AP Foreign Correspondents in Action
World War II to the Present

Through extended portraits of AP foreign correspondents, this book documents the practices and constraints shaping international news since World War II.

Giovanna Dell'Orto (Author)

9781107519305, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 November 2015

375 pages, 36 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.56 kg

'From the grave to the gratuitous, Associated Press (AP) foreign correspondents have told the story of the world beyond US borders. Giovanna Dell'Orto's study of reporting practices abroad underscores the significance of the AP, which has evolved from its origins in 1846 to today's journalistic giant providing news to roughly half the world's population via two thousand stories per day. Historians will find much to ponder in Dell'Orto's work … The book is a useful reminder to historians of just what it takes to get history's first draft: journalists who believe so strongly in the worth of their labor that they risk their own lives and - occasionally and with regret - those of their sources to get the story that decades later historians may ponder in relative safety. It also functions as a rejoinder to those who would whip up popular enmity against journalists for political gain.' Benjamin Cawthra, H-War

Based on extended interviews conducted from the Pakistani countryside to Washington, AP Foreign Correspondents in Action: World War II to the Present reveals for the first time what it takes to get the stories that brought the world home to America. It gives new front-line insights into major events from the Japanese surrender in 1945 to the 2010s Syrian civil war, and it helps to understand news impact on international affairs through evolving journalistic practices. Both successes and failures through eight decades of foreign correspondence from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe show that public discourse has been best served by correspondents who, at great risk, challenged accepted narratives, exposed omnipresent lies, gave a voice to the voiceless, and stymied the frequently violent efforts of those who feared truth-telling eyewitnesses.

1. Introduction
2. Getting ready, getting started, and getting lost in translation
3. What's the story? News judgment, news pitches
4. Getting to the sources (and keeping them alive)
5. Being an American abroad – perceptions of journalists
6. Eyewitness reporting: getting to the scene
7. The costs of being there to count the bodies
8. Your byline today, mine tomorrow: teamwork and competition
9. Access, censorship, and spin: relating with foreign governments
10. Flacks, spooks, and objective journalists: relating with the US government abroad
11. Getting it out, getting it edited: filing news and handling editors
12. The evolving milkmen: writing for an audience
13. Purpose and influence of foreign correspondence
14. Eight decades of bearing witness and telling the world's stories: conclusions.

Subject Areas: Press & journalism [KNTJ], International relations [JPS], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW]