Virtual Foreign Correspondence: Experimental Instructions in Digital Foreign News Reporting

Abstract

Within a series of six qualitative studies over seven years, this research in instructing journalism students investigates whether or not covering foreign news from home via Internet technology can substitute foreign correspondents on-site to reduce costs. Co-orientation and decontextualization can be described as characteristic for virtual foreign correspondence (VFC). In some cases, it can lead to high-quality products. However, virtual foreign correspondents (VFCs) cannot entirely substitute traditional foreign correspondents (TFCs) in terms of regional knowledge, background information, contextual insights, on-site investigations, and access to local sources and voices. Nevertheless, VFCs and TFCs could complement each other to optimize partition of work.

Keywords

foreign correspondence foreign correspondents international reporting digital journalism virtual investigation

Introduction

“[W]e used to need hunter-gatherers; in future we’ll need farmers.”

Unnamed Reuters editor (in Sambrook, 2010, p. 101)

Journalism in its present form is indisputably experiencing drastic changes: shifting economic circumstances, advertiser churn, recipients’ changing reading habits, a lack of innovation, legacy media losing readers, and the journalistic competition posed by the Internet: All these factors challenge the status quo of traditional journalism (Mast & Spachmann, 2003). In addition, the financial situations of many media companies demand changes to accustomed workflows. Economic decisions aiming at reducing costs also affect the journalists’ working environment. They are confronted with massive lay-offs and a transformation of their duties and responsibilities: Specialists are increasingly becoming generalists (Mükke, 2008; Terzis, 2015). Certainly, these changes have consequences for foreign correspondence as one of the most expensive forms of journalism. Correspondents are threatened with extinction due to increasing economic pressure proven by the fact that foreign news is being covered less and less in U.S. (Hamilton, 2012) and U.K. newspapers (Moore, 2010). As specified by Hamilton and Jenner in 2004, there is an ongoing trend of replacing traditional foreign correspondents (TFCs) with new forms of correspondents, ultimately leading to an increasing diversification of the field.

Nowadays, foreign news is produced not only by TFCs. To some extent, international business reporting is adopted by domestic journalists (Müller & Schröder, 2008) facilitated through an “informational, global, and networked” (Castells, 2010, p. 77) information economy. Often, correspondents view themselves as competing with Internet media, trying to replicate news in terms of speed and accuracy (Hamilton, 2012). We think that these virtual foreign correspondents (VFCs) should incorporate Internet technology rather than compete with it. This study is based on a series of newsroom experimentations in instructing journalism students to produce international news from the news desk at home.

Literature Review

Kopper was among the first to coin the term VFC. He surmised that foreign news coverage can be done from the news desk at home via Internet technology (Kopper & Seiler, 2006). By analyzing sourcing techniques and influences of news agencies on topic selection of U.S.-based German foreign correspondents, Kopper (2006b) concluded that the Internet was an already inherent part of correspondents’ work routines. In addition, he indicated in-house solutions as cost-saving alternatives to TFCs working abroad. More recently, Lugo-Ocando and Nguyen (2017) stated that VFCs are symptomatic for saving measures due to “fragmented audiences and falling revenues, coupled with the effect of rising global infotainment and the perceived low public interest in international affairs” (p. 29). In his report on the decline of international news in U.K. newspapers, Moore (2010) listed VFC as a new phenomenon in international reporting—again, resulting from economic decisions, a decline of TFCs, and the access to global news sources via Internet technology. These studies show that VFC can be regarded as an attempt of foreign correspondence to adapt itself to changing circumstances.

So far there has been no consistent scientific or theoretic definition of foreign correspondence (Hahn, Lönnendonker, & Scherschun, 2008; Junghanns & Hanitzsch, 2006). This article follows the understanding of Hahn and Lönnendonker (2009) in accordance with Marx (1970) that a foreign correspondent is a journalist not located in the same country as his or her commissioning media outlet. Hafez (2002) concurred with Marx, describing foreign reporting as a “system of the journalistic information mediation, in which information and news cross state-borders” (p. 24). Gross and Kopper (2011) ascribed foreign correspondents the power to form perceptions of foreign countries, cultures, and policies. Within this study, we specifically focus on the effects of Internet technology on foreign correspondence. The approach of VFC is to remove a hitherto constitutional component of foreign correspondence: a mandatory stationary residence of journalists in another country. Their direct access to the field is in turn being replaced by the Internet allowing them to query information that crosses state borders in this manner.

