How to Become a Foreign Correspondent

A foreign correspondent is a journalist who reports news from a country that is not their own. Most often, their reporting covers the political and economic situation in that country, including wars, conflict zones, foreign policy, international relations, political science, elections, and living conditions.

Foreign correspondence can either be done on a freelance basis, where journalists pitch articles to many different media companies, or in-house for a specific media outlet like The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters, or the BBC. Related careers in the field of journalism include broadcast journalists and broadcast news analysts.

A foreign correspondent lives in the country they report from, either working alone as a freelance journalist or working on a team. When a foreign correspondent hears of a story, they do the following:

• Confirm the news. Correspondents do everything they can to ensure that they have an accurate understanding of the story. This includes going to the sites of events to record what goes on, reaching out to anyone involved to confirm details, and so forth.
• Write articles. Correspondents write stories into news articles, often under tight deadlines to make sure they can be printed or published online quickly.
• Coordinate with team members. Correspondents may coordinate with an array of team members, depending on what news reporting outlets they’re working for. Team members may include video journalists, photographers, in-house editors, foreign editors, and other writers, who all work together to ensure the news story is published quickly. For breaking news, some team members will stay in the newsroom to publish updates in real-time while the rest of the team is on-site.

Though studying at a journalism degree program will give you a leg up on the competition, foreign correspondence is more than just a journalism job. To be a good correspondent, you’ll need a specific skill set in order to succeed:

1. 1. Travel experience: Aspiring foreign correspondents need to show that they have experience living and working abroad—if not in the country you want to report on, at least in countries not your own.
2. 2. Language and listening skills: Local language skills are a must-have because you need to be an communication-skills' target='_blank' class='mc-text--link' data-mc-segment-trigger='true' data-mc-segment-event-type='Article Page Click' data-event-obj='{"textTag":"p","href":"https://masterclass.com/articles/how-to-improve-your-communication-skills","linkCopy":"effective communicator","category":"automated-link"}' automatic='true'>effective communicator when talking with locals to get stories right. You can’t expect to have access to a translator at all times. A great story is often a matter of listening to the right people and picking up on nuance, so a good journalist also needs to have excellent listening skills in order to cover the best stories.
3. 3. Writing skills: Since foreign correspondents spend just as much time writing as they do listening for stories, you need to be comfortable with the written word and mass communication—both for print media and digital media.
4. 4. Determination: Foreign correspondents often need to get into places they’re not wanted in order to cover difficult political stories, and you need the perseverance to keep trying when you’re turned away.
5. 5. An open mind: Since foreign correspondents live away from their home country in a different cultural environment, you need to have a strong empathetic connection to the people you interact with in order to avoid writing your stories through your home country’s lens.

The way to foreign correspondent jobs isn’t often a clear career path, since a variety of background experience is just as important as a degree from journalism school. If you want to become a foreign correspondent, the most important things you can do are:

• Get some local journalism experience. Before you go out into the world to become a foreign correspondent, it’s important that you first make sure you’d enjoy a journalism career. Work on your local newspaper to build up a few bylines, intern for a local television news outlet, or take a first job at a radio station. Aspiring journalists can also look into different journalism programs for bachelor’s degrees or graduate degrees, or talk to journalism students to see what it’s like.
• Move to a new country. While moving to a new country may seem like too big of a step early on, it’s actually important to becoming a foreign correspondent. This is because all foreign correspondents need to demonstrate a history of living in other countries and because it’s much easier to become a correspondent if you’re already living elsewhere, since the English-speaking competition is often less fierce.
• Listen. Living in a different country isn’t enough to prove you’ll be a good foreign correspondent—you’ll also need to pay attention to the country. Learn the language, meet people, understand the customs, and familiarize yourself with the political climate.
• Build a network of contacts. For good foreign correspondents, great stories come to them—and it’s because they’ve built a network of contacts who know to reach out when they hear something interesting. Start building this network now so that locals will come to you with story ideas.
• Start freelancing. Most foreign correspondents first start as freelancers (also called “stringers”), living in a foreign country and pitching their stories to multiple news outlets on a per-article basis. Working as a freelance writer is a great way to gain work experience and prove that you have what it takes to do this full-time. You can also find freelance work as a “fixer,” or someone who helps arrange stories, usually by acting as a translator or guide.

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