Foreign Correspondents Research Articles

London Through Russian Eyes 1896–1914: An Anthology of Foreign Correspondence. By Anna Vaninskaya (ed.). Translated by Anna Vaninskaya and Maria Artamonova

London Through Russian Eyes 1896–1914: An Anthology of Foreign Correspondence. By Anna Vaninskaya (ed.). Translated by Anna Vaninskaya and Maria Artamonova

Reporting after removal: the effects of journalist expulsion on foreign news coverage

Abstract What happens to international media reporting when governments expel foreign journalists? Countries around the world expel foreign reporters, yet there is no consensus about the effects of such expulsions. We argue there are three possible outcomes of expulsion: a chilling effect, resilience, and backlash. Using China as a case study, we evaluate these competing theories by collecting a novel dataset of foreign news stories about China and applying time-series causal inference methods to measure the effects of expulsion on information origination, composition, and reach after March 2020, when the Chinese government expelled a large number of foreign correspondents. Results show that expelled media organizations did not experience a chilling effect or backlash on reporting and may have changed their production processes to account for expulsion. These findings suggest that news organizations can remain resilient to the impact of extraordinary events which target the organization and disrupt internal production processes.

Feeding off Each Other: Journalistic Role Negotiations Between Local and Foreign Reporters in Nairobi

ABSTRACT Nairobi, a vibrant hub for international journalism in East Africa, hosts a varied mix of foreign and national reporters. This paper centres on the interplay between these groups and how their relationships impact their professional role conceptions and performance. It is based on 35 interviews—with Kenyan journalists, media critics and foreign correspondents—and ethnographic data collected in Nairobi in 2021. Findings show that journalists working in Nairobi sometimes understand their job as trying to compensate for the professional roles that their counterparts cannot fulfil—like being a watchdog or disseminator. Foreign correspondents are aware of criticism toward stereotypical representations of Africa in the news media and carefully consider their performances to try to circumvent these, whilst national journalists often motivate their reporting to offer counter-narratives. While at first glance the interaction between these groups is minimal, I pose that it is precisely the constant awareness of each other’s work that generates manifold tensions that, in turn, reflect on their roles and practices.

Castro’s victory: An assessment of New York Times coverage of the 1959 Cuban Revolution

This research applies framing theory and basic quantitative content methods to analyze the New York Times coverage of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, in order to examine assertions that New York Times stories contributed to Fidel Castro’s victory. Specifically, the study analyzes datelines, bylines, types of sources and story framing in all the stories about Cuba published on the front page of the New York Times between January 1, 1957, and December 31, 1962. The findings of this research contest long-held claims that the New York Times stories, in particular those written by reporter Herbert L. Matthews, contributed to the success of the Cuban Revolution. Matthews’s three-part front-page scoop in 1957 introduced Castro and the bearded Cuban revolutionaries to the world, but his stories and subsequent New York Times coverage are unlikely to have been decisive in Castro’s overthrow of the Batista regime. This study argues instead that the New York Times coverage of the 1959 Cuban Revolution was written through an aspirational lens, much like the stories about other major political revolutions written by U.S. foreign correspondents, and that stories played an important inter-media agenda-setting role, as evident from the many news organizations that covered the revolution after Matthews’ scoop.

Foreign military journalists in Manchuria in 1904-1905: features of daily activities

The author examines some aspects of the daily activities of foreign war correspondents who accompanied the Manchurian army in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The article is based on texts published by journalists, materials from foreign periodicals, documentation from military and foreign ministries. Attention is paid both to the everyday peculiarities of the professional conditions of accredited journalists in Manchuria, and to the characteristics of the social environment, which had a significant impact on the process of collecting information in the theater of military operations. The issues of interaction of foreign correspondents with representatives of the Russian army, the local Chinese population and other reporters are touched upon, which is closely related to their possession of relevant foreign language competencies. The dynamics of the number of foreign military personnel in the theater of war and its connection with the course of hostilities are analyzed. The use of the historical and comparative method made it possible to identify common and special features in the situation of foreign reporters and other guests of Manchuria. The differences revealed in the characteristics of daily activities between foreign war correspondents and representatives of the Russian press, as a rule, were associated with a language barrier for foreigners and greater distrust of them on the part of censorship authorities. In comparison with military attaches, correspondents noted the complete independence of the journalistic corps in solving everyday issues in Manchuria. In the course of the study, several stages were identified in the dynamics of the number of foreign reporters in the theater of war. The correlation of the pace of correspondents' accreditations with events at the front has been revealed and demonstrated. It has been established that the 1904 campaign, especially its summer and autumn events, received the most attention from foreign journalists. For the first time, a range of issues is outlined for the study of which the legacy of foreign war correspondents may have the greatest scientific and cognitive value.

