Guide: Freelance Foreign Correspondence: October 2009

Saturday, October 31, 2009

International news case study: Glimpse

Glimpse is a nonprofit online platform for reporting about living abroad (Glimpse. n.d.). Its Web site, http://glimpse.org, hosts blogs and a travel/living abroad tips section, accepts story submissions, operates a photo contest, and serves as the vehicle for the work of participants in its Correspondents Program. Through the program, Glimpse selects 10 correspondents via an application process to work with Glimpse editors for regular posts to the site in exchange for a $600 stipend. Participants in the Correspondents Program must be between the ages of 18 and 34 and must live abroad for at least 10 weeks.

Glimpse was designed as a way for young people to share meaningful cultural experiences resulting from living abroad. “We’re a Web site geared toward Americans, with the idea that Americans could particularly benefit from a greater understanding of the world,” said Kerala Taylor, co-founder and editor-in-chief for Glimpse. “Glimpse started from this idea of having a platform to share daily life from abroad. We just felt like the study abroad experience was generally underappreciated,” Taylor said.

Though now it is supported in part by National Geographic, Glimpse started out in 1999 as a project initiated by then-undergraduate Brown University students Nick Fitzhugh and Taylor. Fitzhugh is now the publisher and senior designer. The idea was Fitzhugh’s, according to Taylor, who said he was struck by how wrong his preconceptions of life in Europe were when he spent a year in France and Italy before going to college (K. Taylor, personal communication, September 22, 2009). “His idea was that we would create a magazine. Back then print was kind of the first thing that people thought of. And online was more of a secondary component, and that was kind of how we envisioned it. We started a Web site first because it was cheaper.”

Their first magazine issue came out in spring of 2002, just before they graduated, and Glimpse continued to produce a quarterly print publication until fall of 2008, when they discontinued it to focus on the online component. Now the Correspondents Program is moving to the forefront for Glimpse, Taylor said. While serving as a platform for a variety of user-generated content was part of the idea behind Glimpse, they have found that readers’ expectations have changed, and they’re working to meet those expectations.

“We feel like these days people are becoming really jaded with user-generated content and the desire is for curated user-generated content,” Taylor said. “So people like to see their peers, nonprofessionals, being able to publish, but they also want to find good stuff, and they don’t want to be slogging through a million really boring blog entries to find that one good blog.”

Taylor said Glimpse has been getting around 500 applicants for the Correspondents Program at each application cycle, which makes the selection process competitive. They have also just opened up the program to non-U.S. citizens. “We’re looking into expanding the number that we work with, because we end up turning away people who are very qualified,” she said.

Glimpse tries to make the correspondents group about half undergraduate students and half people who have earned their bachelor’s degree. “People who have graduated are often doing different things abroad,” Taylor said. “They tend to go to less-traveled destinations, do volunteer work. We want to try to get a range of experiences.” In all cases, Glimpse tries to choose participants who will be interacting with the culture they’re living in while abroad, and getting out of their comfort zone, Taylor said.

Each participant in the Correspondents Program is assigned an editor who will work with them throughout the semester. The correspondents have a weekly check-in, they’re responsible for a weekly blog posting, photo submissions, one assignment story and one feature story, all of which they work closely with their editor to produce. “The story that they’re responsible for working on, we go through a minimum of three drafts, usually more five to seven, so it’s a pretty rigorous process,” Taylor said.

On the other hand, Taylor said, they know that the correspondents are abroad for other purposes, such as studying or volunteer projects, and they try to structure the program so it’s a manageable workload. The program targets English and journalism majors, but Taylor said anyone from any discipline who shows talent for writing or photography will be considered. Glimpse also tries to choose writers who have some photography skills and photographers who have some writing ability.

In addition to applying for the Correspondents Program, those going abroad can submit proposals for projects via the Web site, and if Glimpse likes the idea they’ll work with the applicant to get the project published.

Glimpse has had a relationship to National Geographic since 2002, Taylor said, when Fitzhugh e-mailed National Geographic’s CEO to tell him about the project, not really expecting to get a response. But the CEO wrote back and asked them to make a presentation to some senior-level staff at National Geographic. “It was a rather terrifying experience,” Taylor said. But it paid off. Glimpse received an initial planning grant from National Geographic.

That funding ran out quickly, though, Taylor said, and the two co-founders went on to work on Glimpse for about five years without paying themselves, doing bartending work on the side to stay afloat. By spring of 2007, the project reached the point where Glimpse was getting enough exposure that it needed to expand, but they couldn’t handle the workload and revenue was touch and go, Taylor said. “It was kind of that classic Catch-22 that small nonprofits are caught in so often,” she said.
So Glimpse went back to National Geographic to ask for additional support. That resulted in an invitation for Glimpse to move into the National Geographic offices in Washington, D.C., where they now have access to National Geographic’s resources and expertise. The editor-in-chief of National Geographic Traveler is the chair of Glimpse’s board of directors now, and Glimpse sometimes shares content with various divisions of National Geographic.

Glimpse’s staff consists of three people: Fitzhugh, Taylor and Managing Editor Anders Kelto. They are bolstered by “a very vibrant team of interns, who outnumber us,” Taylor said. “We love working with them because they are our demographic.”

Taylor said that while Glimpse often looks for ways to work more closely with National Geographic, they also think it’s probably in their best interests to remain independent. “National Geographic has some editorial standards that could be restrictive for us just given our demographic. But they also have a very large interest in our demographic,” she said, noting that the venerable publisher is eager to tap into a younger market. National Geographic also sees Glimpse as a potential talent feed, Taylor said. “We’ve worked with about 40 correspondents now, and a couple of them I can really see becoming National Geographic photographers,” she said. “I cannot at all guarantee that, but it is a foot in the door.”

Glimpse is also open to sharing content with other media outlets, Taylor said. “A lot of these publications feel like they’re losing the younger generation and they don’t know how to appeal to them. We offer something there, I think.”

International news case study: International Reporting Project

The International Reporting Project (IRP) has been around for a while, having been launched in 1998 to help U.S. journalists report on underreported stories overseas. It describes itself as a pioneer of the type of nonprofit journalism that seeks to counterbalance the decline in international news coverage in much of the mainstream media. But the changes in the news industry are bringing about some changes in the approach of the IRP.

“We started off very much trying to provide opportunities for early career journalists who had not had chances to do international work and were interested in doing foreign coverage and then making a career of it,” said John Schidlovsky, former foreign correspondent and founding director of the IRP (J. Schidlovsky, personal communication, September 22, 2009).

