Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 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, GIs, and Objective Journalists: Relating with the U.S. Government Abroad
- 11 Getting It Out, Getting It Edited: Filing News, Working with the Desk
- 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
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Getting Ready, Getting Started, and Getting Lost in Translation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 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, GIs, and Objective Journalists: Relating with the U.S. Government Abroad
- 11 Getting It Out, Getting It Edited: Filing News, Working with the Desk
- 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
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
[AP's head of personnel] had phoned me in, and he said, “Well, how would you like to go to Vietnam?” And it took me a minute to see what he was thinking – I didn't know what he was talking about. And I said, “Yeah, absolutely.” So I hopped on the subway, went back to the office … getting myself really geared up to go to Vietnam in my head, what am I going to do … it's a war, and blah blah. … I go to his office, and we spent like an hour talking, telling me about the stuff, about the details. … I stand, I shake his hand, and he says, “Well, I know you're going to do a good job,” blah blah. “By the way, what are you going to do with your apartment?” And I said … “[My roommate and AP colleague] Barry Kramer will take it over.” … He looks at me and he says, “Wait, you're not going to Vietnam. Kramer is!” He confused the two of us. And so I had my hands on his – he had this huge, massive wooden desk – and my knuckles were like white. And I think he kind of thought he was going to … get talked backward out of his seventh-floor window, and he looks at me and says, “You're going to Africa.” To this day, I don't know if he just pulled it out of his ass or what, but sure enough. … I didn't say anything about Africa [before]. It never even occurred to me. I didn't know anything about it. … I thought, “Cool! I don't give a shit – send me anywhere.” (Rosenblum, 1–2)
The trajectory for most AP foreign correspondents until recently followed the same blend of ritual path and serendipitous opportunity that 38-year veteran, roving correspondent Mort Rosenblum experienced when he joined in ’65. After jobs in newspapers and domestic AP bureaus, a stint on the foreign desk (initially called the cable desk, later international, recently merged) was followed by the first assignment abroad. The posting choice was often predicated on area or language expertise, but even more often apparently random, and usually very sudden; with several notable exceptions of correspondents who spent decades in one location, this continued throughout most careers.
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- Information
- AP Foreign Correspondents in ActionWorld War II to the Present, pp. 19 - 40Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015