Through their Eyes

Abstract

This study, based on a mail survey conducted in early 2000, investigates the professional norms and values, personal backgrounds, daily routines and work-related problems of foreign correspondents working in the United States. The analysis assumes that the correspondents' professional values are related to what is reported about the United States around the world - and that this news coverage matters in terms of world public opinion and policies. The study identifies how foreign correspondents perceive their professional values and provides an in-depth analysis of where foreign journalists come from, how they think about their work and how they perceive their professional roles. Professional values analyzed in this study include perceptions of the importance of different journalistic roles, opinions on the importance of different aspects of the job and journalists' images of their readers, viewers and listeners. Professional norms include opinions about which questionable reporting methods might be justifiable. The main objective is to provide a detailed analysis of who foreign correspondents are, how they cope with their daily work, what specific problems they face in obtaining information from official and private sources and how they manage to adjust their professional work to American culture and customs. Some findings of this study are compared to similar studies of US journalists to provide a comparative context.

The Instrumental Mediated Visibility of Violence: The 2013 Protests in Brazil and the Limitations of the Protest Paradigm

“…In line with previous studies (Willnat and Weaver 2003), two freelance journalists stressed their supposed autonomy and independence, claiming that they could write 'about what they wanted', rather than follow editors' orders. Most interviewees were however less positive.…”

Mind the Gap

“…In contrast, foreign correspondents enacted the mobilizer and adversarial role more than did their American counterparts. This is not only consistent with what the limited studies on foreign correspondents have found, that they are different from American correspondents (Willnat and Weaver 2003), but it also lends support to Waisbord's (2000) argument that American standards should not be mindlessly applied to all journalists. While this finding will benefit from future studies exploring and theorizing about the differences between American and foreign correspondents, it bears stressing that not only are they different in terms of the media cultures that govern their organizations, they are also different in terms of the immediate audience they serve as well as the interests they might be protecting or advancing.…”

“…Differences also exist*even within the United States* between American journalists who belong to the US media system and foreign journalists who cover stories and report about American issues to their organizations back home. In terms of role conceptions, American journalists tended to rate the disseminator and interpretive roles as more important than did foreign correspondents (Willnat and Weaver 2003). The literature on foreign journalists covering American issues, however, is limited.…”

From partner to rival: Changes in media frames of China in German print coverage between 2000 and 2019

“…All correspondents are native German speakers, three correspondents have studied Sinology, two are native Chinese speakers as well and only one did not have any knowledge about the Chinese language at all. We consider language proficiency to be an important skill of foreign correspondents, since a foreign correspondent acts as mediator between cultures (Hafez, 2002) and because officials seem to prefer to deal with language-proficient journalists (Willnat and Weaver, 2003). For the purpose of this study, the identity of all six correspondents will remain anonymous.…”