By creating a typology of various forms of foreign correspondents and putting forward associated research questions, Hamilton and Jenner (2004) laid the foundation for a comprehensive framework for further research: How do emerging information sources impact TFCs? Will new forms of correspondents diminish traditional correspondents? Within the scope of this article, four forms of foreign correspondents are relevant, particularly considering their specific traits as follows (Hamilton & Jenner, 2004): The “Local foreign correspondent” (p. 313) covers foreign news from the home desk; the “Foreign local correspondent” (pp. 313-314) accesses global and networked sources; the “In-house foreign correspondent” (p. 314) uses networks and Internet technology to facilitate communication processes; last, the “Amateur correspondent” (p. 314) is an untrained civilian who publishes journalistic products via Internet access. By merging mentioned features of these four types, we outline characteristic traits of VFCs based on Hamilton and Jenner’s framework in accordance with Kopper’s (2006b) concept of VFCs.

Various studies have examined the influence of Internet technology on TFCs. A survey among American foreign correspondents by Wu and Hamilton (2004) indicated that the Internet already has a widespread impact on correspondents’ work as it facilitates acquiring background information, accessing sources, and monitoring competitors. The study suggested that, due to Internet technology, co-orientation and deadline pressure would increase even to the point that journalists would rather stay inside researching their stories instead of gathering information on-site (Wu & Hamilton, 2004). Besides these technical changes, Hahn and Lönnendonker (2009) observed that the number of reports on foreign events in the United States had decreased but determined a growing interest in news about terrorism concluding that topics and contexts have changed after 9/11. The study Mapping Foreign Correspondence in Europe pointed out a decrease of full-time correspondents and an increase in freelancers and correspondents who are being more and more endorsed by several organizations:

Reasons contributing to this trend are attributable to a variety of causes facilitated by the proliferation of new media and social media tools, increasing the information transmission rate even from the most distant of places, and by the efforts by some media organizations to reduce the costs of foreign correspondence. (Terzis, 2015, p. 300)

Although these studies highlight changes that supposedly impair or at least alter foreign correspondence, recent studies contrast these findings with more nuanced results. A survey among foreign correspondents located in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland indicated that they are not so much exposed to change and substitution through local reporters or journalists reporting from the home desk as previously assumed (Brüggemann, Keel, Hanitzsch, Götzenbrucker, & Schacht, 2017). Almost two thirds of respondents disagreed with the proposition that editors at home might replace TFCs. Brüggemann et al. (2017) concluded that there are trends leading to a decrease of TFC since they have to compete with new forms of correspondents as comprehensively presented by Hamilton and Jenner’s (2004) typology; at the same time, Brüggemann et al. (2017) could identify subgroups such as “foreign correspondence by amateurs, editors at home, or parachute journalists” (p. 554) that are indicators of a general increase of TFC.

In the course of the Transatlantic News Cultures project, researchers identified key problems EU-based American foreign correspondents face (Lönnendonker, Nitz, & Stamm, 2006; see also Hahn, Lönnendonker, & Scherschun, 2008; Kopper, 2006a): difficult access to background information and unofficial sources, language problems, mistrust and denial of information, technological backwardness, varying workflows and legal restrictions such as data protection. Main problems of German foreign correspondents in the United States are time-zone differences, high workloads, an overwhelming amount of information, and poor access to governmental sources and politicians, thus a dependence on secondary information. Disagreements with the home desk and the impossibility of covering U.S. affairs from outside Washington, D.C., are problematic as well (Lönnendonker et al., 2006). This international project also considered the influence of Internet technology on work routines of TFCs, suggesting “that the technological developments of the past few years have radically changed the working environment and work routines of foreign correspondents” (Lönnendonker et al., 2006, p. 17). The question whether Internet technology not only changed the working environments but might even offer added values for correspondents remains—This study aims at answering them.