The program was designed to train the next generation of foreign correspondents, Schidlovsky said, and at the time he started the IRP, U.S. news outlets still had many foreign bureaus, the expected destinations for many of the journalists who participated. The IRP fellows, chosen through a competitive selection process, spent six weeks with the IRP in Washington, D.C., at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of The Johns Hopkins University, preparing for their international project. They then spent five weeks conducting their reporting abroad, followed by two weeks back in D.C.

“Well now, of course, so many of those bureaus have closed and those jobs no longer exist,” Schidlovsky said. “So we began refining our program to accommodate the new realities.”

IRP has expanded the pool of applicants for its fellowship program, encouraging experienced, well-established journalists to apply alongside colleagues early in their careers. “It’s not a matter of grooming rising stars and giving opportunities to early career journalists, although we still like to do that because they deserve opportunities,” Schidlovsky said. “Right now we see ourselves as stepping into the void of foreign coverage by providing stories no matter who they are by, the emphasis much more on the quality of the story no matter who does it.” Applicants have to have at least three years of professional journalistic experience, however.

The program has also shortened the time commitment for fellows, dropping it to two weeks in D.C. before the going overseas, five weeks working overseas on the project, and two weeks in D.C. upon returning from their reporting. Journalists like the shortened timeframe, especially compared to typical academic fellowships, according to Schidlovsky. “People can’t afford to do that anymore. They don’t want to leave their news organizations for that long because their job may disappear, or they feel like they’re out of sync with the business,” he said.

Fellows receive a free round-trip air ticket to their destination plus a $4,500 stipend for the expenses of their overseas reporting, plus a $1,500 stipend and hotel accommodations for the two weeks in D.C. before leaving for their project for fellows not living in the D.C. area, and another $1,500 stipend and hotel accommodations for the two weeks back in D.C. after the reporting project is completed, also to cover expenses for non-D.C. residents. Fellows can be employed by a media organization, or they can be independent journalists. A fellow’s employer may use the work generated by their employee during the fellowship; freelancers may determine how their reporting will be used, and IRP staff make themselves available to help get projects published. Excerpts from the projects also get posted on the IRP Web site, as do blog entries from the fellows while they’re overseas.

Schidlovsky said IRP helped start the movement whereby organizations are taking a nonprofit approach to producing quality journalism, using grants and foundation funding to create stories that otherwise would not get done, as ProPublica is doing with investigative reporting. “I think we sort of started it 12 years ago, perhaps not even being fully conscious of what we were beginning, but it’s clearly morphed into that kind of a program now, where we are actually creating more foreign coverage each year through our own efforts than The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun, The Miami Herald combined,” Schidlovsky said. “We never sort of dreamed that would be possible, but that’s the new reality of the business.”

IRP fellows have included journalists working in every medium of the news industry, including multimedia journalists. It also operates what it calls “Gatekeeper Trips,” group tours of under-covered but newsworthy countries for editors at news organizations who make decisions about which news items will be published or broadcast.

There were nearly 200 applicants for the program this year, which makes IRP the most applied-for journalism fellowship program based at a university in the United States, Schidlovsky said. Nonetheless, the demand for the program is growing, and Schidlovsky would like to be able to extend fellowships to more journalists. “We could easily have sent out 80 to 90 tremendously talented journalists to do stories if we had the funding,” he said of this year’s applicants. “The need is there; the demand is there; all that’s missing to grow the program is more money.”

International news case study: Common Language Project

Another nonprofit model serving up international reporting is The Common Language Project, which bills itself as a multimedia production house that provides news “about the people affected by key social justice issues, with a specific focus on stigmatized regions and peoples underrepresented in the traditional media” (Common Language Project, n.d.).

Common Language’s small core reporting team, consisting of its three founding members Sarah Stuteville, Alex Stonehill and Jessica Partnow, seeks projects that deal with topics such as human rights, gender equality, social and economic justice, immigration, education and environmental issues. They produce written articles, blogs and video and radio pieces, post them on their Web site (www.commonlanguageproject.net) and sell the use of their works to for-profit media, and, on a sliding rate scale, to nonprofit media.

Common Language was launched in 2006, after Stuteville, Stonehill and Partnow graduated from college and faced a daunting job market. “We were all interested in pursuing careers in journalism, but 2006 was I think probably the year of crisis for the newspaper industry for sure, and kind of the moment when everybody recognized that the jobs were disappearing in journalism and things were going to be changing in some pretty profound ways,” said Sarah Stuteville in a recent interview (S. Stuteville, personal communication, October 5, 2009). Many of the professors in media studies at Hunter College, where Stuteville earned her degree, weren’t sure how to advise students given the market circumstances, she said. Then one of her professors suggested that the best plan might be to just make up the job she wanted, and that suggestion was in part the impetus for Common Language. “It was like, OK, in an ideal world, what sort of job would we want to have and how can we go about trying to make it and see if there’s support out there for it?”

The team saved up money and decided to go out and report from as many places as possible that were in their view either under-reported or reported in a mainly one-dimensional way. That first venture lasted eight months, and took the team to Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. They weren’t initially set on producing multimedia work, Stuteville said, but they realized along the way that because they were going to chiefly publish online, they needed to do more than just stories and photos. So they taught themselves how to get audio and video as part of their reporting, and began blogging immediately, she said.

The operation has steadily grown from that time, said Stuteville, using a kind of a hybrid funding model. A recent agreement with the University of Washington secured some operational funding as well as offices and some other resources. In exchange, the Common Language team is teaching some classes, running workshops and operating an internship program. Stuteville said the Common Language team hopes the relationship with the university might evolve, and they’re testing a theory that one way new media projects could incubate and get the support they need is through partnerships with universities.

Common Language also gets funding from a couple of foundations, and earns income from speaking engagements at schools and universities. But most of the project’s income comes from project-specific clients for their international projects as well as local investigative work the team conducts in the Seattle area. Individual contributors and a couple of annual fundraisers provide support as well.

So far, however, the Common Language team members still have to work other part-time jobs to make ends meet. Nonetheless, the team has been able to produce multi-part multimedia reporting packages from East Africa and Pakistan, both with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and they’ve had their work picked up by the likes of PBS's Foreign Exchange with Daljit Dhaliwal, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, PRI’s The World, NPR’s Morning Edition, BBC Wildlife Magazine, Frontline/World and the San Francisco Chronicle.

They also post the work of other multimedia journalists reporting from abroad and working on local investigative projects, and though they cannot fund projects by other journalists, Common Language does accept proposals for collaborative projects, for which Common Language can provide support services such as assistance in obtaining funding and in placing projects with media outlets. The group has also been collaborating with a group of filmmakers in the Seattle area, and worked on a documentary last year on the closing of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Collaborations are key to Common Language, Stuteville said, and she thinks that’s one direction the news industry is heading. “I feel pretty confident about the way multimedia journalism might work in coming years and generations. I think it’s going to more and more be about collaboration and resource sharing in the sense that you may focus on some specific part of media making or journalism, but you’re constantly working in collaboration with other people to find money, support and to have the expertise to create work.”

