Foreign Correspondents in the United States

3247-01_FMrev.qxd 12/5/05 11:08 AM Page i Through Their Eyes This page intentionally left blank 3247-01_FMrev.qxd 12/5/05 11:08 AM Page iii NEWSWORK 6 Through Their Eyes Foreign Correspondents in the United States STEPHEN HESS BROOKINGS INSTITUTION PRESS Washington, D.C. 3247-01_FMrev.qxd 12/5/05 11:08 AM Page iv ABOUT BROOKINGS The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organization devoted to research, education, and publication on important issues of domestic and foreign policy. Its principal purpose is to bring the highest-quality independent research and analysis to bear on current and emerging policy problems. Interpretations or conclusions in Brookings publications should be understood to be solely those of the authors. Copyright © 2005 THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 www.brookings.edu All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the Brookings Institution Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data Hess, Stephen. Through their eyes : foreign correspondents in the United States / Stephen Hess. p. cm. Summary: “Drawing on personal interviews and original survey research, reveals the mindset of foreign correspondents posted in the United States from a wide range of countries, and examines how foreign reporting has changed over the past 20 years.”—Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8157-3584-7 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8157-3584-7 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8157-3585-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8157-3585-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Foreign news. 2. Foreign correspondents—Interviews. I. Title. PN4784.F6H476 2006 070.4’332097309048—dc22 2005027331 987654321 The paper used in this publication meets minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences–Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials: ANSI Z39.48-1992. Typeset in Giovanni Composition and design by Circle Graphics Columbia, Maryland Printed by R. R. Donnelley Harrisonburg, Virginia 3247-01_FMrev.qxd 12/5/05 11:08 AM Page v For Tobie mystical at five May the world always seem as wondrous to you as it does today. This page intentionally left blank 3247-01_FMrev.qxd 12/5/05 11:08 AM Page vii Contents ix FOREWORD 1 GUIDE The nature of this study and where it fits in the Newswork series 10 CONTEXT What may or may not appear in the world’s media 19 THEN What we know about foreign correspondents in America, 1955–88 27 WHO THEY ARE 29 PATTERNS Some findings, 1999–2003 43 IRREGULARS The other foreign correspondents 50 HOLLYWOOD A subject the world loves 56 IN AMERICA It’s not like being in any other country vii 3247-01_FMrev.qxd 12/5/05 11:08 AM Page viii viii CONTENTS 67 HOW THEY WORK 69 TIME Adjusting to deadlines around the world 77 CONTACT Whereby the home office gains on foreign correspondents 83 ACCESS Who sees whom, when, and why 94 HELP Foreign correspondents as clients of the U.S. government 101 BORROWED NEWS and the INTERNET Where correspondents turn for information 107 WHAT THEY REPORT 109 ONE DAY The stories and the categories that they fit in 120 NOW What we know about foreign correspondents in America, the present APPENDIXES 131 A: Foreign Correspondents in the United States, by Place of Origin, 1964–2000 134 B: Survey Questionnaire and Illustrative Responses 161 C: Respondents, Surveys, and Interviews 169 NOTES 183 THANKS 187 INDEX 3247-01_FMrev.qxd 12/5/05 11:08 AM Page ix Foreword teve Hess’s work on the interaction between the Spress and the government is a signature Brookings product. As a former reporter myself and a long-time admirer of Steve’s work, I’m proud to be associated with this, the sixth volume in the Newswork series, which began in 1981 with the publication of The Washington Reporters. My predecessor Bruce MacLaury began his foreword to that volume with these words: “In the vast literature about how Americans govern themselves, the role of the press is often neglected. Yet the press—no less than the presidency, the judiciary, and the legislature—is a public policy institution and deserves a place in explanations of the govern- mental process.” It’s hard to imagine that statement being made today, given what a cottage industry press watching has become, including in think tanks like this one. Yet Bruce was accurately reflecting the degree to which the media were then at the margins of social science scholarship. Indeed, Steve first had to invent new research tools to under- stand the press. Realizing, for instance, that many reporters are ill at ease with abstractions, he surveyed them by devising a daily log or diary that required precise information on each story: Events attended? Documents used? Types of people interviewed? On or off the record? In this way he showed how information, even of a pres- idential