These established findings partially serve as the basis for the design of the presented newsroom instructions as well as our analytical framework to codify the findings of this study. We also adduct the framework of Hahn, Lönnendonker, and Schröder’s (2008) handbook on German foreign correspondents that provides extensive insights into work routines and challenges: access to sources and information, topic selection, assessing sources, co-orientation, regional and language knowledge, and time-zone differences.

To summarize, we can state that various research studies have observed the effects of Internet technology on the work of outgoing and incoming foreign correspondents. However, there are no studies so far that provide deeper insights into practices and challenges of VFCs as staying-in foreign correspondents.

Research Questions

We derive the following research questions from the literature review as presented and embed them into previous findings. We are particularly interested in how accessing sources exclusively via Internet technology shapes editing international news. In addition, we consider questions raised by Hamilton and Jenner (2004) regarding the originality of news produced by amateur foreign correspondents and whether such news fulfill traditional journalistic standards.

Due to limitations of journalism students’ access to certain sources and a generally high level of complexity of international news reporting, we present an overarching first research question:

RQ1: To what extent can journalists report on foreign news from the home desk via the Internet?

D’Haenens (2003, p. 5) established “a lack of background knowledge, the limitations of their cultural and social background . . . , the limited time devoted to the topic on which they are supposed to give an in-depth report” as determinants of foreign correspondence. Terzis (2015) described these factors as “cultural sensitivity” (p. 308). We investigate these aspects by adhering to distinctive regional features of different reporting areas:

RQ2: What are regional differences and hurdles related to VFC?

RQ3: What are limiting factors of VFC?

Educational Setting and Methodology

This series of six qualitative studies over seven years (2009-2015) was designed as a newsroom experimentation in instruction of Internet-based international reporting. These studies aimed at investigating whether journalists working at foreign news desks at home can substitute foreign correspondents working abroad. Test persons were recruited out of different cohorts of journalism students from two different German universities. Overall, participants comprised 90 journalism students ranging in age from 19 to 25 years with varying journalistic experiences: some had no journalistic experience at all; others had been freelancers and interns working for newspapers, and a few students had already completed traineeships. All of the participants were bilingual (mostly German and English), and some had additional language skills. Several students had already gathered experience in their respective reporting areas (overseas stays/working abroad).

We are aware of this study’s limitations that journalism students with little professional experience certainly are not ideal proxies for professional foreign correspondents. But combining international reporting with digital media and data-collecting skills in an early stage of journalism education is demanded by the media industry in many countries today.

The educational setting was organized within curricular hands-on newsroom courses. The participants had to form groups to cover predefined reporting areas: Western Europe, North & South America, Russia, China, South & Southeast Asia, and Africa. Halfway through the respective classes, the participants had to switch reporting areas. Within these area groups, participants were assigned to deliver journalistic stories about international up-to-the-minute topics related to the reporting areas. The groups edited foreign news stories by investigating official and unofficial local websites of administrations, institutions, nongovernmental organization, or online media outlets and news agencies. In addition, the participants established contact with informants via social networks, email or VoIP-software—on condition that all information used is acquirable through stationary and mobile Internet technology. The weekly deliveries were reviewed by both teachers and participants regarding their respective topics, editing, storytelling formats, and use of sources and voices.

Methodologically speaking, we applied qualitative content analyses of focus group discussions. Within each course, we held two focus groups: one as an interim discussion halfway through the course and another one as a final evaluation at the end. Via focus group discussions, we examined experiences that the students had while producing their journalistic papers within the experimental instruction over the years. We structured these discussions according to a guideline that we derived from the problems of foreign correspondents (as described in the literature review). During the discussions—thanks to the participants’ feedback—we adjusted and expanded this guideline. By using this method, we gained insights into a variety of opinions and dynamic processes within groups (Flick, 2009, p. 122). Statements made in these discussions and other observable processes are expressions of certain opinions and attitudes. Therefore, the results are valid beyond the current group of participants as their statements are an epiphenomenon of superordinate structures that are reproduced as specific orientations, opinions, and attitudes within a discussion (Lamnek, 2005).

