CAREER
“The Foreign Correspondent: Myth vs. Reality”
Few jobs in the world have been subjected to as much mythology and stereotyping
as that of the foreign correspondent.
Scenes of the gallant foreign correspondent, dressed in requisite trench
coat, running off to cover war and other forms of mayhem in far-away places
is the stuff of legend and Hollywood embellishment.
For example, if Hollywood is to be believed, foreign correspondents are
tough, resourceful and have amazing stamina. They can bang out a story
in a battle zone even as they drink rot-gut vodka and woo a beautiful woman
(or handsome guy, in this era of gender equity).
Foreign correspondents are all-knowing, charming, sensitive, always good-looking
and most of all, courageous and bold. They’ll take any risk to get
the story, and amazingly, they never get hurt or killed.
Foreign correspondents know how to get information anywhere, anytime. They
are audacious and cunning. They will break into a dictator’s mansion,
trek through jungles with guerillas, invade a general’s bunker, consort
with smugglers, pirates and a broad assortment of other scoundrels and
still be invited to have dinner with the Prime Minister, President or the
Ambassador.
Sound familiar?
In fact, some of that hyperbole is not far from the truth. Foreign correspondents
do take chances and often find themselves in harm’s way, but (alas)
they aren’t always good-looking, and they do get hurt and sometimes
killed.
In the course I teach on international reporting we examine both the myths
and the realities of this most demanding of journalism’s jobs — a
job I did for about 17 years of my career with the Chicago Tribune in Asia
and Latin America. In essence, we embark on a search.
It is a search that will take us back in time to the so-called “Golden
Age” of foreign correspondence and then to the high-tech world of
today’s correspondent.
Part of that search begins with the collection of stories found in the Articles section
of this Web site. Here you will read real stories written by yours truly
and published in the Chicago Tribune.
I hope you find these stories interesting and useful as you attempt to
understand the world (past, present and future) of the foreign correspondent.
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