International reporting no longer monopolised by the British press

A  report released yesteday by the Media Standards Trust about the current level of international reporting in the British press is pretty damning.

In parts of the British press foreign coverage has fallen by almost 40% since 1979, now making up only just over a tenth of stories in the paper. In an increasingly globalised world how can this decline be explained? Does it matter? Is a new foreign news ecology emerging?

The reason for the decline in international reporting in today’s press here in the UK is mainly, in my view, due to shrinking budgets. There’s just not enough money to support the level of foreign reporting we’ve had over the last few decades now that the economic model of journalism is broken (advertising).

Does that matter? Hell yes. If we are going to do business globally, travel frequently, and live our lives in ways that limit damage to the rest of the planet – politically and economically as well as environmentally – it is absolutely vital we know what is going on around the world.

And is a foreign news ecology emerging? Most certainly. And it is no longer in its infancy. New models are coming out that are forcing the mainstream media, which as yet has had the monopoly on foreign reporting, to bow to partnerships, content sharing, and funding models not its own.

Anyone who has been paying the slightest bit of attention to the traditional media over the last five years won’t be surprised by the findings from the Media Standards Trust. I have some issues with the methodology – which only included an analysis of newspapers, and only four newspapers at that (the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, the Mail and the Mirror). I think that’s too narrow an analysis, and broadcasters make a huge contribution to foreign reporting too.

That aside, this research does reinforce what I hear from a lot of my correspondent friends abroad; that there is less money being dedicated to foreign reporting by the traditional media. If you’re staff on a newspaper or broadcaster, it means having to do even more (more stories, more multimedia) for the same wage because the employer can’t afford to pay for backup staff. If you’re freelance, it means having to sell harder against more competition, and having to also work harder for less.

Newspapers AND broadcasters have been slow to recognize the cost-saving measures presented by the internet when planning their foreign reporting networks. Bricks-and-mortar offices are now probably no longer necessary for foreign bureaus – ‘bureaus’ can in fact be virtual, with people working out of flats or offices in their houses rather than renting a whole other space. Skype can replace phone calls, and web connections / ftp can replace couriers and, at least in some cases in some cases, satellite tucks.

The Guardian reports,

Martin Moore, author of the report and director of the Media Standards Trust, describes the plummet in world coverage as “significant but not terminal”. “Newspapers still have a great opportunity to reinvent international reporting, but they better move quickly or they’ll be superseded,” he said.

“I actually think there is a potential gap in the market for someone to make international reporting their DNA,” Moore said. “It used to be the Daily Telegraph, but now the Independent appears to be making a pitch for it which is great, but the difficulty is that they don’t have many reporters on the ground.”

I  agree with him – there is a potential gap. But I don’t expect the innovators to be the newspapers.

What Moore doesn’t go into in his report is the growing array of independent editorial startups who are already getting into the market – with or without the help of existing media. Startups by journalists, not by NGOs or ‘citizen journalists’, who are setting themselves up abroad as production houses or bureaux to cater to this market.

I’d argue that that demise has given rise to an exciting new genre of journalistic operations that break the stranglehold that the traditional media has had over foreign reporting for so long. And those models are finding funding solutions as well. Projects such as The Tehran Bureau (which is supported by PBS Frontline) and the Bombay Flying Club, Global Post, the VJ Movement and Demotix.

MexicoReporter.com was a marketing tool for my freelance services in Mexico during my time there, and a hugely important channel for commissioning work. Graham Holliday does a similar thing with KigaliWire.com. David Axe, a freelance reporter working from the US uses his blog WarIsBoring.com to highlights issues he would like to report and to appeal for donations from readers for trips to do so.

Axe explains on his site:

“War Is Boring is a collective of citizen journalists with a deep interest in world and national security. We are expeditionary, traveling to conflict zones whenever possible, on our dime — and yours. We are wary of partisan politics, skeptical of the military-industrial-media complex and free of war buzzwords. R.I.P., Old Media; long live New Media.”

That window of opportunity Moore mentions for newspapers to make advances in this area is already closing as they cease to be the sole journalistic authorities out there. I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing.

* This post was edited at 14:22pm, November 2nd 2010. The study involved four newspapers, not two as previously stated.

Tags: david axe, deborah bonello, Featured, graham holliday, international reporting, kigaliwire.com, martin moore

Category: editorial, Featured, journalism, media