Finally, all recorded discussions (length approximately 30-65 min) were transcribed and evaluated through qualitative content analyses. The content analyses serve as a systematic reduction that allows a comparative analysis of meaningful material over the years. In this step, segments of the material are assigned to systematic categories (Hussy, Schreier, & Echterhoff, 2010) represented in the following findings. In addition, students documented their experiences in individual research diaries to complement statements analyzed from the focus groups.

Findings

The following findings are categorized according to relevant aspects we deduced from literature review and aspects ascertained via focus groups.

Regional and Language Knowledge

Regional and language knowledge can be described as key to opening up and eventually accessing a certain region. Deficits in knowledge may lead to virtual correspondents disregarding relevant topics. One participant of a focus group conceded, “Language knowledge automatically leads to authenticity, regional knowledge and living on-site leads to background understanding. . . . As a result, the story appears to be more credible to the reader”¹ (FG 4, 2010).

Only in few cases did participants state that they could attain the necessary knowledge via online research. A lack of personal experiences and the dependence on online information may force VFCs to resort to clichés to identify and discuss new topics.

Time Zone Differences

Just like TFCs, VFCs are pressed for time. Time zone differences make working across different nations and continents difficult. For example, German VFCs receive information from Brazilian and Indian sources after office hours, which hinders immediate editing. These asynchronous working hours make direct communication difficult. VFCs have to be very aware of time zones when contacting sources and take into account westbound and eastbound communication flows. One discussant pointed out that “it can be beneficial when you work at the home desk and have a time advantage over colleagues based in other countries” (FG 8, 2013). As a result, each reporting area has its own business hours to be observed when establishing and maintaining personal contact to sources.

Assessing Sources

The participants expressed doubts regarding the reliability of South American, Chinese, Southeast Asian, and African media. VFCs allege governmental control and censorship of media outlets. We could identify lacking language skills as a hindering factor for determining authenticity and validity of sources. Particularly in Southeast Asia, separating facts from opinions is difficult, resulting in mistrust and uncertainty among the participants, ultimately driving them to also scrutinize statements by officials. Although citizen journalist blogs contradicted official statements, participants regarded them as unreliable and lacking transparency particularly because it remained unclear whether certain perspectives provided by alternate media can fulfill journalistic standards. After obtaining additional knowledge of originators, however, the participants could dispel these doubts. Opinions differ regarding the credibility of official and unofficial Chinese media. VFCs refer to Chinese blogs as highly credible and even representative due to their important role as an alternative media. Nevertheless, governmental statements are often adopted despite VFCs previously stating a mistrust of officials. While covering Asia, one participant acknowledged that “when news websites constantly present deviating numbers, you have to rely on primary sources such as official sources” (FG 5, 2011). Information distributed by independent news agencies is widely considered to be trustworthy.

In general, most participants regarded as reliable information they retrieve from previously established social media contacts but have doubts regarding the motives, personal backgrounds, and associations of any new and unknown contacts: “Naturally, it is always problematic if you do not know an unknown contact’s attitudes. For instance, what are his or her political attitudes? This is a matter of scrutiny” (FG 10, 2014).

For both traditional correspondents and VFCs, we noted doubts about Internet media (especially in China and Southeast Asia) and state-controlled media. The participants considered as trustworthy information they received from respected outlets. In contrast, TFCs often have no other option but to rely on news agencies. As soon as VFCs have second thoughts about available sources, they try to resolve these by double-checking the facts with domestic media reports. This can, however, lead to co-orientation as indicated by one participant:

When we were unsure how trustworthy a source is, to what extent we could rely on it, if there are underlying motives; in these cases, we oriented ourselves towards other media from other countries—simply to make sure not to publish a hoax or biased information. (FG 7, 2013)

Co-Orientation and Heteronomy

Most participants used local media to deduce topics for their stories, collect information, and extract quotes. These sources also helped to assess whether topics presented in local media were relevant for a German audience and helped to verify information by comparing domestic and foreign news and agendas. Co-orientation is regarded as an essential element of virtual correspondence. Some participants regarded their level of co-orientation as too high, while others saw it as a reduction of workload. One student admitted,

I found it difficult to let go of phrasings I have read elsewhere. Particularly after reading up on certain topics, I felt that I was clinging to wordings and formulations that I had clearly drawn from other articles. This bothered me. (FG 6, 2011)

In this matter, there are no significant differences between traditional and virtual foreign correspondents. While foreign correspondents are often even prompted by their editors to adapt their stories to match the agenda of other outlets, VFCs do so out of necessity.