Stuteville said each member of Common Language works about 40 hours per week on Common Language projects, in addition to the hours they put into their part-time jobs. They have a collective annual goal of cutting one day of non-Common Language work per week so they can eventually drop the outside jobs. They also are committed to being involved in at least one international project a year, though they would like to do more someday. All of this, and the newly acquired teaching duties, add up to a lot of work for a small staff.

“Trying to figure out how to make a career in the field right now, it just requires that you really, really, really like the work that you do, because there’s very little security in it right now, and even less money,” said Stuteville.

“You have to actually like the nonprofit bureaucracy side as much as you like the reporting side, as much as you like the editing side, as much as you like the collaboration side. And I really do, even though it’s a lot of work, a lot of hours in the week, it’s definitely worth it to me.”

International news case study: Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

An organization that works with GlobalPost, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting also focuses on international reporting and “under-reported topics,” according to its Web site — http://www.pulitzercenter.org/ (Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, n.d.).

It was established in 2006, and has been described as a leading proponent of the journalist as entrepreneur (Westphal, 2009). What that means, in part, is that being a grantee of the Pulitzer Center doesn’t mean you’re in the money; the center only covers travel expenses for its reporters. On the other hand, it works with its reporters to find quality outlets for their work and put the spotlight on their reporting. It solicits international reporting projects that cover under-reported issues and tell the stories through the use of multiple platforms.

Associate Director Nathalie Applewhite said that the center receives about 20 proposals per month, a number that has remained fairly steady since the organization’s launch (N. Applewhite, personal communication, October 20, 2009). What has changed, though, is the quality of the proposals.

I think when we started out we just weren’t on people’s radars much, and also experienced journalists had opportunities and they could still get their stories funded, whereas the younger freelancers couldn’t so they needed our help more so than the Pulitzer Prize winners. But I think since we started the organization we’ve certainly seen an increase in very high quality proposals from journalists who you would think people would be throwing money at to do their stories, and so that is making it harder for the younger journalists. (N. Applewhite, personal communication, October 20, 2009)

For 2009, the center expects to fund a total of 51 projects, Applewhite said, a number that is determined strictly by the amount of funding available. Qualities the center looks for in proposals include compelling stories; smart, tight budgets; a strong track record in the field for the journalist(s) included; and a solid distribution plan for the end product with demonstrable interest from editors or producers at U.S. media outlets. The Web site also stipulates that the target media outlets be “wide-reaching,” meaning they have audiences of 50,000 or more. Having an education outreach component to the proposal also could help its chances.

Most accepted proposals earn funding of $2,000 to $10,000, according to the center’s Web site, but funding could go as high as $20,000 for a project depending on its needs. Reporting supported by the center has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, GlobalPost, NPR, PBS and Smithsonian Magazine.

Applewhite said that although there have been instances where it was a struggle to get a strong story placed, the center finds many media outlets are eager for the content produced by Pulitzer Center journalists. “I think a lot of the outlets just because of their own financial constraints are really happy to have something that’s been vetted, that this isn’t just some random person or a think tank sending them stories that they want,” she said.

Young journalists with little experience might not prove too competitive in seeking project funding from the center, but they might get a leg up through the center’s Campus Consortium program. Through that initiative, the center works with a consortium of universities, which provide $10,000 each to fund the program. The center, in turn, provides two campus visits per year by Pulitzer Center journalists, funds up to $2,000 for one student’s reporting project at each of the participating universities, and offers the student support and mentoring from the Pulitzer Center staff.

The center is an independent division of the think tank the World Security Institute, with a separate funding stream provided by primary donors Emily Rauh Pulitzer, the Emily Rauh Pulitzer Foundation, David Moore, and the David and Katherine Moore Family Foundation. It also has received funding from the MAC AIDS Fund for a series of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean; from the Stanley Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York for work on fragile states and states at risk; and from the Educational Foundation of America and the McCormick Foundation for the center’s educational activities.

Those educational activities include its Global Gateway, an online offering for teachers and students that uses center-supported reporting projects as part of issue-based lesson plans for classrooms, bringing journalists to classrooms to discuss their experiences, and facilitating online question-and-answer sessions on the issue, and in some cases linking students in the United States with students in the country where the reporting originated.

“We realized it wasn’t enough to be funding the reporting itself and that the bigger problem here, to break it into economic terms, was both supply and demand,” Applewhite said of the origins of Global Gateway. “If we wanted to see more quality reporting in the world in the years ahead we had to make sure that our youth were growing up with a curiosity about the rest of the world.” Many of the center’s reporting projects lend themselves to classrooms particularly because most have at least some short video component that works well as an introduction to the topic.

That video component is part of the center’s preference for multimedia reporting projects that combine print, photography, video and audio elements. The center encourages journalists to work in teams on the projects in order to achieve a quality product in each medium, Applewhite said.

The Center also partners with YouTube, with funding from Sony VAIO and Intel, to offer an annual video reporting contest, Project: Report. The contest is designed for nonprofessional journalists who produce reports of five minutes or less that “tell stories that might not otherwise be told,” according to the contest Web site, http://www.youtube.com/user/projectreport. The site also offers tips on video reporting.

Works Cited

Westphal, D. (2009, May). Foreign reporting, the entrepreneurial and multimedia way. Online Journalism Review. Retrieved from http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/davidwestphal/200905/1724/

International news case study: GlobalPost

One of the highest profile operations among new international news models is GlobalPost, which opened up its online shop to some fanfare in January 2009. The operation is dedicated to providing news of the world via a team of correspondents who are paid a monthly stipend and stock in GlobalPost.

Its stories are viewable free of charge at its Web site, http://www.globalpost.com/, with earnings expected to come from syndication to other news outlets, advertising, and memberships that provide access to premium content. GlobalPost also offers the services of correspondents for hire for journalism projects. In some cases it is also partnering with other organizations, like the Christian Science Monitor, to cover the cost of a correspondent.

All of GlobalPost’s correspondents are living in the countries they cover, and as part of a January 2009 interview broadcast by the radio program “On the Media,” Bob Garfield reported that GlobalPost’s correspondents were reporting from 65 countries at that time (Garfield, January 2009). In addition to the correspondents GlobalPost has on stipend, it also solicits contributions from guest correspondents, providing one possible opportunity for emerging correspondents.