Of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Correspondents

If the owl of Minerva flies only at dusk, what are we to make of the recent flurry of popular histories about foreign correspondents? In 2021, with You Don't Belong Here, Elizabeth Becker told us “How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War” in Vietnam, and Judith Mackrell gave us the stories of “Six Women Writers on the Front Lines of World War II” in The Correspondents.1 The year before, Nancy Cott, the pioneering scholar of U.S. gender history, explored the intertwined biographies of interwar journalists Dorothy Thompson, Vincent Sheean, Rayna Raphaelson, and John Gunther in Fighting Words.2 And then, in 2022, Deborah Cohen, an acclaimed historian of British and European cultural politics, subbed the relatively obscure Raphaelson out of Cott's quartet and added in H. R. Knickerbocker, the Pulitzer Prize–winning European correspondent in Last Call at the Hotel Imperial.3 (Cohen also elevates the role of Frances Gunther, John's wife, who suffered from crippling writer's block but was perhaps the most interesting thinker of the bunch.) When two leading, accomplished historians at the height of their games write essentially the same book, you know that something is in the air. So what era's eclipse are these works marking?

Managing Difficult Relationships: The Case of Foreign Correspondents in Nigeria, State Officials, and Senior Editors in Overseas Media

ABSTRACT This research systematically and empirically examines challenges that confront Nigerian foreign correspondents, including how foreign correspondents manage the demands of their job such as pressures from senior editors at their head offices, restricted access to information and state officials, and government officials interfering with objective news reporting. The study also looks at correspondents’ accounts of their individual experiences and the strategies they deploy to circumnavigate the challenges they encounter in their professional practice. The merit of this research lies in its intent to fill existing gaps in the scholarship of foreign correspondence in Africa. Specifically, the study contributes to knowledge and understanding of foreign correspondents in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, including an understanding of the difficult environment of journalistic practices in a non-Western country.

Framing the U.S. and Russia Coverage: The Limited Agency of Foreign Correspondents and the Reproduction of Bias in the News

ABSTRACT Media representations have long reinforced Russia’s negative impression in the U.S. and that of the U.S. in Russia, shaping public opinion and foreign policy. While content analysts examine stereotypical frames in American and Russian news, questions remain about the relational dynamics steering these journalistic outcomes. This comparative study draws on 20 semi-structured interviews with Russian and American reporters stationed in the U.S. and Russia, respectively, prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Situating journalists in their sociopolitical contexts reveals and explains the extent to and ways in which their relationship with other actors and institutions (re)produces and/or disrupts biases in news production. Foreign correspondents express dissatisfaction with dominant frames and deploy two main strategies to alter and enhance coverage—negotiating the narrative on the two countries and maximizing their purpose “on the ground”—yet their work often fortifies oversimplified and/or distorted messaging. While state regulation and ownership of the media disproportionately affects Russian journalists, both groups lack the agency to refine and rectify representations of Russia and the U.S. because of three shared challenges: the marketization of the news, the complexity of communicating foreign affairs, and the intensification of bilateral tensions.

Foreign Correspondence in the Early Telegraphic Era: The Herald, the Tribune, and the 1848 Revolutions

In 1848, political revolutions were breaking out all over Europe simultaneously while new technological advancements were having significant and profound impacts on news gathering practices abroad. New forms of communication and transportation, including the telegraph, the railroad, and the ocean-going steamship, meant the faster transmission of news and a wider spirit of cooperation between competing, penny press newspapers that resulted in shared telegraphic dispatches. This study examines the foreign correspondence published in the New York Tribune and the New York Herald, and how the breaking news came in telegraphic dispatches that the two papers shared. This study reveals how correspondence became a way for both of publications to provide readers with unique material because both James Gordon Bennett of the Herald and Horace Greeley of the Tribune thought European letters were valuable sources of an American perspective on world events that gave readers an eyewitness account.