Visualization Options

VFCs regard visual material and amateur photos in particular as highly credible, although some participants pointed out the possibility of tampered or staged images and decontextualization as visual material can be utilized to provoke hasty and imprecise interpretations by journalists. Visual information was regarded as particularly valuable for soft news but less helpful for political or economic news stories. By adding visuals, VFCs can get insights into situations on-site, reduce complexity, and give abstract stories a face, thereby making foreign news more tangible, understandable, and personal. Visuals encourage the readers’ emotional involvement in foreign news stories. Some participants accessed official and professional visual material as well as amateur content via social and local media.

Topic Selection

The process of finding topics was described as rather dogmatic: Research conducted via search engines was heavily influenced by personal knowledge and interest as well as clichés. One-sided news coverage in some reporting areas—for example, economic topics dominating Chinese media—made the participants’ work more difficult, particularly when searching for soft news topics for China and South Africa. Across the board, VFCs started investigations by reviewing international news agencies, local media, or German media outlets. To organize topics according to their relevance, the VFCs adhered to German foreign news to determine the pertinence of topics. In some cases, this led to disregarding relevant topics. Traditional news values still served as selection criteria. Other sources for finding topics were personal or private contacts, social networks, blogs, Wikipedia, and Google services. In contrast to TFCs, very few VFCs used news agencies to identify topics.

It becomes apparent that virtual and TFCs both get their ideas for new topics in a very similar way. For the most part, they rely on other media, the Internet, and personal contacts. In contrast to traditional correspondents, VFCs lack personal experiences and an informational network, and they use information from news agencies only to a moderate extent.

Social media

Social media were regarded as the best way to establish direct personal contact. Previously known individuals responded reliably and were useful for procuring new contacts. Approaching unknown users directly, however, proved to be difficult. Narrowing down the search to find eligible persons was a very elaborate process and did not always lead to relevant results as social media users are not necessarily identifiable. Identifiers such as names, occupations, and residences often did not correspond with real identities. Even if participants were able to find suitable candidates, requests often remained unanswered. Nevertheless, one discussant recognized an added value of social media:

I consider them viable sources when you do not have personal contacts because you get access to information that you would not get from official sources that only provide limited and pre-selected information that concurs with governmental agendas. Unofficial sources better reflect the public climate in a nation and provide information that officials would not. (FG 8, 2013)

Using social media as sources of information and contacts can lead to widely varying experiences and nonreproducible results. For instance, Russian and Chinese social networks (VKontakte and Qzone, respectively) were not accessible due to language barriers. These platforms can be used to establish personal contacts in theory; however, the success is highly incalculable and dependent on respective platforms, as indicated by one participant:

Some social media such as Twitter are more interactive and more immediate because you can directly contact others. Hashtags are helpful to find eligible contacts. . . . There are no such limitations like in Facebook and similar social networks. Depending on them only makes you feel sometimes “remote controlled.” (FG 11, 2015)

Interestingly, TFCs being based on-site sometimes also rely on social media sources when they do not have access to primary sources for reasons of restrictive information policy of authorities in some countries. This fact was also reflected by one student: “When being based on-site and getting stuck at some point, I assume that you would also want to rely on social networks as some kind of complementary tool to access new sources and contacts” (FG 10, 2014).

Personalization

Enriching stories with personal accounts of people related to or affected by certain events proved to be difficult. As described, social networks cannot substitute real personal contacts. Mistrust and overcautious communication by newly established contacts hindered personalization. VFCs can rely on newly established contacts and risk receiving unreliable information; rely on previously established contacts and risk receiving biased information; or cite quotes from local media and accept strong co-orientation. On the one side, few participants stated that VFC and personalization are mutually exclusive: “In my opinion, it is not possible to produce a feature if you are not on-site having face-to-face contact with protagonists” (FG 11, 2015).