According to a mid-year message from GlobalPost President Philip Balboni posted to their Web site, GlobalPost had made 20 syndication agreements at that point, including deals with the New York Daily News, the Newark Star Ledger, the South China Morning Post, thehuffingtonpost.com and Reuters.com (Balboni, July 4, 2009). But a more recent development, the announcement in September of a partnership with CBS News, may be the best indication to date of industry respect and sustainability for GlobalPost’s model. “Having a broadcast network partner was a high priority for us, and to be associated with CBS News is a great validation of what we are trying to build,” Balboni told The New York Times (Carr, September 27, 2009). The deal brings monthly payments to GlobalPost in exchange for its journalists providing information that CBS will use as a basis for some of its reporting.

According to Balboni’s July message, GlobalPost had published 3,000 articles, videos and photo galleries since their January start. Balboni also reported that GlobalPost had received 2.6 million visits to its Web site from more than 1.1 million people in 223 countries and territories.

At the time of its launch, GlobalPost had 14 U.S.-based staff working on the editing and production of multimedia elements of its correspondent projects (Garber, January 14, 2009).
Founders Balboni and Charles Sennott are both experienced journalists. Balboni is also the founder and former president of New England Cable News. Sennott, who serves as executive editor and vice president of GlobalPost, is a former foreign correspondent and bureau chief for The Boston Globe who has also worked extensively in multimedia and as an on-air news analyst, according to his biography on the Global Post Web site.

Balboni told the Columbia Journalism Review for a January article on the launch of GlobalPost that international reporting must have for-profit models (Garber, January 14, 2009). “The best way to ensure long-term sustainability is by having a real business that is fired in the marketplace, and that has revenue that’s generated by consumers and other means that will sustain it for the long term,” he said.

Works Cited

Balboni, P. (2009, July 4). Message from president and co-founder Philip Balboni. GlobalPost. Retrieved from http://www.globalpost.com/about-us

Carr, D. (2009, September 27). To cover world, CBS joins with a news site. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/business/media/28cbs.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1254143866-YBgnd9IbsMw0WRsyIANVRg

Garber, M. (2009, January 14). Johnny Jones 2.0. Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved from http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/johnny_jones_20.php?page=all

Garfield, B. (2009, January). We are the world. Transcript of an interview broadcast on the radio program On the Media. Retrieved from http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/01/16/05

Pitching, making a living and other tips

In his Tweets on his foreign correspondence experience, Dan Baum includes very specific recommendations on pitching stories (Baum, 2009). He suggests calling the switchboard at the target outlet, asking for the top editor’s assistant, telling that person that you’re planning to move the destination country and asking which editor would be most interested in news from there, then ask for that editor’s assistant. Next, find out the spelling of the editor’s name, the best day of the week and time of day to email, and the preferred length of the pitch.

Journalist Deborah Bonello advises newcomers to foreign correspondence to be prepared to pitch and get turned down often (D. Bonello, personal communication, September 17, 2009). She said the most important thing beginner journalists can do is to get online, create a space where they can show their work, and make it look good. Her Web site costs about $200 a year to run, she said.

“You have to be prepared to invest the time in yourself and develop those things, because, you know, to anyone, I’d say you’re going to at least give yourself six months to a year to get yourself up and running,” she said. She also recommends journalists meet as many people as possible once they arrive in a new country, and get in touch with nonprofits, read the newspapers, follow media coverage of the country, and “look under as many stones as possible.”

Payscale.com, a commercial Web site that gathers data on salaries, gives an annual median salary of $58,000 to $73,000 per year for foreign correspondents with 10 to 19 years of experience, but received data from only nine professionals to come up with that range. If these figures can be considered as a sort of guide to the payscale for foreign correspondents, then, naturally, starting correspondents can expect to make significantly less. But depending on where a journalist is living, considerably less could still be a good living.

Miranda Kennedy said she never bothered with pitching newspapers because the pay has long been low. While she eventually became a contract correspondent from India for the radio program “Marketplace” from American Public Media, she tried to hone in on outlets that have more money to offer, but might not be so high profile, such as a newspaper she found in the Persian Gulf that paid extremely well and preferred long pieces, and the nonprofit organization World Vision’s radio program, which also paid well. When first starting out, Kennedy also managed to get grant to train other radio journalists in South Asia for Pacifica Radio, which helped her out on the income front and helped her get acquainted with the region and its people.

She said India is an example of the kind of place where it really makes sense to go for those interested in becoming foreign correspondents. She also suggests that young journalists going abroad to report consider staying in the same place for an extended period, and living like the country’s citizens rather than sticking with other expatriates and diplomats in the nicer neighborhoods. Kennedy was originally scheduled to return to the United States after living in India for a year, but she decided to stay because she “hadn’t been able to really get a hold on the country.” She ended up living there for five years, and recently returned for five weeks as a fellow for the International Reporting Project. She’s also writing a book on the lives of six Indian women. Kennedy said young reporters particularly cannot go to someplace so different from the West understand the political and cultural intricacies without spending a great deal of time there.

And lastly, Nathalie Applewhite of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting recommends that those who feel passionately about becoming foreign correspondent just go rather than waiting for someone to give them a job or assignment or funding (N. Applewhite, personal communication, October 27, 2009).“This is not the kind of field where you sit around and wait for someone to believe in you,” she said. “Just spend the $1,000, make that investment. It’ll be the best investment you make.”

Works Cited

Baum, D. (2009, September 10). African bureau Tweets. Retrieved from http://www.danbaum.com/Nine_Lives/Africa_Bureau_tweets.html

Skills and equipment

“Multimedia skills” is a sort of mantra these days for many journalism instructors, editors and other working journalists as they weigh what beginning professionals need to bring to the table to be most successful. These skills are also increasingly linked to foreign correspondence.

“I mean basically I was originally a writer, but there were just so many writers, and so few jobs for writers,” said Deborah Bonello, a freelance journalist who now contracts with the Los Angeles Times in Mexico City, doing primarily video work and some blogging. “So it’s really important I think for students to develop multimedia skills because, as the old generation of correspondents sort of gets played out, if you don’t have those skills, I’d be amazed if you were considered for a job.”

Bonello said there is a wealth of tutorials available on the Web, and journalists just need to commit the time to learning skills that will help them in new media. Poynter Institute’s News University offers several free online courses on multimedia reporting, as well as a course on what equipment to buy, which costs users $24.95 to take.

Sarah Stuteville, freelance journalist and co-founder of the Common Language Project (CLP), which features multimedia reporting, said she believes the most important skills remain the basic journalistic ones—knowing how to report, how to tell a good story, being able convince editors to give a story good play. But she and CLP’s other two co-founders decided early on that they also needed to offer reporting in multiple mediums since their chief outlet was their Web site, and they taught themselves how to do audio and video reporting while they were on the road for their first major overseas project for CLP.