DEVELOPMENT OF MASTER STUDENTS’ FORMAL LETTER WRITING SKILLS BY MEANS OF ONLINE TOOLS DURING ACADEMIC FOREIGN LANGUAGE COURSE

The article deals with the peculiarities of using Internet tools for the development of formal letter-writing skills of Master students during Academic foreign language course. It is widely accepted that formal communication cannot exist without online applications, as they provide an opportunity to quickly exchange information, documents and data in real time from any location. The purpose of the article is to analyse and describe the main online platforms that can be used to improve foreign language skills in general and master the skills of formal correspondence in particular. It is emphasized that online applications of various types can become an effective means of practical and realistic mastery of foreign letter writing. The authors provide examples of online applications (WriteExpress, Letter Generator, LettersWriter, Grammarly, LanguageTool, Ginger), paying special attention to their features, advantages and disadvantages. The article highlights educational goals for which such online tools can be used, namely: initial acquaintance with modern formal letter templates and formats, creating Master students’ statements, editing a document, correcting spelling, punctuation, and stylistic mistakes. Online platforms are stated to save time, improve the quality and efficiency of formal letters, their structure and format, advise on the formal style linguistic peculiarities and tone, help to avoid mistakes and write more confidently. While studying Academic foreign language course Master students are expected to acquire not only knowledge about the standards and norms of formal correspondence but also critically analyse the product they receive after using online applications. Master students are expected to take into account the specific needs and expectations of the addressee, make the letter more personalised and targeted, focus on specific information, offer new ideas, look for alternative solutions, etc. It is concluded that the time for using IT technologies in the classroom should be clearly defined and limited, as they serve only as support tools designed to help transfer knowledge, comprehend the content of learning and improve the results of course studying.
 Keywords: Master students; formal letters; Academic foreign language course; development of formal communication skills; online tools; IT technologies; letter writing skills; foreign correspondence.

Just Listen! The importance of listening in foreign correspondents–governments relationships

This study examines the role of listening methods within public diplomacy (PD)/foreign correspondents' relations. Listening theory plays a double role in the study: a) It serves as the theoretical basis for analyzing whether listening and, more specifically, feedback are applied by Israeli public diplomacy (PD) bodies; b) It serves as the core methodology of this study. We demonstrate the value of listening within the context of these professional relationships by applying a methodological simulation of listening. By systematically listening to both parties, one can uncover and trace gaps between the parties' perceptions and better understand their relationship. Based on fifty semi-structured, in-depth interviews with PD seniors and foreign correspondents, the study compares and contrasts the parties' perceptions regarding tactical and strategic aspects of Israeli PD organizations’ actions. The findings indicate a substantial lack of critical listening methods in Israel's PD mechanism. By applying systematic listening methods, gaps and weak links in the parties’ relationship surfaced. To address these gaps, we recommend implementing recurring feedback platforms. These might assist the parties in developing more authentic and open dialogue, despite disagreements and disputes.

Советский дипломат и иностранные корреспонденты в СССР в условиях войны: по страницам служебного дневника Н. Г. Пальгунова (1941–1943 гг.)

Introduction. This study is concerned with a problem of current interest, namely, the everyday political life of workers at the USSR Peoples’ Commissariat of Foreign Affairs during the Great Patriotic War. The novelty of the present study lies in the fact that the problem has been little investigated, while several documents are thereby introduced into general use for the first time. Materials and methods. The sources were the document complex in the Archive of Foreign Politics of the Russian Federation. The methodology is based on general scholar, special historical and source studies methods. Results. One of the components in the everyday political life of the Soviet diplomat Palgunov, who headed the Press Department in the Peoples’ Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, consisted of contacts with foreign correspondents who represented the mass media of the Allies, namely, Great Britain and the US. The correspondents were eager for getting the information concerning the war effort of the Soviet Union and the contributions into the defense of the country on the part of its citizens in the rear. However, this was hindered by the presence of strict political censorship in the USSR. The situation was aggravated by acute competition between British and American correspondents. Given these conditions, Palgunov acted as a kind of referee who was called upon to aid, both in obtaining information on the situation on the front and for help in the needs of their everyday life. Conclusions. The present author used the unpublished job diary of Palgunov for 1941–1942 to get a more accurate list of the British and American correspondents who were accredited in the USSR during that period of time. When combined with Palgunov’s memoirs, this source was used to present a true picture of how the Press Department was interacting with foreign correspondents. This author emphasized subjects such as the peculiarities in the activity of foreign correspondents in Moscow and Kuibyshev and in questions relating to the organization of their trips to the front zone. It has been found why they blamed Palgunov for bureaucracy and incompetence.