However, on the other side, we can conclude that in some cases VFC can indeed lead to high-quality journalistic products: This not only accounts for hard news editing, but also for reporting in journalistic storytelling formats that supposedly would require a more personal approach and direct contact with people such as portraits and features. Despite technical challenges, participants presented sophisticated stories such as a feature about a refugee camp in Africa enhanced with graphic material and original interviews held via Skype (FG 9, 2014), as well as a portrait about the oldest rickshaw driver in New Delhi (FG 2, 2009).

Conclusions and Perspectives

We can conclude that the use of VFCs highly depends on topics, formats, and reporting areas. For instance, VFC can ease mere news reporting on political or economic topics; however, often this way of reporting lacks context and background that TFCs should provide as an explanatory function to their audiences at home.

Furthermore, VFC is reliant on story formats. News reports are very well viable by utilizing published media reports. Even personalized features are achievable as the Internet allows adopting quotes as well as imagery; moreover, original quotes can be retrieved via voice over Internet or social media platforms. Still, in-depth and background reports of sensitive or culture-laden topics are prone to inaccuracies as contextual, cultural, and regional intricacies require primary sources and experiences.

Due to restrictive information policies in some regions, VFCs have to resort to co-orientation and are dependent on foreign media outlets, resulting in a lack of autonomous research and reporting. However, we can consider co-orientation as a general characteristic of foreign news reporting as TFCs also evaluate third-party media when doing research on-site.

These long-term observations of VFC can indeed enrich debates on rationalization processes within media companies and highlight the possible effects and challenges. Within the field of business reporting, to some extent VFC is already a common practice for covering foreign news from the home desk. Our experimentations reveal similarities as well as differences in comparison to TFC: Language skills and regional knowledge are fundamental abilities. Working abroad, TFCs can draw on their own experiences while VFCs cannot. Furthermore, Internet technology does provide access to new sources and information while having a big potential to facilitate networking and acquiring new contacts. In fact, VFC proves to be constructive since editing international news stories, even personalized formats, is very well possible. Nevertheless, due to lacking regional and contextual knowledge, selecting topics and assessing sources proved to be difficult for the student VFCs. In particular, when dealing with social web content, the necessity of new tools or methods for the authentication and identification of originators becomes apparent. Furthermore, co-orientation and heteronomy are characteristic of VFC, specifically when covering nations with rather restrictive information policies or when communication is hindered due to language barriers.

We can conclude that in most cases VFCs cannot entirely substitute for TFCs, particularly in terms of background and contextual insights into foreign affairs. Nevertheless, VFCs and TFCs could complement each other to optimize partition of work and workflows: Whereas news desks at home could focus on up-to-the-minute news gathering, correspondents based in foreign countries could enhance stories by providing background and context according to their regional knowledge and local investigation networks, remaining a unique selling point for quality media outlets. Furthermore, smaller news outlets or student media on campus could benefit from VFC.

The educational setting of newsroom experimentation in instruction serves well as an introduction to foreign news reporting and Internet -based investigation techniques for journalism students and emerging journalists: hands-on VFC courses offer firsthand experiences of challenges and practices of foreign correspondence; for most participants the courses provide insights into new reporting areas and introduce them to other media systems and phenomena such as decontextualization and co-orientation; at the same time, they become acquainted with digital investigations, accessing and assessing online sources, and collecting digital information and data.

This study intends to give impetus follow-up research in the field of foreign correspondence. For this reason, the scientific community should further discuss research and production processes of virtual (online and mobile) as well as TFCs, particularly against the backdrop of the ongoing media change, digitalization, and datafication leading to relatively new job profiles such as data journalists.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Oliver Hahn, PhD, is a professor of journalism at the University of Passau, Germany. His research interests include international comparative journalism studies and foreign correspondence.

Florian Stalph is a research associate to the chair of journalism at the University of Passau, Germany. His research interests include data journalism and international reporting.

Tom Steller is a research assistant to the chair of journalism at the University of Passau, Germany. His research interests include international reporting and business communication.

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