Foreign Correspondence

by John Maxwell Hamilton (Editor), Regina G. Lawrence (Editor)

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.

140 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 23, 2012

About the author

John Maxwell Hamilton is the Hopkins P. Breazeale Professor in Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University, and a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Before that he was a journalist for the Milwaukee Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, and ABC radio. His work was also published in The Washington Post Foreign Affairs, The Nation, and the New York Times.

He served in the military as a Marine Corps platoon commander in Vietnam and as a reconnaissance company commander in Okinawa. As a public servant he served as an advisor to the head of the U.S. foreign aid program in Asia during the Carter administration and was working on nuclear non-proliferation issues for the House Foreign Affairs Committee.