FP-4: SPIRIT OF KYOTO, SPIRIT OF ZEN

Welcome to Kyoto. Kyoto is the ancient capital of Japan, a university town, a gastronomic city, and one of the most religious cities in the world. Kyoto has developed a unique culture over its nearly 1,300-year history, and the influence of religion is particularly evident. In particular, Kyoto is home to seven head quarters of Zen, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is the center of Zen in Japan. Zen has been supported by the ruling class since ancient times and has had a profound influence on Kyoto's culture, including its gardens, architecture, festivals, customs, and cuisine. What is special about Kyoto culture? What is fascinating about it? I will talk about Kyoto's spirituality from a religious perspective to enrich your stay in Kyoto. CV:Born in 1978 in Kyoto, Mr. Matsuyama obtained his Master's degree in Agriculture and Life Sciences from the University of Tokyo. After three and half years of training at Heirin-ji Temple, Niiza, he became the deputy priest of Taizoin Temple in 2007. Matsuyama is acclaimed for organizing intercultural activities such as Zen experience tours for foreign visitors and talks at embassies in Japan and at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. In May 2009, he was elected as a Japan Tourism Agency's Ambassador for its “Visit Japan” Campaign. He has been a member of Kyoto's Ambassadors for Tourism since 2011, and was listed as one of “The Top 100 People of the New Generation 2016” in Nikkei Business. And he was appointed as a fellow of US-Japan Leadership Program from 2016. In 2018, he was invited to Israel as the delegate of Young Leaders Program. And he also became a visiting lecturer at Stanford Univ. He received The Award of Commissioner for Cultural Affairs and Shigemitsu Award from Japan society in Boston in 2019. He is serving as an appointed member of the Kyoto City Board of Education and an Outside Director of V-cube, a tech startup, since 2021. As a young representative of the Zen Sect in Japan, Matsuyama has interacted with many religious leaders, such as having an audience with the Roman Catholic Pope and conversing with the 14th Dalai Lama. He also participated in the Davos World Economic Forum in 2014, and continues to work actively beyond national and religious borders. He is the author of the book, Forget What's Important First: 30 Zen Teachings for the Wavering Soul (Sekai Bunka Publishing, 2014) Strolling around Zen Gardens in Kyoto (PHP Publishing, 2016) Introduction of ZEN for workers (Kodansya Publishing, 2016).

Интервью премьер-министра антибольшевистских правительств П.В. Вологодского как исторический источник (30 июня 1918 - 22 ноября 1919 г.)

