GroundTruth

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 17, 2008

HONG KONG – The Foreign Correspondents Club here is a throwback to the colonial era, an elegant building that dates back to 1917. It carries the weight of history and a colorful past of foreign correspondents who have come and gone through its doors and bellied up to the bar.

I gave a speech here today titled “International News in the Digital Age” as part of my tour of Asia trying to recruit correspondents for
Global News Enterprises
and wave the flag for our mission to radically redefine international reporting. Link to the speech here:

The history of foreign reporting is there on the walls of the club in black-and-white photographs by some of the best shooters in the world who captured history in Vietnam, Cambodia and then in Tienamen Square and during the handover from British to Chinese rule of Hong Kong. The club’s general manager, Gilbert Cheng, has worked there since 1972 and spoke of how the number of foreign correspondents has dwindled dramatically over the decades, and in the last decade in particular. In 1972 he estimated there were as many as 150 American foreign correspondents who worked full time for American news organizations who were members at the club. Today he said there are fewer than ten. Some of that has to do with the fact tht Hong Kong is not the same listening post that it once was. But most of the dwindling population of correspondents has to do with shifts in the industry and the hard economic realities — and misguided choices — of news organizations that have steadily eroded their international coverage.

One of the legends who is still around from the hey day here is Hugh Van Es. The legendary AP and UPI photographer was there tonight leaning against the bar. He took the famous 1975 image of the last Americans on a rooftop in Vietnam on the last chopper out of a war that was doomed. It is a stark statement of failure and hubris. Van Es, who is Dutch by birth, had nothing but contempt for the management of American news organizations that have killed their foreign bureaus.

“They are all accountants — bean counters who didn’t give a damn about the business,” he said.

And there in her reserved corner table was Claire Hollingworth, the legendary British foreign correspondent for The Daily Telegraph who covered World War II and Vietnam and everything in between. She is, by several estimates, over 100 years old. She famously broke the story of the German invasion of Poland simply by coming home late from a party one night and seeing German tanks lined up. She wrote about a life of reporting in her book, “Captain if Captured.” She was there tonight watching the BBC World news intently as she does on many nights. I asked her what was the difference between being a foreign correspondent today and 50 years ago. She said, “There was more freedom then.” I asked her if she meant governments like China were tougher on journalists now. And she shook her head and yelled in my ear, “It’s not the governments.” She is old and wise and not easy to understand. But I asked her who it was then who was restricting the freedom for foreign correspondents. “It’s just the business today,” she said in my ear.

If the FCC was steeped in the past, my next venue for public speaking — and planting the flag for Global News — was all about excitement for the future. It was a talk with the same title at the University of Hong Kong’s journalism department where I had a chance to meet with young students — many of them from mainland China. I was invited by Ying Chan, the director of the journalism program, and professor Gene Mustain. Both Ying and Gene were great reporters and great colleagues from the New York Daily News. The two of them ended up teaching here and have put together an ambitious and exciting journalism and media studies program. I could feel the energy of their students. They were inspiring, and you could sense the excitement they had about the future of journalism in the digital age. They get it. And they seem eager to hone their skills in multimedia editing and production which they will need to go out and tell great stories in the digital age. And, in the end of the day, telling great stories is what it’s all about.