Some news outlets require or strongly encourage reporting that includes multimedia elements. Among those are GlobalPost and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, two emerging backers of international reporting. The Pulitzer Center encourages applicants for its grants to team up with other journalists in order to produce projects that include writing, photography, audio and video, as well as blogging. “Our money is better spent possibly funding two people who can really produce a volume of material that’s complimentary in broadcast, radio and print instead of really overtaxing one person who won’t be able to do any of the things quite right,” said Pulitzer Center Associate Director Nathalie Applewhite.

Veteran multimedia journalist, foreign correspondent and American University Professor Bill Gentile is particularly an advocate of what he calls “backpack journalism,” a one-man-band approach to reporting that emphasizes visual communication. It’s not an approach he recommends to every journalist, but only to those who can “properly speak the visual language” (B. Gentile, personal communication, September 24, 2009). He said its best use is for stories for which the journalist can spend some time with the subjects so they can create character-driven pieces. The equipment needed is mainly a handheld video camera, a Macbook Pro laptop, and a couple of external hard drives, he said. Gentile offers more information on this approach at his blog, http://billgentilebackpackjournalism.blogspot.com/, and conducts workshops on the topic with PBS’s NOW program.

“We are right now at an extraordinary juncture in the history of mankind, technology and communication,” Gentile said. “Even more important than the Gutenberg press, the advances of digital cameras and the Internet provide us unprecedented opportunity.”

Language skills are also an issue to consider before heading off to report from a foreign land. Ideally, of course, a journalist will speak fluently the language of the people he or she will be interviewing, and understand the language being used around them on the street and in the media.

Many travel guides offer very basic language guides that can be helpful for a novice in the language, and an array of free language learning resources are available online. One of the most extensive is the language Web site operated by the BBC, www.bbc.co.uk/languages/. It presents material on an impressive array of languages, with the sophistication of the educational material depending on the popularity of the language. For widely used languages like Spanish, French, German and Chinese, the site offers video and audio programs, news translations and games for beginners and more advanced speakers. It also offers “quick fixes” in 36 languages.
Journalists who are not confident in their fluency in the local language(s) will need to find a way to hire a translator, an expense some find difficult to absorb.

“Although I studied it for years, I wouldn’t ever rely on my own Hindi in interviews,” said journalist Miranda Kennedy, who lived in and reported from India for five years (M. Kennedy, personal communication, October 26, 2009). She said when she was going to areas where English was not widely spoken, she took a translator with her, relying not only on the language translation but also on the additional cultural information the translator could provide. A fellow with the International Reporting Project, Kennedy said she had spoken with other fellows who regretted not making the expenditure to obtain higher quality translators.
Networking with other journalists is one way to find translators.

Security concerns

Many of the most appealing sites for freelance news reporting work also present security issues that require journalists to be vigilant about the political and cultural environment, take appropriate precautions, and be aware of the best practices for staying safe in difficult situations.

“I think the issue of security support for freelance journalists, especially people doing international work right now, is one that is getting more and more attention, sadly as a result of a lot of freelancers and independent journalists getting into trouble and getting arrested,” said freelancer journalist and Common Language Project co-founder Sarah Stuteville (S. Stuteville, personal communication, October 5, 2009). “That’s kind of revealed this issue that well, when these folks aren’t working for a big institution, they don’t have a lot of money and clout behind them. What happens to them, and who looks out for them?”

Stuteville said security is an issue she and her colleagues at Common Language Project have been discussing frequently with other freelancers and independent journalists. In preparation for their recent work in Pakistan, the Common Language team got in touch with the Committee to Protect Journalists. “They’re a really great resource for independent journalists and freelancers,” she said.

The team also had a point person in the United States who knew their schedule and plans, and with whom they checked in regularly. “Beyond that, we really depend on the connections that we make with people, the collaborations with Pakistani people and Pakistani journalists, and we were really lucky to find some great people to work with,” she said.

Freelance journalist Miranda Kennedy admits she didn’t prepare herself much initially regarding security issues when she moved to India to begin her foreign correspondence career. She ended up covering stories in Pakistan a couple of times before she discovered the Rory Peck Trust, which provided grants for security training for freelancers, and got training with their help.

"I don’t think I ever took big risks, I’m not in to risking my life for a story. And I talked to a lot of other journalists who maybe lived in Afghanistan and Pakistan and weren’t just traveling there. It was that community of journalists, I think, that helped me be safe—everybody exchanging ideas for fixers and safe hotels and which area to go and that kind of thing." (M. Kennedy, personal communication, October 26, 2009)

The U.S. Department of State’s Traveler’s Web site, http://travel.state.gov/, offers the government’s country-specific assessment of safety concerns for U.S. citizens abroad, pinpointing areas of conflict or potential conflict, noting recent incidents of crime against foreign citizens, and making recommendations for safe travel and living in the area. It is, however, ideal to cross check the State Department’s assessments with those of people and/or organizations on the ground in your destination country to try to get an up-to-date, local perspective on conditions there.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is one of several organizations that promote press freedom globally, give free advice and country-level assessment of challenges to press freedom, including security concerns affecting journalists, and also offer support to journalists in the field. It was established by a group of foreign correspondents in 1981 with the intent of defending press freedom and journalists worldwide, according to its Web site, http://www.cpj.org/ (Committee to Protect Journalists, n.d.). It tracks reports of infringement of press freedom, and encourages journalists of all nationalities to contact CPJ when they are the victims or witnesses to press freedom violations, and when they need advice regarding assignments in potentially dangerous locations. It will attempt to intervene to aid journalists subject to press freedom violations by notifying news organizations, government officials and human rights groups. It is a membership organization, with annual membership dues that yield an annual report, “Attacks on the Press,” and an e-newsletter. But it also offers volumes of information on press freedom violations and advice on security for journalists for free on its Web site.

Included on the Web site is the special report “On Assignment: Covering Conflicts Safely,” recommended reading even for those not expecting to cover conflict, since especially in “newsworthy” locations, the potential for conflict is often present. Much of the advice also applies to safe operation in non-conflict zones. This guide covers topics like security training and protective gear, first-aid kits, how to dress in combat zones, the importance of knowing the local language or having an interpreter, and recommendations for making sure editors and other colleagues know where you’re supposed to be and when and who to call in an emergency.

Reporters Without Borders is another nonprofit organization focusing on press freedom that offers information and other resources for independent and freelance journalists, as well as those affiliated with mainstream media. The organization has offices in Washington, D.C. and New York City, as well as several other Western countries, and has affiliates in several other countries, according to its Web site, http://www.rsf.org/. Like CPJ, it offers country- and region-level press freedom reports and news. It also offers The Practical Guide for Journalists, (Reporters Without Borders, April 17, 2007) for those going to dangerous areas of the world, which includes advice for staying safe, first aid, and listing international norms that protect journalists.