The key political figure in the East of Russia during the Civil War was Pyotr Vasilyevich Vologodsky (1863-1925), the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Provisional Siberian Government, then the Provisional All-Russian Government and the Russian Government. He left an abundance of sources of information, diverse in form and content, about his activities as the prime minister. Among them, a special place is occupied by interviews published in numerous and diverse periodicals of that time. A study of the periodical press published on the territory controlled by the Provisional Siberian Government, the Provisional All-Russian Government and the Russian Government of Admiral Kolchak revealed a complex of interviews with Prime Minister Vologodsky. The author examined the circumstances of their publication and analyzed the subject matter and the main content of the texts. During the eighteen months in the position of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, from 30 June 1918 to 22 November 1919, Vologodsky gave detailed political interviews to the Russian-language press at least 13 times and had at least five conversations with foreign correspondents. In addition, three political documents drawn up in the government and sanctioned by the Prime Minister were published in the form of an “interview with Pyotr Vologodsky”, as well as a series of socio-political articles by Andrei Adrianov. The author has established that the prime minister, mainly personally, without intermediaries, interacted with major influential socio-political periodicals that represented a wide ideological and political spectrum of the counter-revolution - from Social Revolutionaries to right-wing Cadets. At the same time, Vologodsky communicated more frequently and meaningfully with the editor of Sibirskaya zhizn' [Siberian Life] and the staff of Zarya [Dawn], who represented the so-called political “center” of the counter-revolution in Eastern Russia and personally supported the prime minister. Vologodsky gave key interviews in difficult political conditions, experiencing real or imaginary threats of resignation and the collapse of the Council of Ministers. In the mode of impulsive dialogue, he “responded” to the challenges of political opponents and “requested” the support of his proponents. Most of Vologodsky's interviews should be viewed primarily as a struggle for preserving the power of the Council of Ministers. In this context, publications in the press represent a complex of informative sources about the activities of the head of the anti-Bolshevik governments, including his opinions, political assessments and emotions relevant to that time, the level of understanding the situation, communication style and ways of using information.

Latin in medieval Kyiv: the outline of history of a royal family in the context of its international contacts

Kyivan Rus’ had extensive political, economic and cultural connections with other European states. Knowledge of foreign languages, the Latin language in particular, was in demand to maintain these connections. The article outlines the context in which the Latin literature in medieval Kyiv emerged and also the spheres where the Latin language was used. The history of one ruling family, Prince Iziaslav of Kyiv, Princess Gertruda of Kyiv, their son Prince Yaropolk and daughter-in-law Cunigunda, is preserved in texts and artefacts. Primary and secondary sources as well as the sphragistic data, related to international contacts of the family with Pope Gregory VII, the Papal legates, Duke Bolesław II the Bold of Poland and King of Germany Heinrich IV, provide facts of usage of Latin by the Kyivan royals. The article analyses usage of Latin in foreign relations of Kyiv and in literature of the second half of the 11th century. The Latin language was used in Kyivan Rus’ in the second half of the 11th century in literature (prayers, religious poetry and chants), votive inscriptions, in administration (seals) and ecclesiastic and foreign correspondence.

Роль корреспондентских отношений в системе трансграничных платежей в условиях цифровизации

The current state of the network of banking correspondent relations serving a significant part of cross-border payments and international transactions is of concern to specialists and international organizations. The relevance of the tasks of improving the efficiency of cross-border settlements through correspondent banks determined the choice of the subject and the purpose of the study. The subject of the study is correspondent banking relations in the system of cross—border payments. The purpose of the work is to identify trends in the development of banking correspondent relations in the modern system of global payments, which is being transformed under the influence of digital technologies. The article analyzes the state and development trends of the global network of correspondent banks. As a result of the conducted research, it is concluded that correspondent relations are gradually losing their leading role in national jurisdictions due to the digitalization of national payment systems. However, they are still used in cross-border payments, ensuring the interconnection of payment systems of various levels and multilateral platforms. Digitalization of national and international settlement systems leads to the spread of alternative models of their implementation and the reduction by banks of networks of foreign correspondents to increase the efficiency of the use of funds and reduce costs and risks. However, the gradual degradation of the global system of correspondent banking relations is becoming a serious problem, fraught with an increase in the cost of cross-border payments, a decrease in the availability of settlement and payment financial services for participants in international economic relations, and in the context of increasing sanctions pressure on correspondent banks - fragmentation of the existing global system of cross—border payments.

The Mob, the State and Harassment of Journalists via Twitter in India

Media scholars exploring online harassment of journalists have described it as a form of ‘mob censorship,’ a type of citizen vigilantism aimed at delegitimizing and silencing journalists. Arguably, this trend is most pervasive in India, where online supporters of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) troll and abuse journalists critical of the Narendra Modi government. Over the years, the BJP has harnessed the digital work of these online Hindu nationalists for agenda setting, spreading their political ideology, and influencing public discourse. Such a symbiotic relationship between the mob and the state has put to question the argument distinguishing mob censorship and state censorship of the press. Through a qualitative textual analysis of tweets posted by online Hindu nationalists, this article explores the discursive strategies employed by right-wing activists to influence the BJP government in its censorship of the press. This study finds that through tactics such as calls to ‘cancel’ journalists, intimidation of foreign correspondents, and digital surveillance of news reporters, online Hindu nationalists aid the BJP government in the suppression of dissident reporting in India.