cast, is often channeled through Capitol Hill before it reaches the public. When studying Congress in two of his books, he took such unorthodox approaches as charting every TV camera at Senate hear- ix 3247-01_FMrev.qxd 12/5/05 11:08 AM Page x x FOREWORD ings for a year, thereby illustrating the media’s priorities; exploring the politics of the Congressional Press Galleries; comparing the salaries of press secretaries to those of other staffers and then comparing their place in their office hierarchy to what they said their place was. When interviewing senators, he asked, “The press will put an adjective in front of your name; if you had your druthers, what adjective would you choose?” (“Hard-working” was their favorite.) He then counted adjec- tives in the leading newspapers. In one study, entitled “I Am on TV, Therefore I Am,” he added up how often House members appeared on the television news in their district and discovered, despite what they thought, that it was not very often. One of the joys of reading Steve is that he knows how to be serious without being dull. For a book on government press offices he spent a year inside the White House, the State Department, the Department of Transporta- tion, and the Food and Drug Administration, watching press officers fight their bureaucracies for the information that reporters want but mostly watching them shout good news and whisper bad news. Peri- patetic in pursuing his research, he was at the side of the secretary of transportation within minutes when an Air Florida jet crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, and he later used that experience in a fascinating case study of how government information officers respond during a crisis. To gather material for a book examining the U.S. media’s coverage of international news, he trailed correspondents in such places as Tokyo, Beijing, Vienna, and Prague, contrasting his observations with content analysis. In this book, that book’s mirror image, he looks at other countries’ coverage of the United States at a time when what the world thinks of the U.S. government and Americans is of considerable importance to Americans and the government. Some of his conclusions will be controversial, in part because there is no other major research on the subject to test his findings. Nearly thirty years after Steve began his work, the field of media studies has become not just an accepted part of what public policy research institutions do, but one that policymakers and our other con- stituencies clearly value. Steve deserves considerable credit for bring- ing about that change. On May 24, 2004, the Brookings Board of Trustees designated him a Senior Fellow Emeritus. In his case, the well- deserved honor for a distinguished career conveys no hint that he’s resting on that or any other of his many laurels. But still to come is a 3247-01_FMrev.qxd 12/5/05 11:08 AM Page xi FOREWORD xi volume, Newswork 7, in which he will return to the beginning of his investigations to sort out what has changed and what has stayed the same in the government/press connection in Washington. The answer, of course, is “a lot,” and there’s no one who understands both the change and the continuity better than Steve. STROBE TALBOTT President, Brookings Institution Washington, D.C. November 2005 This page intentionally left blank 3247-02_HessREV.qxd 12/1/05 11:05 AM Page 1 Guide The nature of this study and where it fits in the Newswork series n 1977, shortly after Jimmy Carter became president, I Imade a wish list of three books that I wanted to write, a trilogy to be called Newswork. The first volume would be a study of reporters who cover the U.S. government for domestic news organizations and of how they organize themselves to do their work. The second volume would cross the aisle to examine how the government conducts its own press operations. The final volume would focus on foreign correspondents in the United States. I hoped that together these books might begin to define the unique web of relationships that exist between the government and the media, relationships that I felt were of growing importance in understanding public policy. I had never been a journalist or a com- munications scholar. I was merely curious and could find too few books to sate my curiosity. There were a number of memoirs of the “presidents who have known me” variety written by reporters;1 an excellent but ancient (1937) sociological study of Washington correspondents;2 a book about government–press relations based on a modest 1961 survey of thirty-eight public information officers and thirty-five journalists;3 and a splendid 1963 analysis of the diplo- matic beat.4 The first of the Newswork series, The Washington Reporters, was published in 1981; The Government/Press Connection: Press Officers and Their Offices came out in 1984.

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