The organization also gives out first aid kits, and loans out a small number of bullet-proof vests, helmets and GPS personal distress beacons, but only out of their Paris headquarters. A 24-hour SOS Press hotline is available for journalists in distress, (33) 1 4777-7414, provided through an agreement with American Express which also allows journalists to go to any local American Express agency to get assistance and get in contact with the organization. Another important service it provides is guidance on the signs and means for addressing psychological damage that sometimes comes with reporting from dangerous areas. The Web site includes a section devoted to this topic, and links to other sources of assistance.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has produced an extensive safety manual, Live News: A Survival Guide for Journalists, (McIntyre, P., 2003) which it makes available for free on its Web site, http://www.ifj.org/. It also offers an international press card which it says is recognized by journalists in 120 countries, and could be a useful credential. It can only be obtained through membership in one of the IFJ union affiliates in your country of origin, which in the United States includes the National Writer’s Union, the Writer’s Guild of America East, the Newspaper Guild – CWA, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

IFJ is the founder of the International News Safety Institute http://www.newssafety.org/, a coalition of news and journalists’ organizations and individuals. Of particular potential use to freelancers is a section of its Web site devoted to insurance that explains the different types that might be important to a foreign correspondent, and lists providers of risk insurance. The site also includes more than one first aid guide and information on medevac providers.

The Rory Peck Trust, http://www.rorypecktrust.org/, supports freelancer safety and provides assistance to freelancers and their families in times of need. Named in honor of a freelance cameraman who was killed while covering the October 1993 coup in Moscow, the trust provides grants for freelancer safety training. It also has produced a report on the status, and dangers, of freelancing in Mexico, and offers an annual awards program for freelance cameramen and women.

Lightstalkers.org is a Web site that describes itself as a “network for unconventional travelers,” (November Eleven, n.d.) but its membership includes many photojournalists, as well as reporters, filmmakers and other professionals who travel the world. The online discussions on topics like credentials and how to get around in some tightly controlled areas could prove invaluable, and could provide helpful connections to other journalists or professionals with similar travel concerns. Visitors can read much of what is on the site without becoming a member, but membership is necessary for interaction. It is free, but is by invitation only. Visitors can request an invitation by sending the site some information about themselves and why they want to join, or they can be recommended for an invite by a current member of the site (whose names and profiles are listed on the site). While membership is free, donations are being sought for maintenance of the site.

Upon arriving in a new country, it is advisable to check in with the embassy of your home country. They may have good advice on living in the area, and providing them with your contact information will allow them to quickly alert you of security concerns as they arise, and also may help pave the way should you run into trouble and need the embassy’s assistance in the future.
Some contacts correspondents should keep handy in case of emergency:

· Committee to Protect Journalists: Tel. 212-465-1004; http://cpj.org/Briefings/2003/safety/mailto:info@cpj.org
· International Committee of the Red Cross: in Geneva, Switzerland, (41) 22-734-6001; emergency after-hours during weekdays, (41) 79 217-3204, and during weekends, (41)79 217-3285. The ICRC hotline via e-mail: http://cpj.org/Briefings/2003/safety/mailto:press.gva@icrc.org.
· Reporters Without Borders 24-hour SOS Presse hotline: (33) 1 4777-7414

Works Cited

Committee to Protect Journalists (2003, February). On assignment: Covering conflicts safely. Retrieved from http://www.cpj.org/reports/2003/02/journalist-safety-guide.php#read

McIntyre, P. (2003) Live news: A survival guide for journalists. Brussels: International Federation of Journalists. Retrieved from http://www.ifj.org/assets/docs/130/082/d325b82-f8ef152.pdf

Reporters Without Borders. (2007, April). The Practical Guide for Journalists. Retrieved from http://www.rsf.org/The-Practical-Guide-for.html

Health and safety

Issues related to health and safety can vary widely depending on where you work, but there is the potential in any location for traffic accidents, protests, crime, natural disasters and outbreaks of disease or violent conflict. None of these are matters to be taken lightly, and your preparation for them, or lack thereof, has the potential to radically affect the course of your life. Fortunately, it’s never been easier to get informed about conditions in cities and countries around the world, and take appropriate precautions.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s traveler’s health site, http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/default.aspx, is a good place to start. The site includes country-specific and regional information on needed vaccinations and disease outbreaks; advice on prevention and preparation, such as what medicines to take; description of symptoms for some diseases; a directory of travel clinics in the U.S.; and advice on what to do in case of injury or illness abroad. It also offers a podcast on safe and healthy travel. The World Health Organization also offers a site with information for travelers, http://www.who.int/ith/en/. It maps disease occurrence, lists country-specific health information, and offers a guide for safe food for travelers.

The U.S. Department of State’s Web site for travelers, http://travel.state.gov, covers a lot of information useful to U.S. citizens and others. For each country on the globe, it describes entry and exit requirements, including required vaccinations; provides a recent history of crime and security issues, particularly as they relate to tourists or expatriates, as well as resources for victims of crime; offers advice on financial transactions and avoidance of fraud; and assesses the medical facilities of the country.

Up-to-date travel guides also usually provide good basic guidance on health care and disease occurrence and prevention.

Travel documents, credentials, etc.

The basic passport fee is $75, and as of October 2009, the State Department reported that passports were being processed within about four to six weeks from the time of application (U.S. Department of State, 2009), http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html. You can have your passport processing expedited for a fee of $60, and overnight delivery of the passport, which is recommended by the Postal Service for all passport books, comes with a fee of $14.85.

The World on a String recommends looking “respectable” for the passport photo to prevent hassles with border guards, and getting extra copies of the photo for use with credentials and other identification needs that may arise (Goodman & Pollack, 1997, p. 54).

News University’s “International Reporting Basics” course points out that many countries require journalists planning to work in their country to get a journalist’s visa. “Though these can be time-consuming to procure, this is the recommended way of entering a country. Being anything less than honest in your paperwork can get you into serious trouble.” (News University, n.d.).

Journalists going abroad will need to find out what the visa rules are for their destination, how long it is expected to take to obtain a visa, how best to go about obtaining it, and how long the visa allows you to stay in the country. Those considering being based in one country and traveling to others in a region may need to obtain a multiple-entry visa. The country’s embassy Web site may provide information on the requirements and procedures, and a phone call to the embassy may also do the trick.