“A Window to the World”: Newspapers and Soviet Foreign Correspondents in the 1960s

Abstract The expansion of foreign correspondent networks in the late Soviet period reflected the importance that international news and reporting had for readers of the Soviet press. This article traces the development of one such foreign correspondent network, that of the Soviet newspaper Sel’skaia zhizn’ (Rural Life), one of the most popular and widespread newspapers in the Soviet Union. Although historiographically overlooked in favor of major political newspapers like Pravda (Truth) and Izvestiia (News), Sel’skaia zhizn’ was an important source of foreign news for the rural population of the Soviet Union. The article examines the role of the editorial office of Sel’skaia zhizn’ in creating a correspondent network, tracing the geographical reach of the newspaper’s correspondents (sobkors) and analyzing their activities and different types of publications. While some materials were similar to those published in other Soviet newspapers, the specifically rural audience of Sel’skaia zhizn’ influenced the topics chosen for articles as well as the style of the authors. The newspaper became a practical guide for readers because foreign correspondents provided them with unique information about the development of agriculture abroad. The article provides research into how readers perceived international news and information in Sel’skaia zhizn’, finding that readers expected the newspaper to fulfill their needs and to reflect their own interests, even in the international section.

“Otherness” and Self-Censorship in the Land of Coups: Greek Correspondents in Turkey Pre- and Post-Coup Attempt

ABSTRACT Greek correspondents are a unique species among the other foreign correspondents based in Turkey, due to their nationality; they have a delicate role of “otherness” since their home and host countries are neighbors with a long history of fragile relations. Set within the frame of the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016, this research localizes the differences in the Greek correspondents’ job before and after the failed coup attempt bearing their “otherness”. Based on the collection of primary data through in-depth semi-structured interviews with all the Greek correspondents in Turkey, the findings were conceptualized within the Actor–Network Theory combined with the framework of Histoire Croisée. The results revealed that after the failed coup attempt their work has deteriorated by four major changes: encumbrance of their journalistic role due to their “otherness”, increase of self-censorship, more workload due to higher demand for stories and extinction of governmental and diplomatic sources. This research claims that the identity of the “opponent otherness” is a key factor aggravating the practices of foreign correspondents in times of political crises; lastly, it is revealed that when democracy is backsliding, local and foreign journalism are becoming parallelly ill and present a causality effect.

Framing the Catalan Conflict: A Decade of el procés in the International Media

Since 2010 the Catalan secessionist movement has been reported on extensively in the global media. Beginning with the 2010 demonstrations against the decision of the Spanish Constitutional Court to reject a new Catalan statute of autonomy, and covering subsequent events such as the unofficial self-determination referendum in 2017, the trial and imprisonment of Catalan political leaders, and the violent protests against the verdicts; the events in the region have all featured heavily on the front pages of the international press. This study analyzes how US and UK newspapers have covered the Catalan independence movement during the period from 2010 to 2019. To do so, this study focuses on two US newspapers ( The New York Times and The Washington Post) and two from the UK newspapers ( The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian) and observes how the positions of the Spanish and Catalan governments are represented through the analysis of the frames used to construct the newspapers’ coverage, as well as the overall tone and the sources used by the journalists. To detect the dominant framework, a framing analysis is undertaken from a communicative and deductive perspective, applying Semetko and Valkenburg’s classification. In-depth interviews are also conducted with the newspapers’ Spanish-based foreign correspondents which allows the analysis to include the correspondents’ views on the difficulties faced by them during their time spent while covering the conflict. The study’s primary conclusion is that the international press downplays the significant role played by social movements and civil society in the secession movement, with a strong preference shown by journalists to rely on representatives of official sources as the most valid spokespersons for the movement. Secondly, the study finds that media attention follows closely the flash-points of the conflict with more coverage appearing at the moments of greater political tension between the Spanish and Catalan governments. This suggests that civil society mobilizations attract less interest from the media that instead prefers to focus on developments in the political sphere.