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Foreign News: Exploring the World of Foreign Correspondents
Foreign News gives us a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look into the practices of the global tribe we call foreign correspondents. Exploring how they work, Ulf Hannerz also compares the ways correspondents and anthropologists report from one part of the world to another.
Hannerz draws on extensive interviews with correspondents in cities as diverse as Jerusalem, Tokyo, and Johannesburg. He shows not only how different story lines evolve in different correspondent beats, but also how the correspondents' home country and personal interests influence the stories they write. Reporting can go well beyond coverage of a specific event, using the news instead to reveal deeper insights into a country or a people to link them to long-term trends or structures of global significance. Ultimately, Hannerz argues that both anthropologists and foreign correspondents can learn from each other in their efforts to educate a public about events and peoples far beyond our homelands.
The result of nearly a decade's worth of work, Foreign News is a provocative study that will appeal to both general readers and those concerned with globalization.
Hannerz draws on extensive interviews with correspondents in cities as diverse as Jerusalem, Tokyo, and Johannesburg. He shows not only how different story lines evolve in different correspondent beats, but also how the correspondents' home country and personal interests influence the stories they write. Reporting can go well beyond coverage of a specific event, using the news instead to reveal deeper insights into a country or a people to link them to long-term trends or structures of global significance. Ultimately, Hannerz argues that both anthropologists and foreign correspondents can learn from each other in their efforts to educate a public about events and peoples far beyond our homelands.
The result of nearly a decade's worth of work, Foreign News is a provocative study that will appeal to both general readers and those concerned with globalization.
- GenresJournalism
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 11, 2015
Although already a bit dated, Ulf Hannerz' ethnographic inquiry into the lives of foreign correspondents and the way international news are produced is as insightful as ever. True, a lot of the aspect of that craft have changed almost beyond recognition by the rise of online opinion journalism, the consolidation of the 24 hour news cycle, #hashtagnews and the slow death of the journalism business in general but the way news are produced, sourced and often outsourced by the diminishing caste of professional reporters have more or less stayed the same despite the digitization of a lot of the communication channels.
Hannerz focuses a lot on what he knows, print and sometimes radio journalists, perhaps to their proximity to anthropology. Tv news outlets tend to send large, awkward groups of reporters and cameramen that often fail to get the best scoops and be, if not the fly on the wall then certainly the one in the ointment, as any good journalist is supposed to be. Yet Mr. Hannerz does devote a large part of a chapter to writer, former correspondent and all-together globalization banner-waver Thomas Friedman, thanks to the first two of his now many, many books on the topic. Friedman, even though Hannerz does not portray him as such, tends to inspire in me the crowning achievement of the spiralist/parachutist. He made it to the centre of the career spiral then took off from there ever upwards, leaving behind the craft of journalism for the razzle dazzle of the author/pundit life.
Reading this book while taking account the past 15 years of development both on the social science and the journalism front did however make me come up with a theory. Hannerz describes his ethnography as studying across, investigating a peer caste, equally obsessed with translating the 'there' for the audience 'back home'. But what journalism has lost in the age of the website article, the depth of the analysis and groundedness is often what anthropology has gained. Deprived of its 'savage slot' anthropology reoriented towards the 'victim slot' - poor, marginalized or liminal people, the kind of people that used to feature more in journalistic exposés but whose lives seldom fit in 300 words or, indeed, a tweet. So the discipline traditionally obsessed with depth of analysis and multi-layered insights has taken over, grabbing the 'market' that the faltering journalistic establishment has withdrawn from. Today's anthropology is yesterday's news, one might say, humorously and while journalism is still writing the first draft of the headlines of history, now in 140 characters or less, one might also ask who is handling the body text of that first draft or whether we're all going to be left with nothing but the title and the dateline.
Hannerz focuses a lot on what he knows, print and sometimes radio journalists, perhaps to their proximity to anthropology. Tv news outlets tend to send large, awkward groups of reporters and cameramen that often fail to get the best scoops and be, if not the fly on the wall then certainly the one in the ointment, as any good journalist is supposed to be. Yet Mr. Hannerz does devote a large part of a chapter to writer, former correspondent and all-together globalization banner-waver Thomas Friedman, thanks to the first two of his now many, many books on the topic. Friedman, even though Hannerz does not portray him as such, tends to inspire in me the crowning achievement of the spiralist/parachutist. He made it to the centre of the career spiral then took off from there ever upwards, leaving behind the craft of journalism for the razzle dazzle of the author/pundit life.
Reading this book while taking account the past 15 years of development both on the social science and the journalism front did however make me come up with a theory. Hannerz describes his ethnography as studying across, investigating a peer caste, equally obsessed with translating the 'there' for the audience 'back home'. But what journalism has lost in the age of the website article, the depth of the analysis and groundedness is often what anthropology has gained. Deprived of its 'savage slot' anthropology reoriented towards the 'victim slot' - poor, marginalized or liminal people, the kind of people that used to feature more in journalistic exposés but whose lives seldom fit in 300 words or, indeed, a tweet. So the discipline traditionally obsessed with depth of analysis and multi-layered insights has taken over, grabbing the 'market' that the faltering journalistic establishment has withdrawn from. Today's anthropology is yesterday's news, one might say, humorously and while journalism is still writing the first draft of the headlines of history, now in 140 characters or less, one might also ask who is handling the body text of that first draft or whether we're all going to be left with nothing but the title and the dateline.
June 14, 2021
2000 Morgan lecture. Pretty sporadic telling based on chats with foreign correspondents and their autobiographical accounts. "First drafts of the first drafts of history"??? A good working-piece if we think it that way, just like how journalists work.
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