Press credentials are handy and are sometimes necessary for foreign reporting. They may not be worth the trouble for journalists focusing on things like travel writing, but they may be important for reporting on political developments, and are a necessity in war zones, where journalists are sometimes mistaken for spies, note authors Goodman and Pollack in World on a String, who offer a variety of suggestions on how best to deal with the issue (1997, p. 57).

Other journalists who have traveled to the country might be able and willing to provide helpful insights into the visa and credentialing process. During inquiries about and application for visas and/or credentials, the embassies of some countries may seek details of your plans.

Journalist Dan Baum, in his series of Tweets on his experience as a foreign correspondent, suggests that a journalist planning to start corresponding from a foreign country write to the country’s ministry of information and ask for permission to open a freelance news bureau (Baum, 2009). Some countries may refuse, and Baum suggests just moving on to the next one. “It’s one thing to drop into a country for a week to write a story, without local press credentials. We do that all the time,” Baum said. “But to live in a country as a journalist, it really helps to be legit.”

Business cards are also recommended by the authors of World on a String (Goodman & Pollack, 1997, p. 60) and News University’s “International Reporting Basics” (News University, n.d.) as being useful for getting into events and securing interviews.

Works Cited

Baum, D. (2009, September 10). African bureau Tweets. Retrieved from http://www.danbaum.com/Nine_Lives/Africa_Bureau_tweets.html

Goodman, A. & Pollack, J. (1997). The world on a string: How to become a freelance foreign correspondent. New York: Henry Holt and Company Inc.

News University. (n.d.). International reporting basics: What you need to know before you go. Retrieved from http://www.newsu.org/angel/content/irp_intreporting06/introduction/courseIntroduction.html

Strategy and budgeting

Journalists considering the launch of a freelance foreign correspondence career would do well to first read The World on a String: How to Become a Freelance Foreign Correspondent, a book by Al Goodman and John Pollack that provides recommendations from experienced journalists on a broad range of topics related to getting started in foreign correspondence. Unfortunately, the book has not been updated since 1997, so there are sections that are out of date and uninformed by the changes in the news industry and international relations since that time. Nonetheless, it is a wealth of insider information on the word of international news reporting, including advice on pitching stories, networking with other journalists, avoiding turf issues with other journalists, credentials, and strategies for making ends meet. It also offers important guidance for working in a war zone.

Another more basic, but more up-to-date overview on embarking on foreign correspondence is News University’s free online course, International Reporting Basics: What You Need to Know Before You Go, found at www.newsu.org, which was developed with the International Reporting Project and its professional journalist fellows (News University, n.d.). It covers packing and other preparation before heading out; health and safety; how to operate upon arrival, including information gathering best practices and lining up fixers and translators; and story development.
In terms of considering where to go to kick off a foreign correspondence career, personal interest, family or friend connections to an area and language skills are among considerations that might help in narrowing the literal world of options. But two key qualities of an ideal destination are a reasonable expectation for unique news opportunities, and a reasonable level of expense.

As writer Dan Baum explains in a recent series of Tweets on his start as a foreign correspondent, he and his journalist wife, Margaret Knox, had three criteria for choosing the country where they would be based: it had to be “at least a little bit newsworthy”; it couldn’t be popular with other journalists, especially Americans; and it had to offer a low cost of living, including travel expenses (Baum, 2009).

Not surprisingly, they found it difficult to find a spot on the globe that met all three qualifications, so they reasoned that, “If the place is cheap enough to live and travel in, you don’t need to sell many stories. So it doesn’t have to be super-newsworthy.” They ended up making a living, and making names for themselves, in Zimbabwe in the late 1980s.

To research potential workplaces, one of the first steps for a would-be correspondent should be following the international news as reported in the major news outlets, making note of which regions are covered well and which are not, and watching for developments that might hint at places where events or issues in the news could change a low-profile country into a news hotspot in the near future. Many online news outlets offer the option of looking at news by country or region, including the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/) and the New York Times (www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html). The Times also offers an array of useful links to maps and information on the country’s economy, government, education and health statistics, demographics, weather and travel.

Beyond the news media, a wealth of easily accessed information on most, if not all, corners of the world is available on the Web. Journalists need to keep in mind that like information from other sources, the information posted on Web sites likely reflects to varying degrees the biases determined by the political or business interests of the sponsoring organization. Still, many such sites offer useful facts and analysis. For basic information on countries, try sites such as the CIA World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/, and the U.S. State Department Web site, http://www.state.gov/.

Thinks tanks including the Council on Foreign Relations (http://www.cfr.org/), Brookings Institution (http://www.brookings.edu/World.aspx) and the International Crisis Group (http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm) offer analysis of foreign policy and current affairs, and may provide a means to get in contact with experts on a particular country or region. Worldpress.org and World Net Daily (http://www.wnd.com/) offer extensive listings of news outlets by country.

The Web sites for the Committee to Protect Journalists (http://www.cpj.org/), Reporters Without Borders (http://www.rsf.org/) and the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (http://www.ifex.org/) provide reports on press freedom for most countries. Lonely Planet offers a fair amount of free information on its Web site (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/) as well as the option to buy portions of, or whole, guide books online. And Global Voices Online, http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/, a site offering posts of more than 200 bloggers around the world, offers easy by-country searching, and the blogs, of course, provide the option to post comments and thereby interact with bloggers from your potential destination.

Don’t forget about books. It’s likely that the history, culture and politics of the area in question are presented in the form of books by scholars or memoirs by residents or visitors (including foreign correspondents). These may help in choosing a location, and will also enrich future news judgment and reporting. Watching films made by natives of the country and studying up on other elements of popular culture may help a newcomer to get their cultural bearings.

Once you’ve honed in on a potential base for your foreign correspondence, a useful next step would be drafting a budget. For most freelance correspondents, budgeting will be crucial for getting a career abroad off to a successful start. Getting to your target country, getting around once you’re there, obtaining safe but affordable housing and food, buying and maintaining equipment, obtaining medicines and vaccinations (which can be costly), securing the Internet and phone communications you’ll need, and acquiring life and health insurance—these and more are the expenses a freelance journalist will need to plan for when locating abroad.

“When I came out here, I had to invest in equipment, I had to go into debt, because I don’t come from the kind of background where someone was supporting me,” said Deborah Bonello, a multimedia journalist who moved from Britain to Argentina to become a correspondent in 2005. “You have to be prepared to put your money where your mouth is and hustle, because that’s what it’s all about.”

If you can track down other journalists, or other professionals or students, who have worked or studied recently in your target country, their intelligence regarding costs could prove invaluable.
Recently published travel guides focused on your destination country will usually include a good base of budgeting information related to short-term housing, transportation and dining.

