing success in "marketing the solution" rather than just preaching the problem of "poisoned waters" as Hedrick Smith just reported on Frontline.25 Apr 2009 11:31:49 GMT
I think the coverage and bias of the news has so colored people's views of reporters there will not likely be any funding for reporters overseas for a long time. Currently the best reporting I have seen from over seas is Michael Totten and he is doing it on his own dime via contributions and sales of pictures.