Better Foreign Correspondence Starts at Home: Changing Practice Through Diasporic Knowledge

ABSTRACT

Foreign correspondents are uniquely positioned to increase the global plurality of views, understand a complex world of global risk, and create a more cosmopolitan media. In order to better equip foreign correspondents for their postings, innovative approaches are needed. With this aim, a new journalism research practice, called the Frame Reflection Interview (FRI), was developed. The FRI allows correspondents, in a short period of time, to gain an in-depth understanding of social contexts of the target country. The FRI process is based on translating the theory and methodology of frame reflection from the practice of policy design to the practice of journalism. This article reports on the results of a pilot trial of this method where a correspondent, about to be posted to Jakarta, accessed members of the Indonesian diaspora in Sydney before her departure. The results of the pilot were measured via content analysis of stories completed by the journalist during the early months of her posting, and by qualitative interviews with the journalist. The results of this research show the potential for FRIs to improve foreign correspondence, especially in postcolonial contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Foreign Correspondents
• Multiculturalism
• Indonesia
• Australia
• Decolonisation
• Frame Reflection

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The correspondent also has responsibility for covering major events in other South East Asian countries and so not all the articles produced were relevant for the content analysis in this study.

2 All community participant names are pseudonyms.