In The World on a String (Goodman & Pollack, 1997, p. 35), the authors recommend checking with the embassy or consulate of your destination country in the country where you currently reside in pursuit of housing leads. They suggest calling the embassy and telling them that you want to study their language, or that you are taking an extended vacation rather than saying you will be seeking work in the destination country. Information officers at American, British and Canadian embassies in the destination country might also prove helpful, they say. Other potential sources of housing information and other tips include study abroad programs, students and/or professors at your university who are from the destination country, and alumni who are living in the destination country.

Craigslist, http://www.craigslist.net/, has housing classified listings in many international cities and countries, including places like Lebanon, Pakistan, Malaysia, Russia, Ecuador and plenty more. Though the service is offered in many, many places, its use/visitation seems to vary greatly. And of course you’ll want to use extreme caution and take a look at the Craigslist recommendations on avoiding scams and fraud or other crime.

The Web site Numbeo, http://www.numbeo.com/, offers some basic cost estimates in categories like food, housing, and transportation for world cities and countries, although information is volunteered by site users and is spotty. It also provides cost index tables for world cities and at the country level that might be helpful in making quick comparisons of relative expense. The Web site Man vs. Debt,
http://manvsdebt.com/cost-of-living-abroad-international-bloggers-share-expenses/, also posts the results of a solicitation for some basic costs from cities around the world. The responses come from bloggers based in those locations, and links are provided to their blogs, thus also offering more potential on-the-ground contacts.

Choosing a location where you will be able to secure a decent Internet connection will save a lot of time and hassle on the communications front. Skype allows video phone calls, or just audio, between online computers at no cost, and can also be used to place calls to phones at cost. Veteran correspondent and journalism professor Bill Gentile refers his students to the Vonage Web site for deals on international phone rates. Other telecommunications companies also offer special rate packages for international calling and Internet use for smartphones and iPhones. Even many developing countries have thriving Internet café industries, though cost and quality of connection will vary widely. In respect to Internet access, developing a relationship with a local news outlet or university might prove advantageous, and potential Internet access might be an important consideration in weighing part-time jobs to supplement income.

OpenNet Initiative, http://opennet.net/, analyzes the level of Internet filtering taking place in many countries, and its country profiles also offer a helpful look at Internet availability and cost in each nation, and by region.

Works Cited

Baum, D. (2009, September 10). African bureau Tweets. Retrieved from http://www.danbaum.com/Nine_Lives/Africa_Bureau_tweets.html

Goodman, A. & Pollack, J. (1997). The world on a string: How to become a freelance foreign correspondent. New York: Henry Holt and Company Inc.

News University. (n.d.). International reporting basics: What you need to know before you go. Retrieved from http://www.newsu.org/angel/content/irp_intreporting06/introduction/courseIntroduction.html

Weighing a future as a foreign correspondent

Deciding to pursue a career as a foreign correspondent is, like many key life decisions, a bit of a gamble.

Many journalists who decide to pursue this path will at least start out as, and may have full careers as, freelancers, due in part to the paucity of staff foreign correspondent posts available.

Freelancing allows journalists more autonomy in choosing location and assignments, but the marketplace puts limits on that autonomy, and makes strategic planning crucial for a successful freelancer. It can be a lonely, low-income, competitive and high-risk existence, and should not be undertaken lightly. But that does not mean it should not be undertaken.

Bill Gentile, a veteran foreign correspondent and professor at American University, certainly encourages his students to analyze the possibilities of freelance foreign correspondence. A practitioner of “backpack journalism” whose documentaries have appeared on PBS’ “NOW,” Gentile says that he is optimistic about the field of foreign correspondence, despite the widespread downsizing in the industry and the shuttering of foreign bureaus by many news organizations (B. Gentile, personal communication, September 24, 2009).

“I also feel very adamant about the fact that young people who really want to make a difference and be engaged in the world can use this craft and should use this craft as a means to do so,” he said. “It means you may have to be more diversified, though. You may have to go to places like China and you may have to work at an English-language newspaper to sustain yourself and do this stuff on a freelance basis on the side.”

John Schidlovsky, founding director of the International Reporting Project and a former foreign correspondent, says that while the changes in media have left fewer staff jobs with big media organizations, freelancing remains a viable option for aspiring foreign correspondents (J. Schidlovsky, personal communication, September 22, 2009). “If you’re interested in international media and you’re adventurous, just go off somewhere overseas and try that, try carving out a niche. You could go either to a place where there are lots of journalists because there’s big story, but then you’ve got lots of competition,” he said, “or, go someplace where no one is and sort of stake that out, carve that out as your territory.”

Schidlovsky said if he were starting out now, he might choose to locate in Nigeria—Africa’s most populous country and one of the world’s top oil producers. “Nobody is covering that country,” he said. Generally, he recommends being flexible, being adaptable, learning languages, and learning as much as possible about international issues that are hot now, such as the global economy and the environment.

The freedom to focus on stories that you want to do is one of the benefits of freelancing, said Stephan Faris, a freelance correspondent and author of the book Forecast: The Suprising—and Immediate—Consequences of Climate Change. “This is of course constrained by the fact you have to sell them, but so far I've been able to do things I find positive and interesting,” said Faris in an interview via e-mail from Rome, where he is now based (S. Faris, personal communication, September 30, 2009). He has reported for Time Magazine, Fortune Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly and Salon.com.

Except for a brief stint at a small daily newspaper in New Jersey, Faris has spent all of his journalism career as a freelancer. He has been offered staff positions, Faris said, but so far none have been appealing enough to lure him away from what he sees as the advantages of freelancing. Subjects he has tackled include the wars in Iraq and Liberia, the genocide trials in Rwanda, the rise of Islamists in Somalia and Internet censorship in China. He also covers climate change for GlobalPost.

“Also, since a publication only has to invest in you for one article, they're more likely to take your work than they would be to hire you, which allows you to often punch above your weight, so to speak,” he said.

“Finally, I think an important advantage for me is knowing that every story I write is important enough for somebody to make a decision on. Since each story has to sell on its merits, you're never doing busywork,” he said.

One major disadvantage of freelancing, of course, is that you’re on your own. No regular paycheck, no company-subsidized health or life insurance, no one to provide equipment or cover expenses. Journalists who want to succeed as freelance correspondents will need to plan where they’re going, how they’ll operate in their new environment and make a living, and how they’ll do so without taking undue health or security risks.

“If that’s really what you want to do, you just need to go out there and get on with it,” said Deborah Bonello, a veteran freelance correspondent who now works on contract for the Los Angeles Times in Mexico City (D. Bonello, personal communication, September 17, 2009). “And you have to be prepared to hustle,” she said.

Guide: Freelance Foreign Correspondence